2 | Saturday October 11 2008 SaturdayPaper cuts Comment & Debate ‘I am not a dreary cow…’

… at least not all the time. Tragic cancer widow and saintly carer is not the full story says actor and author – there’s also fast cars, lust and laughs

always made it my business not Tinsel, tangerines and champagne… everything, if there’s something going on but didn’t make much of a job of it. We on TV or in movies, But now I think what a to look at my newspaper cuttings, me having a Christmas drink during the she wants to do it. Like writing. So now gave interviews pretending that we were shame because I wasn’t that bad looking, I so it’s a bit of a shock walking run of Cabaret. Below: I can’t keep my she’s writing and she hasn’t just stopped together and the minute the journalists was quite nice, and yet like all women I was into a room full of them. On the trap shut in interviews – I’m not very with writing a book, now she’s decided she left I probably said: “I’m off, I’m off, I’m hung up about my appearance.I really did whole, I think journalists have good at dissembling. Bottom: I sound wants to write for television so she goes on leaving you and I’m not coming back.” It have quite a good figure. been kind about me, but they do like Mother Teresa at times – I’ve never a course for television writers.” It’s true, was a very tempestuous relationship. And I think I was always a great appreciator make me sound a bit of a dreary been as nice or as selfless as that and my children suffered for that. I was I really miss that. of female beauty – if not my own. In one cow. There seems to be so much Photograph: Richard Saker always going off on something, and they My career started off in revues and of the newspapers cuttings, I said “Apart Isuffering in my life. Right from the start, were neglected. It’s not that I actually left theatre, and on the whole the critics from John I would rather spend time with the focus is all death. them, but I did do my own thing a lot. Then were kind. Funnily enough, the nastiest another woman than a man. Apart from In 1971, my mother died of cancer and again I had to make a living. John started to I ever received was when I was in a play the fact that I need men for sex I could within a year my first husband Alec died, make money eventually, but at the begin- with John before we got together called easily have been a lesbian.” I think that’s also from cancer. Of course, it was a terri- ning of I was still earning a So What About love? It was the worst he true – I do very much like women. But it is ble time for me, and it did change me. I lost great deal more than him. received, too. There was a famous critic a rather unfortunate way of saying it – as if my religion for one thing. As a child I was When John and I married, it was before called Harold Hobson and he came to see it men were walking dildos. Maybe I didn’t deeply religious and went to church every the Sweeney and he wasn’t very well and the review for me was “She is unbear- say it quite like that at the time, but I prob- Sunday. But after Mum and Alec died I got known. We got a copy of Who’s Who and able to the eye and unendurable to the ably did. It comes out rather ruthless. really bored with talking about the love John looked up Sheila Hancock and there ear” and John’s was “I dreaded his every I don’t think I’m much changed over of God and I thought I can’t be bothered. was a bit about me and then he looked entrance”. If ever we got a bit uppity I’d the years. I’m still as curious and willing to I was no longer interested in who caused himself up and it said “John Thaw, see say, “I dread your every entrance.” change my mind as ever. That’s why I find it and why it happened, I just thought if Sheila Hancock”. He was so furious. But I all the old interviews with me a bit disturb- somebody’s suffering let’s do something always knew he would be successful, and hat amazes me ing because I read an article where I’ve said about it, and if I’m suffering I should pull that was important to me. is that at 75 I’m something and think: “What! I don’t think myself together rather than thinking There’s a quote from John that I had still working that! What the hell did I say that for?” somebody up there’s going to help me. So I never seen till today. “The best thing I regularly. Last Women of my mother’s generation became a humanist and later a Quaker. ever bought for five quid.” He’s talking year I was in grew old quietly and uncomplainingly. In 2002, my second husband John Thaw about me. Well, the marriage certificate. Cabaret, and I But I think this is changing. The genera- died of cancer of the oesophagus, just as Cheeky sod. recently played tion that are going to be old now are going Alec had done, and there I was on the suf- So much has been written about our the batty sea- to remain narky and campaigning. They’re fering treadmill again. Poor Old Sheila, relationship. A fair bit of it by me. The only Wside landlady in ’s The not going to be prepared to sit around a Tragic Widow, that kind of thing. Some of reason I wrote the book The Two of Us was Birthday Party. Early in my career I did a television in a nasty chair and be drugged the headlines right from the start are so because I received a letter from somebody lot of comedy, and that was great. Then and behave themselves. sober and pious. saying they were going to write a warts the roles became a bit serious. Perhaps That’s become something of a recur- And yes I felt awful, and I felt sorry for and all biography exposing him as an alco- that is to do with how I was perceived ring theme in my more recent interviews myself and I missed John terribly, but that holic. I thought if I wrote an honest book – tragic, serious Sheila again. I loved – that we can be old and lively and good is certainly not all of me. All the time, I’ve about him and me, nobody would want being the sister of Catherine Tate’s foul- fun. Women are still expected to behave been working and having fun. I suppose to publish a hatchet job from an outsider. mouthed Gran in her TV sketch show. in certain way as they get older – you’re I have always had a sense of duty, and And it turned out that way. These days I rarely survive a play. I allowed to be maverick and different wanted to help people, but I’m much In the late 1980s I got cancer, and alwaysPullquote play old ladies,over mostsix oflines them on when you’re young, but when you’re older larkier in real life than my cuts suggest. thankfully recovered. We were in the their last legs. It pisses me off a bit. you’re expected to be wise, to be a granny, There’s a dreadful headline from one news again. The thing is I can’t keep my inBut here there’s here always herey been one ruleherey for men to be a widow and that’s all bollocks. interview: “She tells the desolate that trap shut. If somebody interviews me and another for women in acting. In sitcoms The thing that’s always surprised peo- all things are possible; that things might I tell the truth. I’m not very good at dis- particularly,herey type wives areover always text younger than ple most about me is that I love fast cars. become better.” God, I sound like Mother sembling. There was a tabloid headline theherey actor whotype plays over the husbands. text At one and I still do. Why should things change Teresa. I’ve never been as nice or as sef- from 1995 “John and I split up when I had point I was told I was too old to play John’s just because I’m getting old? Of course, less as that. cancer now we know we could never live wifeherey in A Yeartype In Provence. over text I was 10 years there’s plenty to be sad about in life, but In lot of ways, I’ve been selfish. There’s apart...” At that period John was drinking older than him, but I didn’t look it. there’s still all the good stuff – fast cars, an interview I did with my daughter Ellie- quite heavily and our marriage was very hereyLooking type back through over the text decades, I find lust and laughter. Jane in , and she gets it dodgy and we were constantly splitting the old pictures of me interesting. I never just about right. She says: “Because she’s up and then coming back together again. watch myself in things because I think I look Sheila Hancock was talking to Simon such an old cow she wants to interfere with I tried to pretend that things were fine, so hideous – I’ve never ever seen myself Hattenstone