STARRY-EYED FAREWELL TO A BEATLE: She won't see Paul McCartney for a month
… which is not, however, the reason for the soulful look borne by Miss Asher on the left. Her friend, Beatle Paul McCartney, is off to the Bahamas to make the second Beatle film; but Miss Asher has been keeping her mind off lonely thoughts by doing some filming herself.
She plays that intense girl Maggie Tulliver in a four-part B.B.C. TV serial version of George Eliot's harrowing novel "The Mill on the Floss", the first part of which is screened tomorrow evening.
In it, Miss Asher is storm-crossed, gale-swept, and torn by the conflicting demands of family love and the other sort. Which accounts for her expression (and her hairstyle) when she was photographed filming.
At 18 she has some big films behind her, considerable acting talent, and a Beatle as a boy friend. What girl could ask for more?
Found via Something About the Beatles Girls facebook group.
Jane relaxing off-stage with one of her best friends, her kitten Cleo.
Quietly, without any false fuss, Jane Asher, actress, has arrived. After fifteen years of exits and entrances, Jane has become accepted as an actress. Not as just another pretty young girl to grace a TV screen, but as an actress capable of bringing the screen to life . . . doing a job that no one else could do quite so well.
This is Jane Asher's year. We salute her.
THERE is something very touching and vulnerable about Jane Asher that endears her to the armchair playgoers. She's like a daisy planted among roses. Fresh, delicate and unpretentious.
She may be in The Saint, Love Story or in any old kitchen sink drama on TV, but the moment she appears, there is something happening on the screen. She doesn't throw her limbs into theatrical poses or shrill out her lines. There is a quiet strength in her performances that makes them far more memorable than hammy histrionics.
She has been acting since she was five years old, and she has learned her craft the hard way, in fifteen years of repertory, radio and TV roles.
Jane Asher has the look most big girls envy. Small-boned and fragile-looking she appears just as feminine in over-sized sweaters and sloppy jeans as some poor girl who has spent hours dolling herself up.
She has a pale, elfin face, dominated by deep-set blue eyes, rather serious and a little sad. There is a lot happening behind them. Her long hair looks like great flames leaping about her face.
She desperately wants to play Joan Of Arc.
It was her hair which brought Jane, at five, into the acting profession. She was playing in the park one day with her mother, her younger sister Clare, and her big brother Peter. They all had bright red hair. Someone passing by said they ought to be in pictures or something.
The idea appealed to Jane. Soon she was cast as the deaf mute in Mandy. She was Alice. She was Wendy in Peter Pan. And she was Juliet in a children's TV version of Romeo and Juliet.
They were all roles that called for a pretty face, a limited range of expressions, and no particular acting ability. But Jane was attracting the notice of people who had plays to offer her that would really put her talent to the test.
THE supreme test came this year, when Jane played the lead in a new play called Cleo for the Bristol Old Vic Company.
She held the stage for two-and-a-half hours playing a mixed-up teenager with a sensitivity unusual in a girl of twenty.
Jane took a dozen curtain calls on the first night. People pushed into her dressing-room to shake her hand, and tell her how much they had enjoyed seeing a star born.
The star sat on the floor in her shaggy sweater and kneed blue jeans, and calmly drank champagne from a cracked mug.
JANE is uncompromisingly down-to-earth and sensible. She can cut through hours of fancy discussion with one simple scentence of logic. It's her ability to seperate the real from the superficial that makes her a good actress.
She recently appeared in BBC-2's classic Brothers Karamazov. At the moment, she is appearing with Laurence Harvey, Moira Redmond and Diana Churchill in Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, at the Cambridge Theatre, London.
The play has been selected for study in C.C.E. "A" Level examination next January. Jane hopes that lots of young people will see the play, to prepare themselves.
When this production closes - it's the one she appeared in at the Edinburgh Festival - Jane moves into a Broadway play.
Jane Asher first stepped foot onto the Oxford Playhouse stage aged 12 as the lead in Alice - a stage adaption of Lewis Carroll's two most re
70 YEARS AND COUNTING: We talk to Jane Asher about family, longevity and returning to Oxford Playhouse in ‘The Circle’ after her debut aged 12!
By Ox In A Box - 16th January 2024
Jane Asher first stepped foot onto the Oxford Playhouse stage aged 12 as the lead in Alice – a stage adaption of Lewis Carroll‘s two most revered books.
“I remember that even though I was quite young it was really exhausting because of course Alice is on stage the whole time. And while these amazing creatures come and go, I was always there, so it was fun but relentless.
“And yet when I appeared at the Oxford Playhouse‘s 80th celebrations to perform Lewis Carroll‘s Jabberwocky, I remembered it word-for-word from all those years ago. Very strange,” she says.
65 years later, she’s not only back, but has never really gone away, having worked constantly. Remarkably non-plussed about her seven decades in show business, having emerged as a child star aged five in the film 1952’s Mandy, she went from strength to strength, steering her career through films, TV, stage and radio and even a stint as Paul McCartney’s girlfriend.
“I’m just lucky to still have a job”
From cinematic classics such as Alfie with Michael Caine, to The Prince and The Pauper, dramas such as Brideshead Revisited and soaps including Holby City and Waterloo Road, her CV runs on and on, especially her theatrical credits. Oh and she has written three novels.
In fact the only time Jane Asher seems to have reined it in is when she had three children with her husband of 30 years the illustrator Gerald Scarfe, instead finding herself at the forefront of a burgeoning cake empire, of all things.
The fact that she couldn’t be nicer is an extra bonus, as she waxes lyrical about Somerset Maugham’s sparky comedy of manners The Circle, coming to Oxford Playhouse next month (we already have our tickets!). In it she plays Lady Kitty, a society beauty who ran away with her lover 30 years before, finally returning to England to face her family. Cue drama.
“coming from a state school helped keep my feet on the ground because I was ribbed if I ever talked about my acting at school”
It premiered at The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond last year and did so well that the cast were then asked to tour: “We were all very keen because the audience clearly enjoyed it – it is terribly funny – and we all get on so well. So I thought why not?
“I’ve always been a Somerset Maugham fan and this is a wonderful part to play,” she adds. So does Jane Asher actually like Lady Kitty? “I certainly warmed to her, and felt great sympathy for her predicament, having been totally ostracised for so long. But she is certainly not a frail old lady wearing black and lace, and so the story unravels with quite a twist!
“But then Somerset Maugham was always sympathetic to the plight of women, being terribly unhappily married and a gay man, so The Circle has huge depth. It’s very clever, funny and simple at the same time.”
“my children were always my number one priority”
Now 77, Jane Asher’s energy shows no sign of abating, although she sympathises with Lady Kitty’s struggle with ageing. “We all know how that feels,” she chuckles. “But yes as an actress you sit around and hope people will ask you to do something you like. And now that the children have grown up, I am freer to go on tour or location, so I like a mix of both, but I know I have been extremely lucky.”
“Of course notoriety dips and wanes, and you get older there are less parts, so I just try to enjoy my work. I think coming from a state school helped keep my feet on the ground because I was ribbed if I ever talked about my acting at school, and my parents were very down-to-earth. So there was no pressure. It was all because I wanted to do it,” she says.
“And then when I had the children I fitted things around them, taking them to the studio with me as long as I was back in time to get their tea ready, because they were always my number one priority.”
So does she ever have time to look back over her career? “Oh no, that would be terribly nostalgic but it’s nice when people come up to me and say we saw you in this or that, and I think ‘oh yes I remember’. I’m just lucky to still have a job.”
Jane Asher stars in The Circle at Oxford Playhouse from Tue 6 – Sat 10 Feb. Book here https://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/events/the-circle
The actor on the lasting thrill of a teenage kiss, her crush on Harrison Ford and what she plans to do with her brain
Jane Asher: ‘What scares me about getting older? Becoming irritating to other people’
Rosanna GreenstreetSat 6 May 2023 09.30 BST
Born in London, Jane Asher, 77, had her first role at five, in the 1952 film Mandy. She went on to appear in Alfie in 1966 and Deep End in 1970, and her extensive stage credits include The Importance of Being Earnest at the Rose in Kingston and An American in Paris at London’s Dominion theatre. She stars in Somerset Maugham’s The Circle at Richmond’s Orange Tree theatre until 17 June. She has three children with the illustrator Gerald Scarfe and lives in West Sussex.
When were you happiest?
The early family skiing holidays – before I’d broken an ankle and Gerald had torn a ligament – were just wonderful.
What is your greatest fear?
I’ve always been frightened of the dark. I sometimes wonder whether it stems from being away filming from the age of five. I can remember being devastatingly homesick and having a little nightlight I used to look at to reassure myself things were all right.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Minding not being liked.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Mental cruelty.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
When I was a teenager, I laughed at a joke I didn’t understand. Whoever told the joke turned to me and said, “What are you laughing at?” Of course I didn’t know and he obviously knew I didn’t know. It was excruciating.
What is your most treasured possession?
A model of a lion that my elder son, Alexander, who is now in his 40s and an artist, made for me at school.
What was the best kiss of your life?
When I was on location in France, making a film called The Greengage Summer when I was 13, I was kissed by a local boy called Jean Jacques and I can still remember the thrill.
Which phrases do you most overuse?
“It’s a nightmare.”
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
The amazing women standing up against the Taliban.
Who is your celebrity crush?
Harrison Ford at the time of The Fugitive. He was perfection.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
There are a million things but, when you’ve got two arms and two legs and you can see and hear, I think you should be happy with what you’ve got.
What scares you about getting older?
Becoming irritating to other people. I don’t want to be a know-all granny or down with the kids.
Which book are you ashamed not to have read?
A La Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust – you feel you should give it a go, but I haven’t.
What was the last lie you told?
“That was absolutely delicious,” when I went for a meal with friends.
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Eating condensed milk out of the tin.
What is the worst job you’ve done?
Doing an episode of Doctors was a bit of a nadir.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Fine dining when it goes wrong.
How would you like to be remembered?
If my children remember me as fondly as I remember my mum, that would be a treat.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Not to take anything for granted.
What happens when we die?
I don’t know about my soul, but my brain will be on a shelf in the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank.
