Grandad, will you NEVER be able to forgive me?
Years after the Brand/Rossrow, she’s changed her wild ways. So, pleads Andrew Sachs’s granddaughter...
WHEN Georgina Baillie makes her debut in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming this month, it will be the final chapter in the dramatic transformation from the debauched public image she presented when she embroiled her family in the ‘Sachsgate’ scandal.
It should be a moment of happiness and joy for Georgina, as she follows in the acting footsteps of her 84-year-old grandfather Andrew Sachs, who played hapless Spanish waiter Manuel in classic 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers.
But when she takes to the stage, Georgina, who has spent the past 14 months at drama school, will look out on a heartbreaking sight: the two seats that she has reserved for her grandparents will instead remain empty for the entire evening. For even now, six years after The Mail on Sunday highlighted how Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross taunted Sachs on a BBC Radio 2 show with an account of Baillie’s sexual antics, Sachs and his wife Melody still cannot bring themselves to forgive her.
Despite a brief reconciliation in 2013, the relationship between the two parties has once again broken down – even though Georgina, 29, insists that she has buried her wild past and wants to become a serious actress.
‘I want to make things right between me and my grandparents,’ Georgina says. ‘I love and miss them so much. I know how I behaved back then was wrong, but I’m not that person any more.
‘If only they would see me perform… then they could see for themselves. Grandad always said I needed to grow up and change.
‘Well, I’ve more than done that. I’m just so sad that he’s not here now to give me advice while I’m trying to launch my acting career.’
When the Sachsgate affair ignited in 2008, Miss Baillie, then aged 23, was part of a burlesque dance group called Satanic Sluts whose performances featured ‘sexy striptease and slutty activity’.
And it was Brand’s obscene phone call to her grandfather during his radio show, in which he boasted of sleeping with Miss Baillie, that forced her sleazy past into the public
I used to be a nightmare – I mixed with the wrong people
spotlight. The distress and humiliation it caused Sachs was then sharpened by his granddaughter’s decision to furnish the tabloids with details of her sex life with Brand.
‘I admit I was a nightmare in my early 20s,’ she says. ‘I mixed with the wrong people.
‘I experimented with sexuality, with drugs, with everything. I made mistakes, and unfortunately some of them were on film.
‘If I could go back and have a word with my 20-year-old self and tell her, “Don’t you dare”, then I would.
‘I’ve tried so hard over the years to repair my relationship with my grandparents. I’ve sent letters, flowers, emails – but I never heard anything back for years.
‘They were understandably angry at me for talking to the press and for how I behaved with Russell.
‘They are not getting any younger and I’m so frightened that I might never see either of them again.
‘Drama school is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s been harder than being at the centre of a press scandal, harder than touring with a rock band. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.’
In truth, Georgina’s relationship with her grandparents first soured before Sachsgate. When she was 20 she lost the deposit they generously put down on a rental flat for her.
She says: ‘The flat turned into a party house. I basically trashed it and lost my grandparents’ deposit. They quite rightly weren’t happy with me about that and I fully admit I behaved terribly. But I apologised and things had got better between us by the time everything kicked off in 2008.
‘I actually used the money I earned out of speaking to the press to pay back their deposit. I sent them a cheque, but I never heard anything from them.’
When the row over Sachsgate finally subsided, Georgina decided to focus on her singing and was taken under the wing of 1980s pop star Adam Ant.
She spent three years touring the world with his support act, a girl band called Poussez Posse.
‘My grandparents heard about me touring with Adam and were really impressed with how hard I was working. In January 2013, for the first time since 2008, they wanted to see me. I was so happy.
‘We sat down and had a chat about everything and I thought we’d put everything that had happened in the past behind us.
‘It was so lovely to see them, but at the same time I was really sad to see how my grandad had got a lot older and I’d missed all that precious time with him.’
Georgina also received an invitation to her grandmother’s 80th birthday celebrations at The Ivy in London, but says it was withdrawn at the last minute.
‘A few days before the party, Grandma saw Adam on Jonathan Ross’s chat show and, for some reason, it upset her so much she uninvited me,’ she reveals.
‘I was completely devastated and I phoned Grandma to tell her how hurt I was to suddenly be dismissed again. I told her how I thought it was really unfair, but she didn’t like me telling her that, and I got cut out of their lives again.’
She adds: ‘I just want a fresh start. I’m going to turn 30 this year, my acting career is about to begin and I want a clean slate.
‘I just want to make up with them and put everything that happened with Russell Brand behind me.’
Having always wanted to ‘follow in my grandad’s footsteps’ as a youngster, Georgina has only recently begun to consider acting seriously.
During a break from touring with Adam Ant, she decided to do a four-day acting course at The Poor School, a drama school in King’s Cross, London.
‘To my surprise the director offered me a place on the two-year training course there and then,’ she says. ‘I was really shocked. I hadn’t really thought about going to drama school – I did the four-day course just to see if I was any good at acting. I spoke to Adam about it and he was really supportive and told me it was absolutely the right thing to do.
‘Adam and I are like brother and sister – there’s nothing sexual about our relationship.
‘We see each other all the time. When we meet up he helps me to rehearse. He reads the other part and helps me learn my lines. He loves doing different voices and is actually quite good.’
After a gruelling 14 months training she is now preparing for the school’s public season.
Later this month she will play the pivotal role of Ruth in The Homecoming in front of an audience of agents and casting directors.
And she has also been cast in the
school’s musical theatre showcase, which will be performed to a public audience, opening on February 19. ‘Above all, I just want my grandad to come and watch me. I want him to be proud of how hard I’ve worked.
‘Ever since I was tiny he’s always supported my ambition to be an actress and I’d love to be able to go to him for advice now, but I can’t. At secondary school I played Audrey in As You Like It and Grandad was there in the audience, just like he was for all my school plays.
‘He used to give me very honest feedback. He was always very proud of me, but he would give me constructive criticism too, as well as gross flattery.’
Georgina’s father Charles Baillie is also an actor, previously touring with the National Theatre, while her mother, Kate Sachs, is a voiceover artist. Georgina says: ‘With both my grandad and my dad being actors, growing up I was always backstage at a theatre somewhere. I’ve been around actors my whole life.
‘Acting is in my blood and I’ve wanted to be an actor since I was a little girl. I just got a bit waylaid. I remember one Christmas, Grandad was performing as Manuel in a cabaret act at the Bath Spa Hotel and we all went to watch him.
‘I looked at him and thought, “Wow, this isn’t my grandad any more. All of a sudden he’s somebody else. How cool is that?!”
‘That really inspired me. They say that at drama school they break you down and build you back up again. Well, the teachers have worked extremely hard at breaking me down. But I’m grateful for it. There have been times when I’ve wanted to quit, but I’ve stuck with it and I’m coming out the other end. I just wish Grandad could see that too.’
Despite Georgina’s plea it seems unlikely that her grandparents will witness her new incarnation. Speaking to The Mail on Sunday last night, Melody Sachs, 82, said: ‘We have loved that girl, funded her and looked after her and everything. But after what Georgie has done, I’m sorry we can never see her again.
‘If she hadn’t told him [Brand] who her grandfather was, this would never have happened.
‘But they were sitting on the sofa together watching TV, I think they had actually just had sex, and when my husband came on screen she said, “That’s my grandfather.”
‘The next day he made the call. It’s been terrible we have been pursued ever since and never left alone.
‘Russell Brand wrote us a letter apologising and has rung us several times. But the whole incident has destroyed our family.’