MEN ALWAYS TRIED IT ON BUT WE JUST SAID ‘NO’...
Nerys is a devoted gran NERYS Hughes has told how she fended off sexual harassment by telling the culprits to back off.
The star, best known for her role in sitcom The Liver Birds in the 1970s, has mixed feelings about the numerous recent claims by actresses that they were taken advantage of.
Nerys, 76, recalled a distressing audition, adding that those in similar situations should say “no” like she did.
She said: “If you are an attractive actress, every single time you do a show someone will try it on. I had a horrible job interview once. A film producer gave me an improvised audition in which I wore just a shirt to fight with a man.
“Then the man started to take my shirt off, and I thought ‘This is not good, I do not want this.’ And I left.
“This is why I find some of these women who’ve come forward recently to say they’ve been exploited... I’m not saying it’s not terrible, I’m saying you can very firmly say ‘no’. You can get out of it, you do not need to go through with it. I didn’t. I got out and said ‘no’.
“You’re vulnerable when you want to get a part and you think ‘If I want this part I have to do this.’ No you don’t.”
She added: “Once, in a TV episode, the director promised me that if I had my top stripped off, he’d be filming me from behind. But he didn’t. He had a camera in a bookcase and filmed from the front. But otherwise I’ve been very fortunate. I had a strong moral going through me. I’m a Welsh Methodist after all.”
She played Sandra Hutchinson in The Liver Birds alongside Polly James as Beryl. The show about young women sharing a flat in Liverpool also featured Mollie Sugden as Sandra’s mum.
Nerys said: “We were doing a personal appearance at Anfield and we got swamped by fans. They weren’t being horrible but we were engulfed. Then one man tried to get hold of my bust, and Mollie Sugden swung her big heavy handbag and bashed him on the head.”
The hugely popular BBC show was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. Nerys said: “There was something in it for everybody. Some women wanted to be us, and some men quite liked my legs.”
The show first aired in 1969 and ran until 1979, before returning for a sevenparter in 1996.
Nerys also starred as Megan Roberts in BBC period drama The District Nurse in the 1980s. She says her favourite role now is being a gran.
In the interview with Weekly News, Nerys said: “I make the occasional telly appearance, like on a celebrity edition of Pointless recently, but these days I prefer to do things out-of-vision.
“I’ve just narrated Children’s Hospital for BBC Wales... and I found it unbearably moving because I’m a devoted grandmother to two adorable little girls.
“I just feel like a wife and grandmother, and I forget I’m an actress. But I still get letters, and I’m stopped in the street.