S MAGAZINE ★ 11 AUGUST 2019 57
INTERVIEW
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.”Linda’s new book, The Terror Within,
is out this autumn. For more details,
visit lindareganonline.co.uk.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.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.My favourite photograph
by actor Brian Murphy
George & Mildred star Brian, 86, recalls meeting his wife Linda Regan on
the set of Wife Begins At Forty when love blossomed Words by Tony Padman
“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 self-
service 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●S