‘Operation nearly killed me, but Dr Theatre saved me’
Actress Julia Foster talks to Julia Llewellyn Smith about her botched back surgery and her return to the stage
Julia Foster spent the evening of her 76th birthday like every evening right now, on stage at the Bridge Theatre in central London, as part of the largely septuagenarian cast of Alan Bennett’s latest play Allelujah, set in a hospital geriatric ward. “None of us had danced in 20 or 30 years, so the muscles were a bit slow to remember and it was a bit painful at first,” says Foster, a grandmother of five. “We have a special warm-up every night because they don’t want any of us pulling muscles.
“But the steps come back to you, it’s like riding a bicycle.”
In the 1960s, Foster was a huge star of stage and screen, playing downtrodden Gilda opposite Michael Caine in Alfie and perky Ann in Half A Sixpence with Tommy Steele.
But in recent years, she’s become better known as the mother of television presenter and adventurer Ben Fogle, having stepped back from her career to bring up Ben and his sisters – graphic-designer Emily, 48, from her first brief marriage to Lionel Morton of pop group The Four Pennies, and clothes designer Tamara, 40, with her second husband, TV vet and author Bruce Fogle.
“For a long while I’d taken a break
‘The children were all called to my hospital bedside because the doctors thought I wasn’t going to survive’
from acting,” Foster explains, sitting in The Bridge’s foyer bar, unrecognisable from her role as mousy retired librarian Mary.
“I wasn’t being asked to do the things I wanted to do, so the family became more important than one’s career. But it’s so lovely to be back – you never lose the thrill of hearing an audience laugh or applaud at the end of a dance number. It’s magical, magical! And to be in an Alan Bennett play, directed by [former National Theatre boss] Nick Hytner, that’s an actor’s dream.”
Her comeback is all the more remarkable because, just a year ago, Foster was at death’s door, after routine back surgery went horribly wrong. The drama was only publicly revealed on Allelujah’s first night, three weeks ago, when Ben tweeted a picture of his mother on stage with the caption: “For anyone who wonders where I get my drive and energy. This time last year Mum was on life support in a coma in an Intensive Care Unit.”
“I could almost cry when I talk about it,” says Foster. “I had back pain, a crumbly disc – nothing that wasn’t expected at my age, so I went into the Lister Hospital. An epidural was done, but he missed and punctured an artery. I had a massive internal bleed, every organ failed – my kidneys, my liver. I had to have a tracheotomy to keep me alive.”
For two weeks she was unconscious at the private hospital which could face legal proceedings following the botched operation. “The children were all called to the bedside because they thought I wasn’t going to survive,” she says. Having come round, she spent five and a half weeks in intensive care, then another four
‘It’s so lovely having this second surge, knowing you can still do your thing’
months in hospital. “They only let me out because it was Christmas. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t speak because of the tracheotomy.
“I had to relearn how to do both. They said ‘It’ll be 18 months minimum before you’re back to normal’. But I said ‘Like hell …’”
Sure enough, while just three months ago Foster couldn’t get out of a chair without help, she’s now flinging herself into her energetic role. The irony of Allelujah being set in an NHS hospital hasn’t escaped her “When the costume department put this hospital gown on me I thought I’m not sure I can bear this. But I’m so grateful for this chance coming when it did, it’s helped so much with the recovery. Dr Theatre is so amazing.”
Clearly, Ben, 43, was spot on in hailing his mother’s drive. “I am very determined and always have been,” smiles Foster, the convent-educated daughter of a Brighton estate agent, who always loved to perform.
In contrast, she says the young Ben “was very shy. He wasn’t sporty or adventurous at all. Then he went off to boarding school, Bryanston, which nearly killed us, but which was the making of him as he learned to do all the sports and found his feet.”
He became a star after appearing in the BBC’S prototypical reality show Castaway in 2000. “Castaway was meant to be a serious scientific experiment, where has all the good stuff on television gone today?” says Foster, rolling her eyes. Since then, he’s hosted everything from Countryfile to Crufts and undertaken endless feats of endurance, the latest was climbing Everest in May where his oxygen supplies failed twice, almost killing him.
“Ben’s still recovering from Everest. Mentally and physically the altitude took a toll, it was much tougher than he anticipated,” Foster says.
Overall, Foster’s remarkably sanguine about her son’s derring-do. “Whether it’s walking to the South Pole or crossing the Omani desert, there’s always a camera crew with him, so it’s not quite such a worry.
The only time she lost her cool was in 2005 when Ben and Olympic oarsman James Cracknell singlehandedly rowed across the Atlantic in a 21ft plywood boat. “We foolishly went to see him off in the Canary Islands but when I saw the boat I nearly died, it was tiny and so flimsy – like an Ikea flat-pack. I didn’t sleep for eight weeks, worrying and worrying.”
Foster doesn’t know what Ben will do next. “But there will be something,” she laughs. In the meantime, however, it’s Grandma’s turn to shine.
“The grandchildren can’t believe it, Grandma’s on stage dancing.
“I said to Tamara’s son Jack, who’s four, ‘I jive to Good Golly, Miss Molly. He told Alexa to play it and on came Cliff Richard singing it, so I taught him all the steps.”
Allelujah runs until the end of September, after which the cast, which includes 73-year-old Daily Telegraph columnist Simon Williams, hopes it will transfer to the West End. “I’d certainly like to carry on,” says Foster. “I wouldn’t want anyone else getting their hands on my Mary!”
In the meantime, however, her agent’s phone is ringing non-stop again.
“It’s so lovely to have this second surge, knowing you can still do your thing and do it rather well,” she beams. “Let’s hope it’s the start of something wonderful.”