SHERRIE Why I quit
SHERRIE HEWSON: WHY I QUIT LOOSE WOMEN LIVE ON TV
TV LEGEND Sherrie Hewson has revealed the real reason for her shock exit from Loose Women.
As she celebrates 60 sparkling years in showbiz, she told how the show had taken over her life, pulling her away from her first love – acting.
Speaking for the first time since quitting live on air, the show’s longest- serving panellist told how she is planning a big return to her acting career and even wants to have a crack at breaking America.
Sherrie, 65, said: “I had a chance to go to Hollywood early in my career but I turned it down and I always wondered whether I’d done the right thing.
“I have a friend who’s a casting director in LA and he sent me an email saying I’d be perfect for work over there now.
“He said they love British actresses who are older as we can still move our faces.
“Acting has always been my passion and I take it really seriously, so I think it’s time for me to go back to that full time.
“I look at people like Betty White from The Golden Girls, still working at 94. She’s still out there, she’s proof we can all do it.
ADVENTURE
“How exciting is that at my age to think I could still be having a Hollywood adventure?”
Although she had been planning to try her luck in America for some years, Sherrie told how she decided to quit Loose Women now because she finally “felt safe to go”.
She said: “Over the years I’d thought, ‘I wonder if it’s time to go now…’ and it wasn’t. Instinctively, I stayed. And instinctively, I’ve left now because it felt safe to.
“With all the things that had happened to me, I kind of let the acting go a bit. Loose Women became my life. That wasn’t good because what I am is an actress, that’s what I do for a living – and I’d let it slip through my fingers. That disturbed me a lot.”
In her years on the show, it was dealing with events in her private life that made Loose Women her ideal job. She said: “It saved me from dreadful things – I had those girls there I could turn to, they’ve always stood by me and cared.
“It’s very hard to leave a family who’ve always been there for you. It’s like your own family isn’t it?
“Because I’ve been through such awful times with my marriage break-up, I lost all my hair so I had to wear wigs on the show. It was horrible, I felt ugly and dreadful and they got me through that.
“Then I discovered that through no fault of my own I had to declare bankruptcy. I had to get through that, and it went on really.
“I wasn’t in a very good place, but the show helped me through.”
Even before Loose Women, Sherrie enjoyed a glittering stage and screen career.
The actress was “born to perform”. Her father, Ron, was a singer and mum Joy was a model. By the time she was five, she was taking part in three theatre revues a week.
She said: “All I ever knew was tulle, sequins and make-up. I had a tap routine and a song, You’ve Got To Have Heart.
“One of my naughtiest moments was
when there was a girl who had a ballet number I wanted. She was standing by the side of the stage so I edged her out and she fell off.
“She couldn’t walk so that night I performed that ballet and wore her tutu. But I was found out and punished severely.”
Sherrie went to finishing school and by her late teens had beaten hundreds of other hopefuls to win a scholarship for top drama school Rada. After graduating, the talented youngster was signed by a leading agent.
She won roles in films including The
How exciting is that at my age to think I could still have a Hollywood adventure? SHERRIE HEWSON ON HER PLANS TO GET BACK TO HER LOVE OF ACTING
Slipper and the Rose with Richard Chamberlain and Carry On Behind. Then she went on to bag parts in TV shows including Z Cars and The Moonstone before becoming a regular fixture on the nation’s screens with Love For Lydia.
Sherrie also landed a regular place on Russ Abbott’s Madhouse, appearing on it for a decade. Her audition involved an impression of a Loose Women co-star.
She said: “I had to do impressions of Lorraine Chase and Janet Street Porter. I thought they’d got the wrong actress but I did them and they clapped. They later made me Janet Street Porter teeth.
“I remember walking down the corridor at ITV dressed as Janet – and her walking towards me. I dived into the men’s loos as quickly as I could.
“I thought, ‘ Janet’s going to kill me’. I told her about it just last week and she confirmed, ‘Oh my god, I would have’. We’re great mates now though.”
Off screen, Sherrie fell in love with DJ Ken Boyd. They wed in 1983 and had daughter Keeley, 31, the following year.
The actress appeared in a host of sitcoms in the 1980s, then in 1993 was cast as Maureen Holdsworth in Coronation Street, with 25 million viewers.
She said: “I remember Sarah Lancashire one day, we were in a dressing room and she suddenly dropped to the floor and said, ‘Get on your knees!’
“I had no idea what she was talking about, then I noticed a guy up a tree with a camera taking pictures. Sarah was saving us from being spied on. I’d never known the sort of fame Corrie brought.”
Sherrie loved playing Maureen, who was married to Reg Holdsworth – played by Ken Morley. The couple’s famous waterbed seduction scene remains one of the most popular Corrie moments.
But after five years a new producer came in, axing several of the Street’s biggest stars – including Sherrie.
Although she went on to appear in Emmerdale and Crossroads, she said: “I was devastated. I did love Maureen.
“They do say you have to have a hook to return – my hook is that I married Kevin Webster’s father. I’m pretty sure I own a stake in Kevin’s garage – so you never know…”
But if leaving Corrie was tough, leaving the Loose Women family will be harder still. She said: “Every single one was there for me, as I was for them. As Andrea said yesterday, when she was having a bad time in her marriage I sat and talked to her.
“I said, ‘ Whatever you do Andrea, don’t be me, look at my life, look at the mistakes I’ve made’.
“Yesterday she gave me a hug and said ‘thank you’. It was lovely. Coleen said whoever comes on Loose Women will never be a Sherrie, which was sweet wasn’t it? I love that.”
But there have also been plenty of laughs since the first show in 2003. She said: “It was a shambles that first day. Halfway through my stool broke and I fell backwards, all you could see was my legs in the air.” The show won plaudits t thanks to panellists like Sherrie, with her humour and honesty.
She revealed her divorce on air in 2011 after her h husband admitted being u unfaithful, and was overcome with emotion as she t told of her breast cancer scare last year. Sherrie, who stars in ITV1’s Benidorm, w will play Mrs Slocombe in an all-star BBC remake of Are You Being Served? later this year. She leaves Loose Women on September 5 and is promising lots of surprises on her last day.
She said: “I ’ ve done the most wonderful things during my time on the show – I want to go out with a bang.”
Halfway through my stool broke, all you saw was my legs in the air SHERRIE HEWSON ON LOOSE WOMEN’S 1ST DAY