Even as Bruce lay dying he still made me laugh
FIRST INTERVIEW WITH STRICTLY STAR’S WIDOW
WITH its towering gold proscenium arch, lavish ornamentation and vast terraces of plush seats, it’s the place he came to see as his true professional home. How appropriate, then, that yesterday morning, a year to the day after his death, the ashes of Bruce Forsyth were laid to rest beneath the stage at the London Palladium.
His six children gathered with his widow, Wilnelia, to say their final goodbyes to the father and husband they adored, and a blue plaque was fixed to the wall below the stage, where it will be visible to fans in perpetuity.
‘Sir Bruce Forsyth CBE, 1928-2017,’ it reads. ‘Without question the UK’s greatest entertainer, he rests in peace within the sound of music, laughter and dancing… exactly where he would want to be.’
The private ceremony brought to a close a remarkable career that spanned eight decades of stage and television and, for his widow, it was a fitting conclusion to the most difficult year of her life. Today, she marks the anniversary with her first newspaper interview since she lost the man whose talent and professional longevity ensured that millions had come to regard him as a fixture in their own lives.
She paints a moving portrait of her husband’s final months away from the screen, of his defiant, yet unfailingly humorous battle against the ill-health that would eventually bring about his death at the age of 89.
Still raw with grief, she says nothing in their home has been moved since he left; the books, ornaments and family photographs have been left where they were. Most touchingly of all, Wilnelia, 60, admits she still speaks to Bruce every day, so greatly does she miss him.
‘Sometimes it feels like yesterday,’ she says of his passing. ‘I can’t believe it’s been a year. I was in London the other day and rushing, thinking I had to get home. But then I realised, what’s the point?
‘I try to be strong for the family but if I told you it’s been easy I’d be lying. I miss Bruce every single day. He was my mentor in a way. He had so much knowledge about everything and was such an easy person to talk to. I could speak to him about absolutely everything.
‘I talk to him all the time anyway but I miss sharing all the good news in the world and the bad.’
It was on October 8, 2015, that life as they had known it came to a sudden halt.
Wilnelia had been in London for a new business venture – a collection of scented candles – when she heard that Bruce had fallen in the bedroom. At hospital they found two aneurysms – dangerous bulges in blood vessels. One was in his stomach wall and the other in an artery.
Each was double the size of a golf ball, so a few weeks later they were operated on. Wilne‘In lia remained at Bruce’s bedside every night of his seven-day hospital stay, sleeping first in a chair and then in a put-you-up bed.
They returned home confident Bruce was progressing well and that, with time, he would be back on his feet and back on screen.
That Christmas, however, he fell again, and Bruce remained unwell for the rest of the year. Then, in March 2017, came a turn for the worse. The entertainer was rushed to hospital once again, now seriously ill with bronchial pneumonia – although, as ever, he was anxious to get home.
‘They were so kind but they said, “If you want to take him home, he’s your responsibility,” ’ she recalls. ‘They said, “He should be here in hospital.”’
And it was then that the true gravity of the situation made itself felt.
‘We were told to prepare ourselves,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t there, I couldn’t hear anything. I think I was in another world.’
Bruce was not expected to make it through the night and the hospital arranged palliative care, while Wilnelia rang the house to arrange candles, flowers and music.
‘He was smiling on the way home. We took him upstairs and he was so happy to be in his own bed. They brought a bed for him from the hospital but he joked that you’d have to be really dying to get into it.’
She stayed with him while all the children assembled downstairs.
‘Suddenly he went very quiet and closed his eyes,’ Wilnelia says. ‘I asked if he wanted me to call anybody but he didn’t say anything. I thought. “Oh my God.” Then suddenly he opened his eyes and said, “I do want something.”
‘I said, “What do you want?” with tears in my eyes. He paused and said, “Can I have a sausage sandwich?” I could have killed him myself at that moment. He really was joking until the last.
‘The next night, he was sitting up in bed watching a BBC documentary about his life. I opened a bottle of Dom Perignon and it was
‘During his final days, we cried and laughed together’
lovely. The doctors were amazed.’
It is a tribute both to his tenacity and the care he received that Bruce survived for another five months but it was physically and mentally tough, says Wilnelia.
‘He lost his mobility and the emotional side to that was very hard.
‘He was proud and dignified in so many ways. He didn’t want to disappoint the children. He was their hero. But he never lost his sense of humour. We cried and laughed at the same time.
‘It was a sad time but an amazing time. All the girls [Bruce’s five daughters from previous marriages] moved here for the last couple of weeks.
‘We watched so many Fred Astaire movies together and played Cole Porter music. We were able to talk and be happy in a very difficult time.
the last two weeks, he dreamt of his mother. I had read that people who are about to move to the other side dream about people they love,’ she continues. ‘I reminded him about my own near-death experience.’
After winning Miss World in 1975, Wilnelia was working as a model and travelling from New York to Colombia when the plane suddenly plunged 12,000ft and she smashed her head on the roof of the cabin.
She recalls: ‘I was so afraid and then suddenly saw a tunnel and light that a lot of people see. I felt the most amazing love you can imagine. It was peaceful and so wonderful; I wanted to go. ‘Bruce and I talked about that and I said it was going to be all right. He didn’t want to go. But when the time came, he was ready. He didn’t want to be the way he was. If he couldn’t be Bruce, he didn’t want to stay.’ In the last two days, he deteriorated rapidly, unable to get up. ‘His breathing was different but he was able to talk,’ she says. ‘It was wonderful for him to be able to say goodbye to each one of his children. ‘We were all together when it happened. I remember it raining and there being a thunderstorm. I tried to be as happy as possible and have a smile even though it was difficult. I told him I loved him but I’ve done that for the last 34 years. Bruce died peacefully on the afternoon of August 18, 2017,
surrounded by his children. I was holding his hand. Then a beautiful rainbow appeared that we will never forget.’
It is notable that their house on Surrey’s exclusive Wentworth Estate – the famous golf course is just around a corner – remains a family home rather than a temple to fame. Bruce’s oak panelled ‘den’, where we sit, is filled not with celebrity portraits or trophy discs but with silver framed photographs of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Photographs of Bruce with Wilnelia are everywhere around the house.
At the start, she says, she could hardly bear to leave the front door.
‘I remember going out to the village and seeing people being so happy and thinking: How can they be, when I’m so sad?
‘It was hard to go to the supermarket and see things I knew he would like. Only people who have lost someone so dear know what you go through. People feel that, because of his age, I was really prepared to lose him. That’s so wrong.
‘Something I’m learning about grief is that it grabs you when you least expect it. It has a mind of its own. You can be smiling or happy and then any little thing can send you back. I remember going to the airport with my mother. I was standing in line to get a coffee. A gentleman in front of me offered to pay because he had so much change.
‘He said, “Your husband must be a very lucky guy.” Suddenly I had tears in my eyes and couldn’t speak or even say thank you.’
As if the devastation of losing her husband were not enough, Wilnelia then had her life shaken again a few weeks later when she was caught up in a hurricane that ravaged her native Puerto Rico. She had returned there to be with her elderly parents and to organise a memorial service for Bruce; now she was trapped in a shaking sixthfloor apartment with her mother.
‘The noise was incredible, like having a monster outside your house,’ she says, and while Wilnelia survived the storm, an estimated 4,600 did not.
‘The next day, the island was under water. People were on their roofs on the phone but there was no electricity. I had to look for my family; I didn’t know if my father had made it. I went with my heart broken and… it was the most horrible time being there and seeing the people suffering. That completely destroyed me.’
The news that Bruce Forsyth had died brought an outpouring of emotion from people around the world. For Wilnelia it was overwhelming and, at times, it still is. She continues to receive letters from fans who say how much they miss her husband.
‘He was lucky in a way,’ she reflects. ‘There are not many people who feel the love of so many people. He was very professional and had incredible stamina.’
Steeped in showbusiness, he had strange superstitions associated with his trade. ‘He had 24 at the last count,’ she says laughing. ‘He would never put a hat on the bed, he would throw any green sweeties away and, if somebody whistled in the dressing room, you had to go out and knock on the door three times.
‘But Bruce treated everyone the same. He cared about everyone, from the doorman to the producer. That’s how he conducted his life.
‘The real Bruce was charming, romantic, thoughtful, caring and extremely funny. He was very giving and generous.
‘I always let him believe he was in charge,’ she smiles. ‘That’s another way of keeping a marriage happy but I organised a lot of the things in his life. He liked it that way.’
Now, with her late husband in his final resting place, Wilnelia is starting to think about her own plans – including her charity in Puerto Rico, the Wilnelia Merced Forsyth Foundation.
‘I’ve started to play golf and to paint again. I’ve been baking cakes and doughnuts. I’ve been extremely busy. I can decide what I want to do. I’m making decisions now.’
Eyebrows were raised when it was revealed Bruce left his £11.5 m fortune solely to her but she explains that ‘he looked after his children in his lifetime’, adding: ‘I’m not only the girls’ stepmother but their friend too. I will always be there for them.
‘His daughters have been unbelievable in my life, especially this year. It’s been like having five best friends. It doesn’t matter where our lives take us now.
‘I can count on them and they can count on me. I am a sister, mother and a friend to them. Our son JJ – short for Jonathan Joseph – has also been a rock.’
Wilnelia doesn’t know whether she will remain at Wentworth but says she doesn’t want to rush a decision: ‘It’s a big house so I will probably move eventually but that doesn’t mean I’ll move away from the life.
‘I don’t want all this to sound too sad because that was the last thing Bruce wanted me to be.
‘He told me he wanted me to move on and be happy. He always tried to see the positives in life. I will miss absolutely everything about him and I know life will move on but the pain will never go away.
‘I now have to learn to live without him.’
‘Life will move on but the pain will never go away’