Jean Boht chats to Yours
Actress Jean Boht, best known for playing Nellie Boswell in hit TV comedy Bread, chats about her varied career and the time Paul McCartney made a guest appearance!
There are many unforgettable moments in Jean Boht’s illustrious career but there’s one moment on the hit sitcom Bread that she’ll never forget. The day Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Linda came on set to film for an episode.
“Paul is a very nice guy, but he’s one of the most famous men in the world and when he came into the show, I couldn’t speak!” laughs Jean.
Bread, penned by the prolific comedy writer Carla Lane, ran for five years ending in 1991.
“It had come to its natural conclusion,” she says.
Entertainment and music were very much part of Jean’s early life, but like the fictional family in Bread, money was very tight. Born on the Wirral, Jean, (88), says: “Mine was a fun, musical family but we were broke. My father was a good piano player and actor. I appeared with him in a play when I was seven. I was always in school plays and writing things – I wrote an adaptation of Pride And Prejudice, aged 11.
“I hadn’t thought about turning pro and I hadn’t got the money to attend drama school, but someone suggested I go into acting and I thought, ‘all right then!’ I got a £1-a-week job at Liverpool Playhouse, and I went on working from there. If any company offered me a job, I took it!
“My career kind of happened without me having to do very much about it. I was fortunate to work with the best directors at the best venues like The Royal Court and The National Theatre.”
Jean first worked with writer Carla Lane on, I Woke Up One Morning. “That led to me being cast as Nellie in Bread, which Michael Angelis from The Liver Birds suggested I’d be suitable for. Bread was hard work but great fun. It got huge viewing figures – 21 million at its peak – and made such stars of some of the young cast like Peter Howitt that they could hardly go anywhere without being mobbed, yet we were terribly badly paid.”
Jean’s TV career continued with Brighton Belles, co-starring Sheila Hancock and Wendy Craig, as well as The Bill, Casualty and Doctors. “Since 2000,
‘People say they enjoyed me as Ma Boswell in Bread. It’s a great compliment’
I’ve played five different characters in Doctors, and I believe that’s a record for any programme! Although I’ve been in a few films, including Distant Voices Still Lives, being short and fat I never thought of myself as glamorous movie star material. I wasn’t going to be Sophia Loren!” she laughs.
Today Jean lives in
Berkshire with her second husband, Carl Davis, a celebrated American conductor/composer, with whom she has two daughters.
Hannah (48), makes movies in America and Jessie Jo (46), runs Carl’s record company.
And all those years on she still gets recognised from her days in Bread. “Often when I’m out and about, people will come up and say they enjoyed me as Ma Boswell in Bread – that’s a great compliment,” says Jean.
“I’m an old lady now and I’ve got no ambitions but I don’t want to retire – one day I’d like to die on stage!”