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The Life of John Thaw
from Daphne Guiness
It took John Thaw years to accept fame. Then
he died. A report on a favourite TV face
Actress Sheila Hancock has written an emotional
tell-all memoir about her late husband John Thaw, the actor.
Why? "Because I didn't want some sensational-seeker to do
it and turn him into an utter arsehole," she says from her
home in London. Off screen, the introvert Inspector Morse
of television glory was not the man his fans may have pictured.
That, says his widow, is exactly why she wrote The Two Of
Us: My Life with John Thaw (Allen & Unwin). "I don't
want people to think he was Morse. I want them to know the
real man was more entertaining, more funny, more cynical,
more sad, more angry than anything they had ever seen on the
screen.".
Also he was more scary, more frightening,
more boorish, more ghastly and definitely more moody. Further
bad news: he was an alcoholic depressive who was viciously
cruel to Hancock and their daughter Joanna, and Abigail (by
his first marriage to wealthy Sally Alexander) and Melanie
by Hancock's marriage to actor Alec Ross (who coincidentally
died with cancer of the oesophagus, as did Thaw in 2002).
"They are all sisters," says Hancock of the complicated
family tree. Did she discuss the book with them? "Of
course I did. Their first reaction was I'd been too easy on
John in his dark days; they made me rewrite it because I'd
soft-pedalled. Their argument was his recovery wasn't as miraculous
if you didn't realise he had actually gone down to rock bottom.
If I made him just a gentle drunk who took the odd drink,
then what was the fuss all about?"
Hancock and Thaw had a roller-coaster marriage
and fuss came in buckets. They met working on a London comedy,
Hancock, 36, still married, Thaw, 27, divorced. "I'm
afraid I've fallen in love with you, it's a nuisance,"
he told her. But not until Ross died did they tie the knot
in 1973.
In three years he went from bachelor and odd bits on telly
to husband/father/two homes/three children and, with roles
like Regan in The Sweeney, then Inspector Morse, worldwide
renown, which he detested: "Autograph hunters were told
to 'f--- off'." Terrified of reverting to childhood poverty,
he became a workaholic. "No wonder he needed a few drinks
to help him," says Hancock. Surely she suspected something
was amiss? "No, I've lived with drinkers all my life.
My father and first husband drank and I thought men did that.
Anyway, it hadn't become an illness then."
But when it did in 1985, while playing a father whose son
is killed by the IRA, depression and booze crossed paths and
Thaw turned into a monster. Still, "viciously cruel"
to her and the girls seems excessive. What precisely did he
do? "I don't want to pursue that further," she says
edgily. "I'd have put it in the book if I intended to
elaborate on it." But she does elaborate on Thaw as Jekyll
and Hyde, and rows ending with her cravenly apologising. It
was sick behaviour on her part, she says, baring herself excruciatingly.
"That statement is there in the hope that anybody going
through this will think, 'well, maybe it's not normal', and
get help.". And when they read about the violent behaviour,
that will help, too? "Yes. John was never physically
violent. It was mental. The theory is when people vent their
hatred on others it's actually hatred of themselves they are
venting.". At one point she says: "Sometimes his
face contorted into a mask of pure loathing towards me."
Why? "It's all part of the same illness." Somehow
it's hard to imagine Morse's congenial kisser doing that.
"Well, there you are."
Still, as Hancock says, this was only one
episode in 29 years with Thaw. At one stage she discovered
she had breast cancer.Thaw turned his back on her, they lived
apart for 18 months, she suggested divorce which jolted him
into a booze-and-depression cure by a Harley Street Irishman.
They had fun and laughter for five years.
Christmas 2000 was the best of times. In
May 2001, Thaw got his fellowship from the British Academy
of Film and Television Arts. In June, cancer. Seven months
later he died
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