‘I can’t watch Strictly without my Bruce’
As the dance show returns, Lady Forsyth talks to Julia Llewellyn Smith about life after her husband’s death
Sitting in a scruffy back room in central London minutes before taking to the catwalk, Lady Wilnelia Forsyth is reflecting on the past 12 months. “The sadness comes and goes. It’s been a very difficult time,” she says of the year in which she lost her husband, Bruce Forsyth, at the age of 89. “I was at the airport the other day and a lady came up and hugged me and told me how much she missed Bruce, and suddenly I got very emotional, the tears came,” she recalls in the soft-accented tones of her native Puerto Rico. “But life goes on and I know, because Bruce told me, how much he wanted me to go on living and enjoying my life.”
This weekend has been particularly poignant given last night saw the first live episode of the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, the show Forsyth hosted for 11 years.
Wilnelia won’t be watching though. “I haven’t for a while,” the 60-year-old admits. “Maybe in the future, but it will probably be emotional. Bruce made the show very special.
“It’s strange. When he was asked to do Strictly he thought it was going to be ea a different type of show to what it turned out to be: funny, with people falling over on the dance floor. He never expected the professional dancers and people in general to take it so seriously. But it became the biggest reality format in the world.”
Breathtakingly glamorous with bouncy, black hair and a serene smile, Wilnelia, a former Miss World, is the
Strictly Come Dancing ing new face of catalogue brand JD Williams’s Midster campaign, highlighting fashionable outfits for women aged between 45 and 60.
Undoubtedly, she is an example of a woman ageing dazzlingly. “I’ve never really understood why fashion must change with age,” she says. “I am very lucky, I have remained the same weight and I love my skinny jeans and anything that shows off my waist.”
Though a back injury has interfered with her exercise routine, recently she took up golf – her husband’s favourite sport – again. She also enjoys dancing with her mother, Delia, 10 years Sir Bruce’s junior, who since his death has frequently stayed with her daughter in their home in Surrey’s Wentworth Estate, where the pair “love to do all the Latin dances in the living room”.
It’s not too late for her to pursue the Strictly glitter ball, I say. “I would have loved to once, though I’ve never tried ballroom, but I don’t think my husband would have taken the criticism of the judges very well.”
The Forsyths’ 34-year-marriage was one of the strongest in showbusiness, despite warnings their age gap meant it was doomed. They met in 1980, both judging the Miss World final (Wilnelia is still heavily involved with the competition, which has raised millions for charity through its Beauty with a Purpose arm.)
She was 23 and a successful model, with no idea of 52-year-old Sir Bruce’s British national treasure status from hosting shows such as The Generation Game.
“I just thought he was extremely charming and funny, asking Miss Turkey what she liked for Christmas dinner,” she says. When people approached him saying ‘Nice to see you, to see you nice’, she thought they were simply being friendly. After the gala dinner, they danced for two hours. “He was so wonderful, I said: ‘You really are in good shape for an Englishman!’”
At the end of the night, Sir Bruce thanked her “‘for the most wonderful evening of my life’. But then he said, ‘And by the way, I’ve been married twice and have five daughters.’ I was confused. I thought: Why did you tell me that if you want to see me again? I knew how difficult that would be.”
None the less, two years later, the couple married. On their wedding day, Delia gave her new son-in-law a letter telling him how to care for her daughter, and a book called Ancient Secrets of the Fountain of Youth.
“Bruce didn’t take it the wrong way. In fact, the book gave him an amazing routine of exercising every morning and at night,” Wilnelia says. “I admired his discipline. He never overate or drank, and that was what kept him going so long. Until the final year of his life, he used to perform dance steps at home, because twirling was good for his circulation, and he liked to show them off because he was so good.”
After their honeymoon, Delia flew to England to keep her daughter company and to give moral support as Wilnelia set about befriending her stepdaughters, two from Sir Bruce’s second wife, Anthea Redfern, and three with Penny Calvert, one of whom was older than her.
“It was nerve-racking. I was so worried about what they’d think of me being so young. But they’re all such humble, down-to-earth girls, and they quickly became so special in my life. Because we are more or less the same age we have a lot in common. We have a family WhatsApp group and talk about everything.”
Those five daughters (there are also now 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren) were with Wilnelia during their father’s final months after he was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia. Afterwards, they accompanied her to Puerto Rico to visit the home where the couple spent every Christmas.
“They were my strength and my angels,” she says.
When Wilnelia became pregnant with her only child, Jonathan (known as JJ), now 31, his half-sisters helped her kit out the nursery. “I had never had any contact with babies, so I went shopping and came back with teddy bears and all these beautiful clothes. Laura, one of Bruce’s daughters, had to take me back to change it all for practical stuff,” she laughs. As the only son, JJ was, Wilnelia chuckles, “very spoilt”. Mother and son see each other daily, with JJ running the candles brand she launched three years ago. “He is more nervous than me about this,” she says of the Midster campaign. “He’s called me five times today.”
That anxiety was amplified when Wilnelia found herself in Puerto Rico last year when Hurricane Maria struck. The worst natural disaster ever to affect the country, it killed 3,000 people. JJ, who had just lost his father, “was calling me saying: ‘Mummy, you have to come back quickly!’” she says. “It was terrifying. I was already heartbroken. I was completely destroyed being there.”
Wilnelia threw herself into disaster relief fundraising for the island, where she had long been feted for her foundation for underprivileged children, to which she dedicated herself every winter, while Sir Bruce played golf.
“In England I was happy to be a mummy, to do all the usual things a housewife does, but in Puerto Rico I’d get busy and he’d be a beachcomber,” Wilnelia says.
“Bruce was always better at relaxing than me. Now I have such a full agenda I need to listen to him, to hear his voice saying: ‘You’re doing too much. Take things easier.’”