HOW I WOOED MY WIFE

In March 2004, two years after winning an Oscar for Gosford Park and before he created Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes told Lynda of his monumental struggle to win the hand of his wife Emma...

The night Julian Fellowes won his Oscar, he says, ‘They were all expecting me to turn up with a plump lady with grey plaits round her head. But this dazzling beauty was on my arm.’ His stunning wife Emma is 14 years younger than him, with waist-length black hair, and has, according to Princess Michael of Kent, to whom she is lady-inwaiting, ‘the best legs in Europe’. Julian is a toff descended from Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Fellowes, and Emma is the great-great-niece of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. Unfortunately, I once described Princess Michael as a ruthless freeloader, and savaged Julian when he played Noel Coward in a film.

I’m lucky to be even allowed into their house.

Emma and Julian met 15 years ago at a party. ‘An actor I knew was talking to this girl,’ says Julian. ‘He said, “Do you know Emma Kitchener?” She turned to me and said, “How do you do.” It’s the only psychic moment I’ve had because I thought, “She’s arrived, after 39 years she’s here.” I knew I was going to marry her.’ He didn’t waste any time and after 20 minutes he popped the question. Emma said, ‘That’s very kind of you, but I didn’t hear what your name was.’ He said, ‘Julian Fellowes. Will you at least have dinner with me?’ Emma said she was too busy and wouldn’t give him her number.

Julian persuaded his hostess to let him have Emma’s mother’s address and he wrote to Emma to say, ‘If you want to meet again the man you are going to marry, ring me.’ Julian knew she’d respond, ‘because Emma would rather be burnt at the stake than be rude.’

‘I then endlessly pursued her. We went to dinners and theatre. It was all pretty chaste. Once I threw myself on my knees in the mud.’ But Emma had decided he wasn’t husband material. ‘I thought he was incredibly funny and clever, but he was 14 years older, short, fat, bald and an actor, so obviously nothing was going to happen.’ Undeterred, Julian continued his siege and began to sense a thaw. Then he had to face Emma’s mother. ‘It was hard for her – she’d thought Emma would marry a handsome seven-footer with a coronet and 50,000 acres in Wiltshire.’ Finally he gave Emma an ultimatum. ‘Either we spend the rest of our lives together,’ he said, ‘or I’m going to go and live in Los Angeles.’ Emma rang her best friend, who said, ‘If your mother was out of the equation, would you marry him?’ Emma said ‘yes’ and knew what she had to do. When she accepted, Julian gave her the family ring, ‘then shot off to a bridge party’, says Emma. ‘Mummy wanted me to marry someone called Evelyn. She adores Julian now but insists on calling him “Evelyn, darling”. So when Julian writes to her, he signs his letter “Evelyn”.’ The pair had an immensely grand wedding and Emma, in a slinky sheath by Catherine Walker, ‘looked like Rita Hayworth in Gilda,’ says Julian. ‘My mother-in-law had a thing about her being taller than me so made her wear low heels and Emma was furious. She’s not taller than me if we’re naked but we don’t often go out when we’re naked.’ On their honeymoon, says Julian, ‘I remember Emma sitting naked on the bed, saying something amusing. I thought, “It’s going to be all right. This woman is going to be good fun to live with.” I’d been 20 years a bachelor and no one thought I could adjust. My friends assumed I’d always be on my own, having discreet liaisons. If I hadn’t met Emma that may well have happened.’

Julian at home with his wife Emma in 2004