NIGEL HAVERS
His smooth and suave sex appeal has made Nigel Havers perfect casting as charmers and cads throughout his career. But the Chariots of Fire star insists his life off-screen has been just as racy as anything dreamed up by scriptwriters.
In 2006, he said bluntly: “Women have given me some of the most wonderful and some of the hardest moments in my life.”
And now, the 65-year-old actor has bared all, revealing how his love of the ladies gave him his greatest highs – but also ended up plunging him into near-suicidal misery.
Nigel, who has featured in TV classics like Don’t Wait Up and Coronation Street, says he has joined the Mile High Club with all three of his wives. And, aged 15, he lost his virginity to actress Susie Blake on a beach in Broadstairs, Kent.
Recalling how he joined drama school as a teen with a twinkle in his eye, Nigel says: “The ratio was brilliantly in my favour. It was 15-1 with girls. As I walked through the front door, I smiled. The girls were fantastic. They were the greatest fun.
“I was living alone from 13 as my parents had a flat they didn’t use, so I lived there and worked out if I cooked dinner for girls, the success rate was 100%… your success at becoming very close friends.
“I lived at the top and it was like, ‘Come up here darling’. It was not sinister. They loved it. There was one Sunday morning and there was one bit of the flat that was no-go, as it was my parents’ bedroom, but I long ignored that. I don’t know how many people were in that bed. It was quite a few I think. About three or four.
“They were in the same bed with me… I mean we were very tired! I was exhausted and there were lots of people in the flat. It was a Saturday night party we had with all the girls from drama school.”
Despite being proud of his success with the ladies, Nigel will not put a number on his conquests.
“If I had a pound for every woman I had been to bed with I’d have £1.50,” he jokes.
“I would not want to furnish you with a number. I don’t know. The 60s were a freespirited time. I never thought I had this magnetic appeal to women. I was getting my cake and eating it at the same time. It is not as bad as it sounds.”
Speaking to Piers Morgan on Life Stories, Nigel was also asked if he had ever joined the Mile High Club and replied: “Yes. It was with my wife… all of my wives. It was in first class.
“I can safely say I have, on long journeys.”
Nigel married first wife Carolyn Cox, whom he met at the theatre, in 1974, aged 22. They had a daughter, Katherine.
In his 2006 autobiography, Playing With Fire, Nigel said of her: “She had the longest, most beautiful legs this side of Hollywood and sleepy, sexy eyes. She was five years older than me and funny and warm. I was smitten.” They were together more than a decade – until Nigel’s roving eye got the better of him. He also enjoyed a close friendship with Princess Diana in the 80s – but insists they were never intimate. He said: “It was rather charming. I made a good cup of tea and she would say life was difficult. It was lovely. She was keen to have a conversation. She liked to say hi and ask what I was up to. I was not in love with her but I did adore her.” In 1987, Nigel became a household name playing a 30s cad in hit series The Charmer. But the role also set his image in stone because in real life, his marriage to Carolyn was falling apart and he was beginning an affair with Polly Williams, who he wed in 1989. He admits that as he hit the headlines over the affair, life almost became too much for him. Nigel says: “I went to a psychiatric ward in a hospital but after a few days I left because somebody had