New role in Hollyoaks For TV cop Glynis
EXCLUSIVE Halina Watts
SHOWBIZ EDITOR
by
SHE made her name as a posh TV cop in the 80s and is now in her third major UK soap.
But it is snogging Hugh Grant in a stage drama that is one of Glynis Barber’s fondest memories. In fact, Hugh was also very keen and asked the then recently married actress not to stop.
She had become a household name as Sgt Harriet Makepeace, one half of hit TV detective duo Dempsey and Makepeace.
And in 1990, a year after marrying her costar Michael Brandon and long before her stints in Emmerdale and Eastenders, she and Hugh were on stage together.
Laugh
They appeared at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, Kent, in High Flyers, about couples on a ski trip.
She says: “I loved Hugh. He is very funny. He has a very dry sense of humour. He was dating Liz Hurley and she would hang around sometimes. He really made me laugh.
“I was having an affair with Hugh in the play and I had to snog him. It was a fabulous snog. And he would say, ‘Glynis I think you should do it for a bit longer’.
“We used to go out for dinners and Liz would come along. I’ve since bumped into her a few times but I’ve only seen Hugh once. I partied a lot with Hugh.”
The play was four years before Four Weddings And A Funeral turned Hugh into a global star.
Glynis had already found fame as elegant noblewoman Makepeace, solving crimes with
streetwise New Yorker Lt James Dempsey, played by Brandon. The characters’ slowly evolving “will they, won’t they” romance spilled over into real life. The actors are still married to each other 33 years later, which Glynis, now 66, calls “a miracle”.
But the star is now on the wrong side of the law having just taken the part of gangster Norma in Hollyoaks. She arrives clad in black in a hearse, calls herself The Undertaker, and wants to know who has stolen her money.
Playing a crime boss in the Channel 4 soap is a far cry from the life Glynis enjoyed as a rising star and the company she kept.
She would party with A-listers and even
encountered two rock’n’roll legends. She says: “I remember going to a party and there were these stairs going up to the loo, and the stairs were quite narrow. There were two people sitting there and neither of them moved. I had to step over them.
“One was David Bowie and the other Mick Jagger, and I only realised as I stepped over them. They didn’t move, they just smiled.”
In the 90s, she and Brandon moved to Los Angeles where she would hang out with stars.
She says: “I used to go to a gym and Cindy Crawford would be on the Stairmaster, Bruce Springsteen on the treadmill. It wasn’t a fancy gym but it was the most star-studded place.
“Bruce Springsteen was very chatty and would be like, ‘I’m getting off, I’m going to wipe this down for you’. Normal chat.”
But it was meeting her ultimate crush Richard Gere, a friend of her husband, that left her star-struck and unable to speak.
She says: “We went to a restaurant and
I was having an affair with Hugh
in the play, the snog was great
Richard Gere was there, so I said he was over there. And Michael said, ‘Oh come over, I’ll introduce you’. I said, ‘Oh gosh, you know him?’
“I had a huge crush on Richard Gere, huge. I was completely frozen and couldn’t function.
“I couldn’t cope so I ran outside the restaurant. I don’t know why. They just saw me running out of the restaurant. I’m over it now.
Bossy
“Another time when Richard called our hotel room, he asked to speak to Michael and said it was Richard Gere, I thought it was a joke.
“Once again I couldn’t cope and I ran out of the room. I’m much cooler now.”
Glynis is far more level-headed and disciplined at work, such as when she starred in a touring stage play, Killing Time, with Minder and New Tricks star Dennis Waterman.
She says: “He was lovely but he was going through quite a tough time personally. He was a complete gentleman to me. I was quite strict with him. I made him do a line run every night
before we went on stage and he actually did it and no one could believe that Dennis was doing what he was told.
“Everyone was speechless. I can be very bossy but he needed it. It was a two-hander, we had so many lines to learn.”
In 2009, Glynis joined Eastenders playing Glenda Mitchell, the mother of Ronnie Mitchell, Roxy Mitchell and Danny Mitchell.
She left Walford in March 2011 and returned for two episodes in 2016 and again in 2017.
She says working with the late June Brown, who played Dot Cotton and died aged 95 last month, was a career highlight.
“I loved her. I had lots of scenes with June. She always cared about the script, she always knew her lines, she always wanted to talk about it, she was so caring about the work.
“She always said, ‘You always do your homework and know your lines’.”
Now Glynis is loving being bad in Hollyoaks as Norma, the dangerous boss of local criminal Ethan Williams with a score to settle. She says: “I really am enjoying it, because I love this part so much. It’s like a gift, because it’s a really fun role to play.
“Norma is a gangster and she has a criminal empire.
“I’m still not quite sure how big this empire is, but I’m presuming it is quite extensive. She is, I’d say, very, very dangerous.
“Normally this type of role would be given to a man. She does what she has to do and she has to survive in quite a male world. She has to be pretty ruthless.” Like June Brown, Glynis hopes to act into her 90s.
She says: “I love working. I can’t imagine ever retiring. I’d hope that
I am healthy and well and able to work until the end.”
Glynis also has her own healthy living website, previously ditching her skin care items for organic products and a healthy lifestyle.
She says: “If just doing a quick fix is all people do I think is a shame, I think being healthy, eating well, exercising and educating yourself about what’s going to keep you healthy are important things.”
See Glynis on Hollyoaks tomorrow, Channel 4 and check out her website at agelessbyglynisbarber. com
WALTER Orthmann, 100, has won a Guinness World Record after working at the same textile company for 84
years in Brazil.