HIS OWN FINEST HOURS

OF HIS own numerous ‘attempts’, as he called them, to portray Churchill, Hardy was happiest with his performance in ITV’s The Wilderness Years. In the closest he came to praising himself, he said wryly: ‘I gave it my all, but at the time really didn’t know if I’d got it right — but seeing it again now, I realise that I’m not nearly as bad as I thought was!’

Much to his delight, Churchill’s youngest daughter Mary Soames — who died in 2014, aged 91 — wrote to him after watching the first couple of episodes, thanking him for working so hard on getting her father right.

‘It was a marvellous letter — the best review I’ve ever had,’ he said.

Stern: Hardy as Churchill in The Wilderness years in 1981

best picture: As the great man in 1988’s The Woman He Loved

Statesman: Hardy in 2015’s 100 days That Saved britain