Byline: WENDY LEIGH

GRAHAM NORTON calls Arlene Phillips 'The Captain Hook of Dance', and he's right. She's the new Queen of Mean: the judge audiences love to hate on BBC1's Strictly Dance Fever; the acid-tongued choreographer who makes Simon Cowell seem like a career diplomat.

She's got a flare for brutal putdowns, blasting a hapless contestant with: 'You are about as hot as a frozen pizza.' Or this: 'Dancing is about courting. You couldn't even court a cat.' Celebrities fare no better. After being voted off the second series of Strictly Come Dancing - the hit show which spawned Strictly Dance Fever, hosted by Norton - a bitter Carol Vorderman blamed Arlene, but she just laughed and carried on dishing out the insults to other contestants.

'Fiona Phillips hasn't got one naturally moving bone in her body,' she said.

Or this: 'Esther Rantzen is not particularly sexy. To be sexy, you have to melt in a man's arms. Esther doesn't melt.' She may be vicious, but she has earned her right to reduce terrible dancers to tears. She's worked as choreographer with stars including Queen, Robbie Williams and Diana Ross.

She founded the Eighties dance troupe Hot Gossip and choreographed the musicals Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Starlight Express and We Will Rock You.

Yet her success has been overshadowed by tragedy - the early death of her mother, her father's death from Alzheimer's disease and the guilt she feels as a single mother to her oldest daughter, Alana.

We meet for lunch at the upmarket London restaurant Le Caprice. At 62, she is delicate, feminine, vivacious and looks 15 years younger than her age.

Dressed in a black-andwhite Diane von Furstenberg top and black trousers, she carries a Prada bag, a present from her partner of 19 years, Angus Ion, who is 12 years her junior and her manager.

Although she sounds like a Londoner, she grew up in Manchester. Her parents were Polish- German Orthodox Jews.

Her father, Emmanuel, was a barber, and her mother, Rita, was a housewife who looked after Arlene, her younger sister, Karen, and older brother, Ian.

'My mother was incredible,' she says. 'She never lost her temper and was very gentle, making our lives as happy as they could possibly be.' Then, one day when Arlene was 15, her father came home in tears. 'My mother had just been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She was in and out of hospital, and then - after three months - she died.

'I can't bear to think of the pain and suffering she went through. While she was in hospital, she wrote a little recipe book for us so we could look after ourselves when she wasn't around any more.

'After she died, I was screaming inside. I felt so lost.

Then, shortly after, my father had a stroke. My mother was the love of his life and he never got over her death.

'Later, when I began to earn decent money, I bought him a flat close to where I live in Hampstead, but then he started getting lost.

'I made sure he always had my address in his pocket, so the police would call me when they found him and would bring him home. He had Alzheimer's.

'I would bring him food every day, but he stopped eating and we had to put him in a home. I felt awful because I feel that you should keep your parents with you.' Later, her father moved to a care home in Leeds, where her sister lives.

'It was a big wrench,' says Arlene. 'He died six years ago.

And I feel so guilty that I was going to visit him on the Wednesday before he died, but I had to fly to Chicago.

'The day after I arrived in Chicago, he died. I couldn't forgive myself.

Although he barely knew me any more, I could have held him once more.' Arlene may seem heartless on screen, but guilt is an integral part of her personality.

Even today, she wakes up crying because of the harsh way she treated her daughter as a child, once chasing Alana out of the house when she said she wanted to stop ballet.

Arlene had Alana when she was 36 and single. She has never disclosed the identity of the father, but says: 'If Alana wants to find him, we will.'

DURING that period Arlene was making good money and - anxious to be the best mother possible - sent Alana to a highpressured school.

'One day, when Alana was five, she shoved a girl who was in her chair. The school called me, saying she was aggressive.

They wound me up so much that when Alana came home and was eating her tea.

I said: "Leave your tea! Go up to your room!"

'Alana protested that she was hungry, but I said I didn't care. I should have defended her against the school. But I was in awe of them and didn't.

That was unforgivable.' Today, Alana is a singer and has appeared in The Rocky Horror Show, Saturday Night Fever and We Will Rock You.

Although Arlene had nothing to do with her casting, she says: 'It is difficult for Alana when she works in my shows.

'She hears them backstage calling me "Dreaded Arlene" so I tell her: "Whatever they say, Alana, you are the only person who knows the real me." We are very close.' Arlene herself began attending ballet school at two. In her late teens, she moved to London to study American Jazz dancing and after she babysat for the film director Ridley Scott, he asked her to choreograph a commercial for him.

Then, in 1975, she founded Hot Gossip and three years later the raunchy dancers got their big break on the Kenny Everett Video Show.

Of all the Hot Gossip dancers, Sarah Brightman stands out the most for Arlene. 'Sarah is a beautiful dark horse,' she says. 'She was always separate from the group. She just came in, did her work and had her own life.

She was a very hard worker.' After a brief marriage to fashion designer Danny Nobel, Arlene fell for Angus, whom she met while making a video with Freddie Mercury.

'All of Angus's mates said they fancied the Hot Gossip girls. He said "I fancy the choreographer", telling them he liked my shape.' Despite having given birth to their daughter, Abi, at the age of 48, Arlene still retains that svelte shape.

She doesn't dance professionally any more and refuses to dance at parties 'in case people think that I am showing off'. So does she care what people think of her?

'I think I am over that. If I started minding everything everybody said about me, I'd go back years.

'There is nothing more intimidating than going to take rehearsals in a room full of dancers who fold their arms and wait for you to take the first step before they decide whether they like you or not.

'If you can brave that, you can brave anything. I have to be thick-skinned, otherwise I'd be crushed every day.

'When I was 11 years old and at dance class standing in the front row with my friend Olga, the teacher came in and said: "You two - go to the back of the class. You are short, you are fat, you can't dance and you don't belong in the front."

'I fought back tears and did as I was told. But I went back for more.

Nothing deterred me. I was going to dance.' THAT'S what I say to people on Strictly Dance Fever - if you want to dance enough, it will be part of your life. I have a lot of time to invest in those who I deem worthy of investing in.' Clearly Arlene does have moments of compassion, but when it comes to dance she brooks no mediocrity.

'When I was judging the auditions for Strictly Dance Fever, I saw enough tears to fill Lake Geneva.

'But I'm not interested. If I put my arms around every person who cried at an audition, I would spend all day on my feet.

'They are there to be judged.

There is no point someone coming in and dancing like an elephant and saying it is their dream to dance - because that dream isn't available.

'I know I may sound really tough. But I don't have time for time-wasters.'

She says sometimes she can't believe her eyes when she watches dancers.

'One of them that sticks in my mind was the EastEnders actor Chris Parker.

He was running around the dancefloor but couldn't even run in time to the music.

'That sticks out as a moment of horror. I know I may sound like a bitch, but I always try to be true to myself and to stay warm inside.' * STRICTLY Dance Fever is on BBC1 on Sunday, May 21 at 8pm.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Solo Syndication Limited

This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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