Being stalked ‘part of being a female star’: Felicity

FELICITY Kendal has said that having a stalker ‘goes with the territory’ of being a female celebrity.

The 72-year-old actress said she was followed home by ‘a few stalkers’ early in her career. Women should not go into acting if they find it traumatic, she added.

Felicity, pictured, who is best known for playing Barbara Good in the hit 1970s BBC comedy The Good Life, said: ‘I think everybody [had stalkers] in those days.

‘It was just a couple of people who came to every show and then they followed me home and they were always outside my house. It wasn’t serious, though. One of them was quite a sweet guy. Perhaps he was just lonely. Some people might be traumatised by that, but I think, “Well, don’t be an actress then”. It goes with the territory, to an extent.’

Several high-profile women have recently suffered stalking ordeals, including Downborn TV host Christine Lampard and BBC news presenter Emily Maitlis.

Felicity told The Observer: ‘Obviously there are limits beyond which it’s frightening and terrible. You don’t want to be shot and you don’t want to be dragged into the bushes, but I think you instinctively know as a human being what the threshold is.’

The actress also told how she used to go into fits of rage and hurl crockery at her husband Michael Rudman after they married in 1983. She and the theatre director are now back together but have not remarried.

‘When we were married I struggled with my temper,’ she said. ‘What I loved most was to throw things round the house – jugs, mugs, anything... Luckily, Michael has very quick reactions so I never hit him.’