57 My favourite photo George And Mildred star Brian Murphy shares a snapshot
George & Mildred star Brian, 86, recalls meeting his wife Linda Regan on the set of Wife Begins At Forty when love blossomed
“I FIRST met Linda by chance in the VIP lounge at Thames TV studios in 1977 while I was attending a reception for the George & Mildred cast. As I was tucking into canapés and champagne, two women dressed in miniskirts carrying a tray of beans on toast from the selfservice canteen walked past and I said hello. Linda was there with her friend Penny Irving – Miss Bakewell, Mr Grace’s secretary in Are You Being Served? – recording an ITV Playhouse drama.
fast forward 14 years when I found myself rehearsing a play in a shed with a leaking roof – I always end up in a shed or scouts’ hut when I’m rehearsing. I was thinking this is going to be pretty grim when the producer
John Newman walked in with Linda and said, ‘Brian, meet your new wife.’ We were rehearsing Ray Cooney’s adaptation of Wife
Begins At Forty about a woman who never had a life while she was married and after a break returns home to her husband.
This photograph was taken at the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne where we did a summer season of the play.
Linda’s character is actually called Linda and I play George – I could never get rid of that name. It shows Linda dressed as Wonder Woman and me as Superman, which is how we open the play. We’ve just arrived home from a fancy dress party, take off our coats and there’s Linda looking splendid with her wonderful figure and me at my wimpiest. You can imagine the effect that had on the audience who were in stitches.
Chemistry is vital between principal actors – it’s not something any producer or director can anticipate. They hope you will get on with each other, but there’s no guarantee and it’s a bonus when you do. With Yootha [Joyce] as Mildred in George & Mildred, it became a great partnership and we clicked from the word go.
Linda and I did 16 weeks together in Wife Begins At Forty and during that time we got to know each other, went out and had dinner and drinks together. We also argued a great deal over all sorts of things – no quarrels though – and it led to someone saying to us, ‘Are you sure you two are not already married?’
The show finished and I thought that was it until a little while later when I was rehearsing – in a shed again, for The Invisible Man at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East – I came outside for a breath of fresh air and there in her new shiny motor car was Linda. I asked her what she was doing here and she said it was my birthday and asked if I’d made any plans. I hadn’t, so she invited me to her home in south London for tea and cake.
We gradually fell in love during Wife Begins At Forty and missed each other when it finished. It was wonderful when Linda turned up to see me. We got married at Linda’s local Catholic church at night by candlelight in 1995 with only a few people present and managed to avoid the press.
Not long after Wife Begins At Forty, Linda played my daughter in a tour of You’re Only Young Twice where I played a motorbike-loving widower who acts like a wild teenager. Linda and I continue to act and she also does a show called Acting Can Be Murder, where she talks about writing crime thrillers and then she interviews me about my career in the second half. We feel a close affection for the Devonshire Park Theatre where we’ve become patrons and get involved in their projects and events.
Much of your success in the acting profession is down to chance. It’s 100 per cent good fortune to be in the right place at the right time with the right people. Do I believe in fate? I do to an extent because I never planned this would happen. You can’t say you’re going to do summer season, fall in love with your leading lady and then get married to her. It’s all chance.”