TV star was the perfect soap baddie
HEATHER Chasen knew how to nail a TV baddie, lacing the perfect amount of venom with acerbic wit. As Janine Butcher’s cantankerous grandma Lydia Simmonds in EastEnders, she instantly won over audiences after taking over from Margaret Tyzack who was forced to step down due to ill health.
But her most famous role was as “superbitch” Valerie Pollard in Crossroads, a character whose catty fallouts and affairs rivalled any of those seen in glossy US soap operas Dynasty and Dallas.
Chasen featured regularly from 1982 to 1986, although it was not her first role in the popular ITV show set in a Midlands motel.
She initially played a journalist, impressing the show’s bosses so much she was asked to come back to play Valerie Pollard... as long as she dyed her hair from red to blonde – which she dutifully did.
Fans adored the conviving hotelier’s wife who embarked on a number of steamy affairs behind husband J Henry Pollard’s back.
She cited later frustrations with the soap after producer Jack Barton left a few months into her first appearance, explaining that the atmosphere was less fun, causing a decline in standards.
Chasen was a regular actress on soaps throughout her career, popping up in Holby City, Doctors and Family Affairs.
She was also a talented stage star who was nominated for a Tony for her performance in A Severed Head in New York in 1964.
Her versatility was apparent on the long-running radio play The Navy Lark, where she notched up more female roles than any other in a gifted cast including Leslie Phillips and Jon Pertwee.
She was born Heather Jean Chasen in Singapore, the daughter of zoologist Frederick Nutter Chasen and his wife Agnes (née McCullock). Her sister Christine arrived four years later. Chasen and her mother managed to escape Singapore before the Japanese
occupation during the Second
World War.
Her father was killed when his ship, HMS Giang Bee, was sunk by the Japanese in February 1942.
Once in the UK, Chasen trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and starred opposite Frankie Howerd in Hotel Paradiso. She
married John Webster, with whom she had a son, Rupert.
Paying tribute to Chasen, her close friend and Coronation Street actress Amanda Barrie said: “She was wonderfully eccentric, gloriously funny, and a very special actress. There’ll never be another like her.”