Leslie Phillips (pictured with new wife, Zara Carr) certainly looks and sounds very contented to be a married man again
veteran actor’s most famous comic catchphrases — ding dong!
Best known as the consummate, plummy-voiced roué of Carry On film fame, it seemed somehow fitting that Leslie Phillips CBE should approach his 90th birthday with that familiar twinkle in his eye and a considerably younger bride on his arm.
And last Friday he did not disappoint, giving a cheerful thumbs-up after marrying 50-something social worker Zara Carr at Westminster Register Office, followed by a blessing and reception at St Mark’s church near the actor’s grand Victorian home in West London.
So, with the ink barely dry on the marriage certificate, off I go to say, well, hell-oo to Leslie Phillips and his delightful new bride, who seems to be taking the consternation over their rather large age difference in her stride.
Looking very dapper in dark navy cords teamed with a cashmere sweater in fetching duck-egg blue, Leslie certainly looks and sounds very contented to be a married man again as he leads the way into his shabbily elegant home. ‘The wedding was fantastic!’ says Leslie in his unmistakable, velvety tones as he lowers himself into an antique chair. ‘It was the most wonderful day of my life.
‘Zara is an incredible girl. She’s lovely. What else can I say? I just love this bird here,’ he says reaching for Zara’s hand, whose ring finger sports an enormous square cut diamond.
‘I’ve always been one of life’s natural optimists, despite some ghastly things happening to me over the years.’
It has to be said that Leslie is nothing like his professional persona. His career may have been defined by playing, in his own words, ‘lecherous twits’ in classic Sixties comedies such as the Carry
On films and the Doctor series, but he takes his own life and commitment to those he loves very seriously.
Born into poverty in Tottenham, he became the family breadwinner after his father Frederick, a factory worker, died aged just 44 when Leslie — a budding actor — was ten. Losing his natural Cockney accent through elocution lessons at stage school, Leslie’s acquired upper-crust voice and natural presence on stage and screen saved his family from squalor.
This photograph shows Leslie playing his trademark 'lecherous twit' in 1964 with Barbara Roscoe
The pair starred together in the 1963 film, Father Came Too!
He was devastated when his mother Cecelia died in the Eighties, aged 92, after being mugged by three teenagers in Chingford, Essex. A few months later, his older sister Doris, who cared for their mother, also died having never recovered from the tragedy.
And there is something genuinely touching and rather moving about the way Leslie, ever the gentleman, treats his new wife with old-fashioned courtesy and consideration.
In return, he clearly enjoys being looked after, perhaps for the first time in his life. ‘Zara and I both like a quiet life. Neither of us drinks, we both believe in God and go to church, and have a deep appreciation for each other,’ says Leslie.
‘No one likes being alone and I’ve never fancied the idea of just living with somebody. I like being married. Neither of us thought about age at all, we didn’t even consider it when we decided to get married.
‘Does it bother anybody apart from nosey, critical people?’
Ah yes, it has to be said there have been a few of those, whose reaction has been less ‘ding dong’ than, perhaps, a decidedly uncharitable ‘kerching!’
By his own admission, Leslie was 'lost' following the tragic death of his second wife, Angela Scoular
After all, it is not rare for wealthy older men with finite years ahead of them to attract much younger women.
By his own admission, Leslie was ‘lost’ following the tragic death of his second wife in 2011 and credits Zara with coming to his rescue and saving him from despair. Former Bond actress Angela Scoular had battled with depression, alcoholism and latterly bowel cancer during her 29-year marriage to Leslie, who was unwavering in his devotion to her.
His first marriage in 1945 to actress Penelope Bartley, which produced children Caroline, Claudia, Andrew and Roger, ended in divorce in 1965.
Although he had no children with Angela, he brought up her son, Daniel, as his own. Fearing her cancer had returned, Angela — the balance of her mind disturbed — took her own life, aged 65, by drinking drain cleaner and pouring it over her body, suffering 40 per cent burns.
It was Leslie who found her lying on the stone steps leading to the front door of their home — after she’d run out in a panic — covered in blood. Her spine was broken by the fall down the steps.
Never once has he complained about the burden of caring for his wife before her tragic end.
Instead, he issued the most dignified of statements on her death, praising her as ‘kind and generous’ and ‘lovely’.
‘After Angela’s death I was lost to a certain degree,’ he says. ‘She was a very beautiful, talented actress, but she was ill for many years and suffered in so many ways — and it was really down to me to look after her.
‘When I took my marriage vows, for better for worse, for richer or poorer and in sickness or in health, I wasn’t just saying them. I meant them.
‘One minute I had a wife and the next I was completely alone. For a while I was really quite ill and very low, but Zara lifted me out of it and helped me get back to a normal life. I mean, look at me now. I couldn’t be happier.’
Leslie admits that his four adult children from his first marriage — the oldest of whom is ten years older than his bride — did not exactly react with unreserved joy when told of this new relationship.
Understandably, it appears they were worried about their father’s vulnerability after Angela’s death, but do I detect a hint of late-life rebellion in Leslie’s determination to marry again?
This photograph shows Leslie with his daughters at the gala of the BFI London Film Festival in 2006
‘I have four children and masses of grandchildren, something like 34, and I have looked after all of them, if I pop my clogs so to speak,’ says Leslie, who in a career spanning eight decades, has more than 120 films to his name and has made the successful transition from comedy actor to character roles.
‘All that looking after is very expensive and when it became clear I wanted to marry Zara I think there was a slight atmosphere of: “What do you mean you’ve got another woman?”
‘I think there was an element of wanting to control me at one point, which I wasn’t very happy about.
‘Of course, they were concerned for me, but I think it may have been partly financial. You can form your own opinion. My eldest child is 65 now and Zara is in her 50s, so you can work it out for yourself.
‘The thing is I want my own life still. As I get older I don’t want anyone to suddenly stop me running my own life.
‘My biggest fear is to spend the last years of my life in a residential home, so surely this is the luckiest of situations. My children all have their own lives and are terribly busy. Now they don’t have to worry about me because I have Zara.
‘It’s only complicated because I have a bob or two.
Leslie on former wife Angela: 'She was a very
beautiful, talented actress, but she was ill for many years and suffered
in so many ways'
‘If you are alone and have nothing, nobody gives a damn. If you are alone and have something, everyone cares,’ he laughs, adding that the death of his friend Peter O’Toole has spurred him on to make the most of his life.
‘But will Zara be provided for after my death? You betcha! I’ve made sure of that, but this was fought for and I had to be very strong.
‘You can kind of smell what I’m trying to say. I don’t think my family particularly wanted me to marry again for obvious reasons and it’s bloody obvious, isn’t it? But having said that, they were all invited to the wedding and, with those who couldn’t attend, it was either because they were abroad or, in the case of grandchildren, had temporary jobs after university which they couldn’t afford to lose.’
Zara, who is coy about her age but calls herself ‘mid-50s’, says she has been stung by the assumption she may have married Leslie for security more than anything else.
‘It does hurt me sometimes, but I love Leslie and I know what I’m doing. I suppose I just have to put up with those comments,’ she says. ‘It’s not nice because I would have married Leslie even if he had nothing.
‘He is very caring, the perfect gentleman. He is very honest and knows how to treat a lady properly. I love everything about him, absolutely everything. I look after him, I take care of him, I make a fuss of him and I run around for him. I make sure he is comfortable and he gets all the care he needs. I am not a materialistic person. For me, life is about giving not taking. Perhaps if people knew me, they wouldn’t think these things about me.’
Half Turkish and half Indian, Zara, the daughter of a legal clerk, was widowed in her mid-20s when her British husband, who worked in the import-export business, died from a heart attack.
Left with little money and two young sons — now aged 32 and 28 — she says she took any and every job she could to support her children. She never imagined she would marry again and says devotion to her sons prevented her from seeking another partner before Leslie.
Employed by Westminster Council as a carer helping adults with physical and mental disabilities, she says she had known Leslie as a friend and neighbour for around 20 years and was also friendly with Angela.
When Angela died, many friends and neighbours rallied round to help Leslie, and Zara was one of them.
Leslie collected his CBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace in May 2008
‘Leslie had always been very friendly and polite to me, all the years I had known him. I was used to being very independent, but moved in to help him after his wife died because he was suffering a great deal,’ says Zara, who wore a dress from Whistles on her wedding day. Leslie sported a painted silk tie, which was a gift from Angela.
‘We were good friends and then we started to think of each other as more than that,’ she adds.
‘It was a gradual realisation. I married Leslie because I love him and our wedding was lovely, beautiful. We were over the moon, over the sun, which was shining.’
During our interview, Zara has to leave to help a friend care for her dying husband. But before going she gently reminds Leslie that his cold lunch is waiting for him on the table and makes him promise not to forget to eat it.
Christmas was spent quietly at home instead of honeymooning at Leslie’s villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza because he has to go into hospital on January 3 to have an unsightly lesion removed from his nose.
It is, doctors have told him, a squamous cell carcinoma caused by ultra violet light — namely too much sun over the years — and following the removal he will need a skin graft.
‘It’s a worry and really couldn’t have come at a worse time with the wedding,’ says Leslie. ‘That is my only regret, that I didn’t look my best for the photographs.
‘No one likes being alone and there was something missing from my life until I found Zara.
‘It may seem unusual getting married again at my age, but to us it feels the most natural thing in the world.
‘It was only meeting Zara that made me feel better. She is wonderful to me, and I am wonderful to her. We are happy together How else can you describe it?’
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