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LOVE Couple and Valentino
TV chef Jean-Christophe Novelli’s fiancee has said they feared their autistic son would never talk.
Michelle Kennedy told how three-year-old Valentino communicates “through music and art”.
She added: “But he won’t talk and I’m longing to hear him say ‘Mummy’.
“I’ve been assured that once he starts talking we won’t be able to stop him.
“When we heard words associated with it [autism], such as ‘non-verbal’, we were frightened. Did this mean that we would never hear Valentino speak? It was a terrifying thought.”
The youngster overcame a rare and aggressive form of cancer at six weeks old.
Jean-Christophe will be at home for Christmas with Michelle, Valentino and brothers Jean, 11, and seven-year-old Jacques.
ACTOR Tony Britton, who found TV fame in his 60s as Nigel Havers’ debonair dad in BBC sitcom Don’t Wait Up, has died aged 95.
After a lifetime on the stage, including a spell with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the comedy role as Dr Toby Latimer brought Britton’s suave presence into millions of homes.
His daughter – TV presenter Fern Britton – announced his death on Twitter, writing: “Our father, Tony Britton, died early this morning. Great actor, director and charmer. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
Britton was best known for Don’t Wait Up, which ran for 39 episodes from 1983 and drew 13 million viewers for its final episode in 1990.
He and Havers played fatherand-son doctors, sharing a flat after both leaving their wives.
Britton also appeared in ITV sitcom Robin’s Nest with Richard O’Sullivan and Tessa Wyatt, and films including Sunday Bloody Sunday, The
DEBONAIR With Nigel Havers in Don’t Wait Up
Day of the Jackal and 1958’s Behind the Mask, alongside Vanessa Redgrave.
He won the Broadcasting Press Guild’s best actor award in 1975 for TV play The Nearly Man, in which he starred as a middle-class Labour MP.
Although appearing in more than 20 movies, theatre was his greatest love.
Born in July 1924 in a room above a Birmingham pub, he attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, and later Thornbury Grammar School, Glos.
He was the first in his family to go into acting – joining an amateur dramatics
group in Weston-super-Mare at the age of 18. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Britton served in the Royal Artillery, joining up in 1942.
He left after four and a half years with the rank of lieutenant, but did not see active service.
Britton then returned to the theatre, getting his big break in 1952 at London’s Winter Garden Theatre. That won him two seasons with the RSC and he also toured for two years as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
Britton said on Radio 4’s Desert Island
BISTRO BUDDIES Robin’s Nest, 1977, with O’Sullivan and Tessa Wyatt
Discs in 1973: “Ever since I was old enough to think, I’ve wanted to be an actor. It was just there.”
But he also loved to work behind the scenes and directed Joanna Lumley in Oscar Wilde’s an Ideal husband at Chichester Festival Theatre in 1987.
He continued touring into his mid-80s, playing Canon Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest in 2007.
His last appearance was in 2013 at the age of 89, as the Earl of Gloucester in King Lear at London’s Old Vic. Among those paying tribute was actor Peter Egan, who tweeted: “Very sad to see the passing of the legend Tony Britton. A wonderful actor and light comedian. A lovely man too.”
Britton’s three children are all in showbiz. He is father to Fern and scriptwriter Cherry Britton, by his first wife, Ruth Hawkins.
And actor Jasper is his son from his marriage in 1962 to late Danish sculptor Eva Birkefeldt.
Jasper tweeted of his father’s death: “As he was wont to say, ‘That’s show business, kid’.”
MASK With Vanessa Redgrave