Sheila Hancock
For her latest role in film Edie, celebrated actress Sheila Hancock had to climb a Scottish mountain!
‘The ghillie who was looking after me insisted I had to stop climbing every ten minutes’
Just a matter of days ago – on February 22, to be precise – Sheila Hancock celebrated her 85th birthday. In any other profession, of course, she’d long ago have qualified for her gold clock. But it would be a brave man who suggested it might now be time for this unstoppable life-force to start concentrating on gardening and grandchildren (she has eight). “I don’t care about the age thing at all. I just care about being nearer to death which I don’t want. I may be a bit creaky sometimes but I accept that as part of the package. And I’m very busy.” You can say that again. She has just opened in the first stage production of the cult hit film, Harold and Maude, which tells the story of an 80-year-old woman embarking on a love affair with an 18-year-old boy. “When I was first offered it, I wasn’t at all sure it would be suitable. But the more I read, the more I liked what it had to say about connections between the generations, something in which I believe strongly.” Then there’s her title role in a new film, Edie, which tells the story of a woman, liberated by the death of her controlling husband, who decides she’ll climb 731-metre Suilven, a mountain to the west of Sutherland in Scotland. Once she’d committed to making the climb for real (rather than faking it via green screens), Sheila went to a gym where a personal trainer put her on a programme to strengthen her legs and biceps. She also embarked, under supervision, on regular Nordic walking over a marshy area in Richmond Park. “So I was pretty well prepared by the time I got to Scotland, although the ghillie who was looking after me insisted I had to stop climbing every ten minutes. He also fed me jelly babies to keep up my blood sugar level. I was
later told I was the oldest person who had ever climbed Suilven.” All went swimmingly until she had to walk the length of a narrow path with a sheer drop on either side. “That’s when I cried,” she says. Camping overnight under canvas on a succession of ledges wasn’t much fun, either. “Every time I wanted to go to the loo, the crew had to turn their backs.” It’s a small film – Sheila says so herself – but quietly uplifting. “Not that I’ll ever see it. I never, ever watch myself on screen. The director Karel Reisz once told me after I’d watched some rushes of scenes I’d done for a film called Night Must Fall that I should never look at myself again. If I couldn’t see what others did, there was no point. Clearly, he said, I was a bad judge of my own work.” She’s been alone now since 2002 when her second husband, actor John Thaw, succumbed to oesophageal cancer on February 21, 2002, aged only 60. The same cancer also killed her first husband, actor Alec Ross, at just 49. And yet, she’s philosophical about the blows life has dealt her. “The older you get, the more you appreciate your own company.” And it’s true, she thinks, that time is a great healer. “You never forget but you learn to accommodate your grief. In fact, I realised the other day that I laugh more now when I remember John than cry. I still cry for what might have been but then I’m someone, like my father, who cries at the drop of a hat. But please don’t make me out to be a sad, embittered widow. I’m really not. “I get a lot of letters from people who’ve lost someone they loved. To begin with, the bereaved elicit sympathy but that quite quickly dries up. I’m struck by how isolated some of these women are because they lived their lives entirely through their husbands. I’m a Quaker and one of their credos is: ‘Live adventurously’ and that’s what I’ve always tried to do. But I always had my own career. “Having said that, being John’s lover was the most important thing in my life. While he was alive, he was more important to me than anything, particularly as ours was such a tempestuous relationship. I’d go as far as to describe it as obsessive.” John introduced her to fast cars. “I’ve become a bit of a petrolhead. I’ve had a Morgan, Jaguars, MGs... all very beautiful machines. I’ve currently got a specially built two-seater Mini. John used to buy them for me; he got me my first Jaguar sports car.” And she’s just discovered a new app that’s changed her life. “It’s called JustPark. I was rehearsing in north London not long ago. There was only a two-hour meter available so I had to keep running out to feed it. Then someone told me about JustPark. “You enter the postcode of where you are and then you get all these offers from people with driveways or unused underground parking spaces. There turned out to be one opposite the rehearsal room. I had to pay but much less than parking on a meter and I could use it all day. Job done!” And on she sails. When her time comes, how would Sheila like her epitaph to read? “I don’t want an epitaph. Quakers only have their name and dates on their headstones. When I die, I die. That’s it. Gone. If anything of me survives, it will be in the spirit of my children and grandchildren. Beyond that, I have absolutely no interest after I’m dead in me or my reputation. All that dies with me.” harold and maude is currently at the Charing Cross theatre. edie is in cinemas from Friday, may 25
‘I’m a Quaker and one of their credos is to live life adventurously’