the times | Saturday October 17 2020 1GM 5
News
Dame Julie Walters has suggested that
her acting career is over unless they
make another Mamma Mia! film.
The actress, who was diagnosed
with stage-three bowel cancer in 2018
while filming the adaptation of Frances
Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden,
says in an interview in today’s Saturday
Review that when her oncologist asked
her what she thought had caused the
cancer, “the first thing that came to my
mind was acting”.
“Because of the way that I approach
it,” she added. “I have to be totally in it.
Everything has to be just so. It’s very
stressful. You’re immediately above the
parapet. You’re being judged. It’s a
stressful job and I don’t sleep when I’m
working. It’s not good for me.”
While Walters, 70, has now been
given the all-clear, she said she could
not return with her breakneck working
practices and suggested that The Secret
Garden could be her last acting job.
She added: “After I had the operation
and I was thinking about the future,
I thought, ‘I don’t want to work
again.’ Unless it’s another Mamma Mia!”
Kevin Maher, David Sanderson
Walters: I won’t act again...
unless it’s for Mamma Mia
Speaking of her time on the Mamma
Mia! set, she said: “Colin Firth is hilari-
ous in the make-up bus first thing in
the morning, and Stellan Skarsgard is
gorgeous and Pierce [Brosnan] I abso-
lutely adore. And I had such a laugh
with Christine Baranski. We went
swimming every day, and had dinners
and parties. Whenever they’d call us onto set I’d say, ‘Ah for f***’s sake Chris-
tine! We’re being called in to film!’”
While her career reached its height
when she was in her fifties and sixties,
starting with Billy Elliot and then in
the Harry Potter series, Walters rose to
global prominence with the 1983 film
Educating Rita and, along with Dame
Judi Dench, has the most Bafta nomi-
nations for best actress in a television
drama.
Saturday Review, pages 4-The actress said
the stress of acting
caused her cancerTOLGA AKMEN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGESAristocrat reports
estranged wife to
police for ‘bigamy’
Marc Horne have “compelling” evidence that has
led him to believe that Mrs Villiers did
not divorce after marrying a third un-
known, but still living, man.
Mr Villiers claimed the possibility
that he had not been legally married
had caused him distress.
“I am from a Catholic family dating
back to when George Villiers, 1st Duke
of Buckingham, arranged the marriage
of King Charles I to the French Roman
Catholic princess Henrietta Maria, at
Notre Dame in 1625,” he said.
In Scotland the maximum penalty
for bigamy is two years’ imprisonment,
while in England the most severe
punishment is seven years.
After their separation Mrs Villiers
moved to London, where she asked for
the divorce settlement to be heard. In
July the Supreme Court ruled that she
could proceed with her £10,000-a-
month maintenance application in En-
gland. In her judgment, Lady Black said
the English and Scottish proceedings,
both of which have yet to reach a final
resolution, were not related.
Mrs Villiers said last night: “It is out-
rageous of my husband to make allega-
tions that he knows to be false, and
which are defamatory and baseless. I
can only assume that his motive here is
to try to hurt me and our daughter.
“I will be happy to co-operate with
any police inquiries and to provide the
documents to them that my husband
already has had copies of, on numerous
occasions.”
She claimed that her estranged
husband had made a similar claim in an
English court before withdrawing it,
adding: “The court, my husband and his
lawyers were all provided with extracts
of the decree absolute years ago.”
Mr Villiers, who is related to the
Duchess of Cornwall through his
mother, Elizabeth Keppel, has a right to
a share of a £3.5 million family trust
fund. Police Scotland said: “We have re-
ceived an email and it will be assessed.”
New York state of mind Justcome Suit, a 1983 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, is for sale at Sotheby’s with an estimate of £6.6m
An aristocrat at the centre of a land-
mark divorce case has accused his
estranged wife of being a bigamist and
reported her to police.
Charles Villiers, a relative of the
Duchess of Cornwall, lived with Emma
in a Georgian mansion with a private
loch for the bulk of their 18-year mar-
riage before they separated in 2012. Mr
Villiers, 57, filed for divorce in Scotland,
while his wife, 61, made an application
seeking maintenance in England.
He has now made the extraordinary
claim that she was already married.
Police are examining the allegations,
which Mrs Villiers describes as “outra-
geous and entirely false”.
Mr Villiers, a former publisher and
racehorse owner, laid them out in an
email sent to Iain Livingstone, Scot-
land’s chief constable.
He told The Times: “This matter is of
sufficient seriousness that it would not
have been appropriate for me to go to
my local station. My complaint is now
in the hands of the East Lothian area
commander of Police Scotland. I am re-
lieved they are taking it seriously
because bigamy is a serious offence.”
Mr Villiers alleges Mrs Villiers had
told him that John Edward Brown, now
deceased, whom she married in the
1980s, had been her sole and only previ-
ous husband. However, he claims to
Charles Villiers claimed to have
“compelling” evidence that his wife of
18 years, Emma, was already married