1996

Wexford returns in a new three-hour mystery

George Baker returns to ITV in the role he made so popular with the dramatisation of Ruth Rendell’s latest novel Simisola - her first new Wexford story for three years - and he brings with him his screen wife Dora, played by Louie Ramsay, whom he married in real life in 1993.

The Ruth Rendell Mystery - An Inspector Wexford Special - Simisola, adapted by Alan Plater and directed by Jim Goddard, will be screened on the ITV network in three-one-hour episodes from Friday 26 January, 1996 at 9 pm.

Every one of Ruth Rendell’s previous 20 stories featuring Detective Chief Inspector Wexford has been televised, so Simisola is eagerly awaited by millions of the best-selling author’s fans.  George Baker recreates his role of Detective Chief Inspector Wexford, teaming up with his partner, Detective Inspector Mike Burden, played by Christopher Ravenscroft.  Together they investigate the disappearance of the daughter of a Nigerian doctor new to Kingsmarkham, encountering unsuspected racial prejudice deep within the discreet English market town and forcing Wexford to examine his own values.

“I am delighted Wexford’s sabbatical is over,” says George Baker.  “I have missed him a lot, but I haven’t missed Dora, because I took her with me,” says George.

The couple first met some 40 years ago, whilst starring in separate West End productions.  “I remember seeing Louie’s name in lights, but there was no romance between us then,” recalls George.

“Louie’s friendship has always meant a lot to me.  A year passed after we’d finished filming Wexford before fate brought us together,” says George, whose second wife actress Sally Home died after a long illness more than three years ago.

Louie takes up the story.  “We were visiting California, but completely independent of each other.  I happened to be leaving the hotel the day before George was arriving to stay there, so I left him a welcoming note.  Then when we got back to the UK, George called to invite me along to one of the charity occasions he attends.”

It was from that point that friendship blossomed into romance, encouraged by Louie’s son Matthew and George’s five daughters.  Sarah, George’s youngest daughter was delighted to act as ‘best man’ when the couple married in September 1993.

Ruth Rendell likes to claim that the Bakers’ story is the only romance she has ever created - but they insist they’ve known each other for over 40 years and just took a little more time than most to get together!

Rendell’s first novel, the Wexford story From Doon with Death, was published more than 30 years ago and she enjoys an enduring popularity with her readers and television audiences alike.  On a good day she can write as many as 2,500 words and even on infrequent bad days, still manages 500 words.  Every morning she wakes at seven, starts writing at nine and stops for a walk at 11:15 am and then lunch.  No sooner has she finished one novel than she starts a new one.

Ruth Rendell herself has attributed her gifts to insecurity in her childhood, and says she learned the nature of fear - of her parents unhappy marriage - early in life.  To comfort herself, she created a voice in her head to describe everything she did or saw as if it was happening so someone else in a story.  That voice made her a writer, so much so she claims to feel uneasy when not writing.  She also admits to a chronic suspicion of other people. “I suspect people will not be pleasant, that they won’t like me or that they have bad motives.  I put that into my fiction and that’s why it’s so nice to do.  Writing is therapeutic.”

Press release © Meridian Broadcasting 1996

Ace tec is back…

20 January, 1996 / by Steve Clark

The return of Reg Wexford after a three-year gap was always going to be special for George Baker.  The new murder mystery serial, Simisola, is the actor’s 21st outing as writer Ruth Rendell’s ace sleuth since 1987.  It’s also the first time George and Louie Ramsay, who plays Wexford’s wife, Dora, have played their parts since they wed in real life in 1993.

“Working with Louie was always very pleasant,” says George, 64, whose second wife, Sally, died in 1992.  “But this time it was lovely to take Louie home at he end of the day or come home and know she was there.”

Despite the long gap, George says he slipped back into the character easily.  Although he hopes to play Wexford twice more, George thinks they could be his last outings.  “I don’t think I’ll ever get fed up with him, but I’m 64 and most policemen retire at 50.  Some people say they don’t think I look too old but I’d like to stop while I can still run.”

© The Mirror 1996

I’m a bit of a fusspot, myself…

TV Times 20-26 January 1996 / by Fiona Knight

Christopher Ravenscroft would make a very good detective.  As Wexford’s strait-laced sidekick DI Mike Burden, he has such a natural gravity it’s hard to believe he’s not for real.

In real life, he answers questions in such a short, precise way, you want to confess all just to fill in the silences!

Even Christopher admits the he and Burden – who returns this Friday in a new three-parter based on Ruth Rendell’s latest Wexford novel Simisola – share the same fastidious little ways. ‘I can be quite pedantic and pernickety, just as Burden can,’ he says.

‘He works by the book and wants everything just so.  That’s quite familiar to me.  My family say I get worse when I’m playing Burden.’

It’s no surprise to learn that Christopher, 49, almost went into the legal world.  He studied law at London University for four years before deciding to pursue acting.

‘My grandfather was a lawyer, but when I studied law I found it rather dry.  I’d done acting at school and university so I decided to give it a go and went to the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol.’

So was giving up the law seen as an act of rebellion?  He gives a small, disbelieving laugh: ‘No, not at all.  My family were very supportive.’

Much of Christopher’s work has been in the theatre and it wasn’t until he landed the role of DI Burden that he found TV fame.

All 20 Wexford stories have been adapted for television, starring Christopher and George Baker as the down-to-earth detective – although it’s been three years since the last one.

‘We knew there’d be a sizeable break because when we finished last time, there wasn’t a new Wexford novel to film,’ explains Christopher.  ‘We had to wait until Ruth had written one.  But it’s very nice to be back.  George and I are great friends, it was easy to slip back into the partnership.’

His much longer partnership has been with his wife, theatre director Caroline Smith.  The couple met ‘22 or 23 years ago’ – although they only married eight years ago and their son Jack, then 13, was so embarrassed he refused to go to their wedding.

‘Our relationship was good and we didn’t need to make a public statement,’ says Christopher.
‘Then later we decided to would be nice to make a commitment.  But we weren’t doing it for Jack, we were doing it for ourselves.’

These days Caroline works in Ipswich and Chris lives in London with Jack, 22. ‘Yes, we spend quite a lot of time apart but I think absence does make the heart grow fonder.’
It’s hard to know what DI Burden might deduce from that – though he and his feminist second wife Jenny, played by Diane Keen, make an odd couple.

‘Burden has loosened up over the years,’ says Christopher.  ‘He was an extraordinarily prudish and right-wing man but he’s gradually become less judgmental.  I think that’s partly to do with his first wife dying and then later, Jenny’s influence.  She has changed him.’

So would Christopher Ravenscroft have made a good lawyer?  After all, so much of the solemnity and intuition already seem to be there.  He thinks long and hard.  And then pleads guilty.  ‘It’s more than likely,’ he announces with a small, grave smile.

© TV Times 1996

Having the Last Laugh

3 February, 1996 / by Chris Hughes

It is 15 years since sitcom queen Diane Keen unwisely announced: “I don’t do comedy any more.” She turned her back on such TV hits as The Cuckoo Waltz, Rings On Their Fingers and Foxy Lady - and the result was devastating.  Casting directors took her at her word and the phone fell silent.  Work dried up. Soon, one of the nation’s favourite comedy faces was a lonely woman approaching 40 without a job and burdened with money troubles. Worse still, her five-year marriage to TV producer Neil Zeiger was on the rocks.

The next eight years became a nightmare struggle against a tide of debt and depression.  Diane says: “I walked into a shop in town and this chap said: ‘Ere, didn’t you used to be an actress? I thought I hadn’t seen you on telly for a while. Thought you’d gone abroad’.” He didn’t stop there. Diane explains: “he said: ‘I mean have you changed career, or what?’ “I was in bits when I walked out of the shop. I cannot believe I said: ‘No more comedy’. It was mad - the stupidest thing I ever said.  The strange thing is that it can so easily swing the other way. I walked into a supermarket and an elderly woman behind the till struck up a conversation with me. She was lovely. She said: ‘Oh, you have made my day. I am a huge fan of yours. It’s really great to see you in real life.’ That changed everything. I realised life was not so bad, that I was still known and that I had a history.”

Today, approaching her 50th birthday - going on 40 - life is looking brighter. She and Neil are back together, and her career is looking solid again.  Diane starred in the series September Song, and now plays the wife of Det Insp Mike Burden (Chris Ravenscroft), Wexford’s sidekick in the Ruth Rendell mystery Simisola. And there’s no more talk about giving comedy a wide berth.  “I am up for anything - comedy, serious plays,” says Diane. “I love work.”

Wearing a woolly jumper and short skirt, and puffing the occasional cigarette, she smiles as she recalls the bad years.  She lost everything. Her home in West London was repossessed, her two American cars had to be sold and she ended up £120,000 in debt. Her apartment in Spain had to be sold off.”I decided not to go bankrupt,” she explains. “It would be a terrible thing to do as other people would lose out.  I decided to pay off the debts, and now I am well on the way. It is under control.”

It was while she was working on the Ruth Rendell mysteries that she fell in love with her husband for the second time around. He is executive producer of the series.  Diane says: “We had always remained friends, but in the end decided we no longer wanted to be apart.  It was not a quick thing, and there was a lot of coming and going. There were niggling things between us that had to be ironed out.  People assume that, in relationships, if two people have a great sex life and love each other’s company it is as simple as that. It never is. It has to be constantly worked at.  When the warning signs start now, we recognise the signals telling us that we should talk and sort things out before they get bad.”

Diane is busy renovating a four-bedroom home she and Neil have bought near Southampton.  “When a woman is alone she learns to do things for herself,” she says. “I became quite handy at mending things about the house. You pick it up. I love our new home. It’s like starting again.” Diane has been changing her interests as well as her habits. “For years I have wanted to take up diving and I finally did it,” she says.  “I am a qualified diver, and Neil and I go on dives all over Britain. Looking back at the way I was, I often wonder how I came through it.  I know other people suffer from their own problems, but nobody knows why these depressions start.  I feel new and fresh and optimistic. I want to live. Worrying about age and that sort of thing does not bother me as much now.  In many ways, the forties are a bad time for people. It’s the cusp, the time when you wonder what you are doing.  Maybe that’s why I said that stupid thing about not wanting to be in comedy any more. It was disastrous.”

© The Mirror 1996

George Baker: ‘I’ve Been Married Three Times, I Need a Wife to Look after…’

An enormous number of women seem to love me as Inspector Wexford. I haven’t the faintest idea what it is that attracts them to him. How they can think that fat old man is in any way handsome, I don’t know, but they all seem to think he is.  I get far more letters today from female fans than I did in my days as a matinee idol.  I never liked the matinee idol image that I had back in the Fifties.

There was all sorts of rubbish written about ‘dark, vivacious George Baker’ which I really wasn’t very comfortable with. I had always thought of myself as a character actor, but all of a sudden people decided I was terribly good-looking and so I made 16 films in four years. There were only a very few, like Tread Softly Stranger with Diana Dors, that I was proud of.  Those roles were actually a dying breed and once the new wave of film-makers like Lindsay Anderson came in, my film career was over. I am the same age as Peter O’Toole but my career as a film star had finished before he started. I was delighted because it meant I could go back into the theatre and also do an enormous amount of television, playing character parts.

I can’t say I ever thought of myself as a matinee idol. I am not a vain man. I look at myself in the mirror when I shave and put my contact lenses in and I don’t look in a mirror again until I take my contact lenses out at night. Nowadays I would say I have an image of someone who is overweight. I have been fighting weight from the age of 24. Before then I was very slim and lithe but unfortunately it’s in my genes. My sister is quite sizeable and so are two of my brothers. 

However, I am very fit. I have always walked a great deal and I have been riding horses since my father first put me on one when I was three. I shall soon be 65 and I think I am very fit for my age. I don’t think of myself as a 65-year-old but I think that is partly because actors are very young in spirit. When you are casual labour, which is what actors are, you have to stay on the balls of your feet and dance a bit.  You can’t sit back and take things easy. I also have five daughters and they help me to spend my money, so I can’t afford to retire.

There was an article in a newspaper about me recently, in which I said Ruth Rendell had better hurry up and write another Wexford story soon, because most policemen retire at 50 - so I’m already too old to play him. I said I didn’t want to be like Jack Warner and have to be wheeled on, stuttering the lines.  This was written up as me telling Ruth that I wanted to retire. When it appeared, an old friend from my National Service days wrote to me saying he couldn’t believe I was thinking of retirement because he still pictured me as this young man riding across the fields on a horse, which is how I think of myself.

The image I have of myself as a husband is that, as I have been married three times, it is a state that seems to suit me. I was 19 when I married my first wife, Julia, so I have been in the state of marriage for most of my life. I would be very lost without a wife to care for. That’s how I see being a husband - I need somebody to look after, not somebody to look after me.  My first marriage lasted about 11 years. It was a lovely marriage for a long time but sadly, it went wrong for various reasons. But my first wife and I remained friends until she died. She was very fond of my second wife, Sally, and she used to come and stay with us.

When I was young, perhaps I wasn’t much of a husband - not all I should have been - but with Sally I became a much nicer man and, in a way, a much better husband. We were together for 28 years until she died, nearly four years ago. Although I had become accustomed to the fact that she was dying for three years, it was still a hell of a shock. It has taken me a very long time to get over her death and, to tell you the truth, I think I am only just getting over it now.  I can be walking around the corner and suddenly I see something which I want to tell her about and then I realise that she’s not there. Those things creep up on you. By the very thought and gesture you have suddenly brought back 28 years and your memory goes whizzing through all parts of your life, her life and your life together, and it all comes flooding home. You never know when it’s going to happen. 

I did have the most wonderful 28 years with her and never a day goes by without me thinking something to myself like `I wonder if Sally would approve of that’, so her spirit is with me always. When she had first gone I was sad all the time; but now the sadness comes as a surprise, which means I am getting over it. Now it is the good things that remain - the laughter and the happy times.

I didn’t expect to marry again but in 1994 I married Louie Ramsay, who plays my screen wife in Wexford. We have been friends for a long time and she also knew Sally. Louie has been wonderful for me and she absolutely understands how I feel about Sally.  When we first got together, I told her that I wanted us to live in the cottage in Wiltshire which Sally had found for us when we were married. She said: `Fine, I’ll settle for that and I don’t want you to move a single picture or anything else in the cottage.’

Over the mantelpiece I have a beautiful pastel portrait of Sally and I offered to take it down, but she insisted I kept it where it was. She says she doesn’t even want to re-decorate the house, which I think is quite remarkable. I am very happy because Sally is a positive, not a negative influence on my life and Louie understands that.

As a father I have an image of myself as a friend. I have four daughters from my first marriage and one from my second and I think I have been as good a father to them all as I can be. It’s a funny sort of fatherhood because I have always done the cooking in the house and consequently my daughters are all good cooks. I don’t think there are many fathers who can say: ‘I taught my daughters to cook.’ But even when I was a child I did the cooking. In some ways I was the daughter of the house. My father died when I was 12 and my mother, who was 38 at the time, had a nervous breakdown; so I had to take over the running of the house and look after my three brothers, because my sister was too young. Even now I enjoy housework and I’m quite happy to do the sewing, the ironing and the cooking. 

My mother recovered but she didn’t have an easy time of it, bringing up five children during the war with no money. But when she died, at the age of 87, she’d had an absolutely remarkable life of which she had made the most, which, I think, is where I get my strength and optimism from.  I think that helped me when Sally was dying. We talked about death together a lot, and now that I am the age I am, I do think about my own death. When you are young, you think you have time to waste; but when you become my age, you know you haven’t got any time to waste. I have to try to achieve something every day.

I do believe that the day you are born, you start dying, and so the goal you are making for is your death. It may sound like a morbid thought, but I actually think death is a person’s greatest achievement.  All I hope for is that I am vouchsafed a death like my mother who, at 87, died as she was sitting in a chair, sipping a glass of wine, with someone she loved - my brother. So if God would be kind enough to grant me the same exit, I would be very happy.

© The Daily Mail 1996