Actress Jane Merrow who appeared in The Saint, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Alias Smith and Jones, The Incredible Hulk, Gerry Anderson's UFO, Danger Man, Cannon, The Six Million Dollar Man and many cult UK and US TV shows as well as the acclaimed The Lion

Jane Merrow was a busy and successful actress in the sixties, appearing in the cult TV shows regularly - Danger Man, The Prisoner, The Saint, U.F.O, Randall & Hopkirk, Man In A Suitcase, The Avengers, The Baron as well as numerous stage & film roles, culminating in the classic, powerful & memorable The Lion In Winter opposite Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn. At one time engaged to David Hemmings, and mixing with the swinging sixties set, she enjoyed and lived that decade to the full. She worked in England until the early seventies when she moved to Hollywood and was equally busy and in demand there - Mission Impossible, Alias Smith And Jones, The Incredible Hulk, Cannon and The Six Million Dollar Man amongst her large catalogue of TV appearances.
In the nineties she returned home to run the family business, a London-based international recruitment agency specialising in people with linguistic skills. Jane kindly took some time away from her work to share her fascinating memories and experiences in a conversation with Digger which he thoroughly enjoyed. Here it is:

Jane: I chose it because my Mother's side of the
family were all in the theatre. Not all actors - but
backstage staff. But theatre as opposed to film or
television. And it just never really occurred to me to
do anything else but act. And I loved it.
I'm such a show off!

Jane: Whenever somebody asks me, absolutely, yes.
I sort of tied my hands a little bit with this business but
it was really a matter of economics and my son had to
be got through American university, which is quite
expensive, so there was no question about
"Oh well, I can just drop this and do something else
and act". You know, I had to have my life a little bit
better organised than that. Anyway, I quite like it......

Jane: 9-5, yes. But I'm also doing some production
and development, which I love.

Jane: Well I had a production on with Ardent
productions which is the company owned by Prince
Edward and Yorkshire Television, which I took to
Ardent and we had that on in 19.... gosh, it was '98
I think it was. It's the first of a series of Victorian
murder mysteries .

Jane: It did quite well in America and it did very well
here and we would love ITV to pick up a series of it
but they're not terribly keen on period mystery
dramas at the moment.

Digger: What would you say is the hardest thing and
the best thing about being an actress?

Jane: Um. The hardest thing is not getting the part
you want. The best thing is getting the part that you want.

Digger: ( Laughs ) Good answer! So can you name some
parts that you didn't get that you would have
liked to have got?

Jane: ( Laughs ) The only problem is that I wouldn't
have been able to do The Lion In Winter. There would
have been a problem. They just happened to all go
at the same time. They would have clashed but I wish
....... it would have been lovely to have done that
because I do enjoy having a good giggle on television
and that part of television's been very good to me.

Jane: Well, we communicated but, you know, she
didn't become my best friend or anything like that.

Jane: Yes, Patrick was smashing. I mean Diana was
fine but Patrick was probably more approachable.

Digger: Well, you were a regular on many of the cult
TV classics. Why do you think they're so popular
today and have achieved such a status?

Jane: Do you know I really don't know except that I
think that people forget that we want entertainment.
And so much of what we watch on TV is so close to
real life now that people feel they're not getting a
dose of escapism. And these are all escapist and all
done not too seriously. I think television takes itself
a bit seriously now. And we took it seriously, but not
THAT seriously. Do you know what I mean?

Digger: Hmm. I was talking to Geoffrey Bayldon of
Catweazle fame recently and that's something that
he picked up on because he said when he did Catweazle
- up until then it had all been 'kitchen sink'
and far too serious.......

Digger:........ and then it was hugely popular for
that very reason - because of the 'magic', the fun .....

Jane:..... And I think that's true and I notice that
Thunderbirds is having a revival and I'm sure that's
the same reason as well. People don't want to be
faced with the problems of their everyday life on
television as well. It's all getting a bit grim
and depressing.

Digger: Good point. I think it's depressing when the
kids are watching all these soaps rather than all
this escapism stuff that I grew up with.

Digger: So, why do you think there was such a creative
buzz in Britain in the sixties?

Jane: I think it was because we suddenly had a whole
raft of people that were accessible to television.
I mean a lot of theatre and television came from
- sort of 'one side of the tracks' if you will. I mean
I would call it the right wing part of the theatre.
Do you know what I mean?

Jane: Yes. People who spoke ( Very posh ) 'very
good English.' And then suddenly in the sixties the
whole thing opened up to the other very talented
side of the more ..... how shall I ....... I don't want
to say working class......

Jane: ........You know, people from any walks of life.
And indeed, what we were just talking about, it's
a dichotomy really. That suddenly all the 'kitchen
sink' things opened up and suddenly we went 'real'.
So we had an enormous amount of talent. I mean
there's been a big thing about The Beatles this
weekend. And suddenly those sorts of people became
not only acceptable but very exciting. But now
( Laughs ) I think we've gone a bit too far the other
way and it's getting a bit boring.

Jane: Well, it's now shutting out the other lot.
So we never seem to find a balance - you're either
- if you're right wing you're in one time - I hate to
use the words 'right' and 'left'......

Jane:...... Exactly. If you're at one end you didn't
get a look in and then you didn't get a look in
if you were the other side.

Jane: Yes. I mean, we do recognise talent but we've
made up our minds at the moment ...... I think we're
probably excluding a whole lot of talent that's
out there because it's not fashionable.

Digger: Okay............... So what about The Prisoner?
Did you enjoy working on The Prisoner and
with Patrick McGoohan?

Jane: Loved it. It was great fun. Yes, I'd already
done three 'Danger Men' or 'Danger Mans'
( Both laugh ). He's so challenging to work with and
so exciting to work with. I mean, it was rather like
taking a roller-coaster ride. But I loved it.

Digger: Did you get to go to Portmeirion? Because in
the episode you're in ( The Schizoid Man )
you're outside.....

Digger: Peter Wyngarde said that he would have
liked to have gone there but never did. Did it make
sense to you while you were making it?

Jane: Not particularly but I didn't question it
'cos it was Patrick and HE obviously knew what
he was doing - he was very confident - he never
kafuffled around so I just got on with it ( Laughs )
as he had total confidence in his artistic choices.

Digger: One of my daft pals asked me to ask you
a Prisoner type question - a sneaky one, which was
"What card am I holding in my hand?!"

Jane: No. Not really. Sorry! .................... I've strong
instincts, which are more often than not right
but I wouldn't call them telepathic.

Jane: Hmm..... I wouldn't say he was FUN. Interesting
- yes. And sometimes a real gentleman and sometimes
a real pig, I have to say. But I enjoyed it. I was,
you know, this was, you must remember, at the
beginning of my career rather than where I had
got to with The Prisoner. And so I was very nervous
and TERRIBLY naive. But he was extremely, very
professional. Consummately professional.

Jane: Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I remember ( laughs ) -
this isn't much help but I got stung by a wasp
and my arm blew up like a balloon and Oliver was
very gallant about that and got the stings out
for me and everything else. I couldn't work for a
couple of days - my arm was like an elephant's foot.

Digger: My God! ..... When I was on my rounds of
the memorabilia shops a few months ago - that's
when I found all those photos of you.......

Digger:........ and the first one I found of you amongst
others in a box was from that film and it was
you larking around - you're blowing some bubbles.

Jane: Oh that's right. But there was a scene in the
film where we were blowing bubbles........

Digger: That's true. Well, I think you were practising.
But then I said to the guy in the shop, I said "Oh,
this is a nice one. I don't suppose you've got any more
of Jane Merrow?...." entirely expecting the answer
no, and he said "Well funnily enough" he said -
and suddenly he pulled out a stash of thirty and I
thought "My God!" And I looked at the first few and
I just said "How much?" It was a real find.

Jane: Well. I'm delighted. A real ego trip, right?!
Pages of photographs of yourself that you'd
forgotten about.

Digger: What was it like being a beautiful and popular
actress at the centre of the entertainment
industry in London during the swinging sixties?

Jane: It was GREAT! Fantastic. It was fabulous,
absolutely fabulous. We were so spoiled.

Jane: YES! Spoiled for choice. Spoiled for attention
and, let's face it, it was much easier being an
actor in those days 'cos the world and his wife
weren't all on television as well like nowadays. I
was watching..... um, who was I watching the other
night. Oh! It was Lily Savage who was really P.O'd
because she said, or HE said he had spent all this
time becoming a professional and all these people
can sort of trot onto television in five minutes
and be an instant star.

Jane: Oh yes, I did, there was Annabelle's and ....
I can't remember the names of them now but all the usual.

Digger: Who would you say were the most important
British individuals to emerge in the sixties?

Jane: I've only written down entertainment but
there's probably a lot more MORE important
people than in the entertainment............ obviously
The Beatles, Peter O'Toole, Michael Caine, Anthony
Hopkins, Julie Christie, Um.....

Jane: Yes, I missed on that. Although, that was one
I would really like to have been in.

Jane: Definitely, that would have been a very
interesting film to be in. Especially since I was going
out with David Hemmings at the time.

Digger: It is. But, I mean, it was an accident that it
ended up being in London, wasn't it?

Digger: Mmm. So what would you say the difference
is between working as an actress in the
U.K. and in the U.S?

Jane: Well, the U.S. is a much tighter environment.
It's a much... I mean, the U.K. is business-like but
the U.S. is so much geared to money. I mean time
is really money over there. They work... I mean
they'll do a show of seven days which we would
have taken fourteen to do. And they move
very, very quickly.

Jane: No, I don't think so because their crews are
so incredibly professional... and the actors
quite frankly are highly professional too. They
are um... well, unless you're a fruitcake or something
and there are one or two of those out there. ( Both
laugh ) They're so, um, they're so dedicated to
their careers that they're completely professional
and well prepared and everything else so, um, I
would say... They're less personal. We're more
personal and more fun over here.

Jane: Yes and we didn't, again, take it quite so
seriously but they do take it very seriously over
there just because of the money involved.

Jane: That would be the first thing I did out there.
Oh, that was lovely and the two chaps, Peter
Graves and Leonard Nimoy were so sweet
to me, I can't believe it.

Digger: You played a Lady something or other,
didn't you. It was something horsy, I think.

Jane: Oh, I remember we filmed in this fabulous
place called Hidden Valley, Leonard Nimoy and I,
because we were supposed to have this semi-romance.

Jane: Yes, but they cheated and we weren't in
England, we were in a place called Hidden Valley
which is about forty miles out of Hollywood.

Digger: They didn't cheat that well because it was
a bit like Austin Powers. You know, this is England
and it's so obviously California!

Jane: I know, they used Hidden Valley for a lot of
locations. Yes, well, we did quite a bit of that and
I did the whole of The Hound of the Baskervilles on
the back lot at Universal. ( Both laugh )

Jane: Oh, very much so, yes. Again, I did go out on
the back of a very large film, which was The Lion
in Winter. Yes it was. I mean, it got to a point
where I wasn't getting the same kind of work and
in Hollywood you really are only as good as your
last film. If you don't keep all that up then you
just become a little bit one of the, you know, the
run. So I did have to learn to do American accents
so I got more work as well.

Digger: Good. Uh....... The Lion in Winter, you were
talking about that. I mean, it was a great film. You
got praise and awards and all that sort of stuff.
Um, what did you learn through playing the Princess
and from working with those two star leads?

Jane: An enormous amount of... they were astonishing,
they really were. When you get up into that it's
really like getting in and flying. I suppose after
flying... I don't want to be rude to everybody else
but it was like flying in a 747 and then getting
into Concorde. They were astonishing, they were really
astonishing. They both worked harder than any actors
I've ever met in my life, Hepburn and O'Toole.
Very, very demanding, of themselves and everybody
else. Very generous, very, but unbelievably concentrated
and focused, and um... I mean, they really were the
Crème de la crème. No question about that.

Digger: There were a lot of young actors coming
through then. So were they helping all of them?

Jane: Oh yes. I mean I was probably the most
experienced in terms of the body of work I'd done
at that point. But it was Tony Hopkins' first film
at that point, Tim Dalton's first film, it was Nigel
Terry's first film. And John Castle's. So, you know,
and they got so much help. And Tony in particular
was very much a stage actor and really over the top
quite a bit and Katharine pulled him right down
and helped him a lot.

Jane: She did..... but I don't think ......... her own accent
came through to a point but for her to have gone
out and done a fully blown English accent wouldn't
have worked too well. It didn't matter though, did it?

Digger: I was watching it the other day and it's
still gripping - it could actually have been made
in any period actually, not necessarily the sixties.

Jane: Well, I was on it for the whole film so I think
we took three, nearly four months to film.

Jane: We filmed it through winter. We started in
October/November and finished around January/
February....something like that. Then we got to
a terrible rainy season in France and sat in hotels
for two weeks waiting for the weather to pick up
because we had a river that flooded and completely
washed away one set.

Jane: No we were in..... where were we? I think we
were in Arles. And we were waiting for the rain to stop.
And they'd built this beautiful landing jetty and
everything for Kate to get off and to fall into the
arms of O'Toole and the river came and washed it
all away. So ( laughs ) she ended up just literally
jumping from the boat onto the bank.

Digger: In U.F.O. and Night Of The Big Heat,
to name but two, you played two very wicked
raunchy roles.........

Jane: Oh gosh. I mean there's all sorts of roles in the
sixties that I would love to have played.........

Jane: ....... Well, I would love to have had - this sounds
terribly...... I mean, this wasn't a raunchy role but
some of the parts that Julie Christie had
I thought were just sensational..............

Jane: Not so much Darling 'cos I know I couldn't have
done as good a job as she did, and I wouldn't have
done as good a job as she did in the others. But
something that I could have handled like Far From
The Madding Crowd and Zhivago.

Jane: Yes, yes. Wonderful parts. So anything like
that would have been fine. I wouldn't have said no.

Jane: Of course Vanessa and her sister. And there
were a whole raft of others like Julia Foster.
All sorts of people - Barbara Ferris, who
was an excellent actress.

Digger: That's true............. What roles did you
turn down or would you have preferred not
to have played?

Jane: Well no, there was one part I turned down, in,
I think it was Spring And Port Wine which Albert
Finney produced. I shouldn't have done that, I
shouldn't have turned it down. It was a mistake.
What else did I turn down? Not a whole lot, I mean
I generally was sensible enough to think 'A bird in
the hand.....' and all that. I didn't see any point
in being too...... there's possibly one role and I'm very
unclear in my own mind whether I should have done
it or not. My whole life would have turned out quite
differently if I hadn't. But the film I did in Australia,
it was called Adam's Woman - I don't know if it
got a proper release over here with Beau Bridges.
And I was just riding the crest of The Lion In Winter
and I was advised by all sorts of eminent people in
the business not to do the film. They said "It's a
rubbish script, don't do it". You know, etc. etc.
Well I did turn it down about three or four times and
in the end they just got the better of me ( Digger
laughs ) and I got worn out and I said "This is silly,
this is a film" you know, "it's not my whole life".
Well, if I hadn't have done that film I wouldn't have
met my husband, although he's now my ex-husband
and I wouldn't have had my Son. So there you go!
Life moves in mysterious ways.

Digger: Would you say that the sixties were a very
liberating time for women with women excelling and
leading in many roles such as music, film, politics.........

Jane: Yes I do. I think it was a time when we all
sort of opened up. We've rather stabbed ourselves
in the foot a bit now but, yes, it was fantastic.

Jane: B.S! ( a light bulb goes on in Digger's head ).
No, I mean some of it's fine but again they'll
be turning us all into robots where we're afraid
to move or do anything. It's silly, is what it is.
It's gone silly.

Digger: Alright, talking of silly, here's a silly one.
In U.F.O. you had a car chase with Straker where
you were driven off the road. In a real contest, what
sort of a driver would you be?

Jane: Yes, I did. I loved my little white sports cars
all over the place. I drove those for a long time.

Jane: Spitfire and Triumph and Alpine and my
last one in California was a Nissan sports car.
Lovely. Good fun.

Digger: There's an excellent web site run by
one of your fans. Are you interested in the net....

Digger:...... and if so what sort of sites appeal to you
and what do you use the internet for?

Jane: Well, I use the internet for a lot of things.
A lot of business things - as I told you I have a
family business - I use it a lot for that. I use it
for looking up things. I think it's FANTASTIC
for looking up things. I'm thrilled with the web
site my fan built. I just think that the whole thing
is fascinating, I mean it's definitely changing
our lives. And, um.....

Digger:...... Strange how some people, can I say, from
your generation they sort of say "I don't know
anything about it and I don't want to know anything
about it" and others.......

Jane: Oh definitely. I think it's great. I mean look at
it, you wouldn't be talking to me now if it
weren't for the web!

Digger:...... I mean, it's like anything - there can
be lots of negative things about it as well. I mean,
there's so much dross in there......

Digger: .... and it can be frustrating when you search
for stuff and you get everything that's
totally irrelevant......

Digger: Yes, G.I.G.O. they used to say, didn't they?
( Garbage In, Garbage Out )

Digger: One of my questions was what are you working
on at the moment, but it seems as though you'll be
taking work if interesting stuff comes up.

Jane: Yes, if I can work acting-wise I would love it.
I would dearly love it. I have shut myself off a
little bit, not necessarily through choice
but through necessity.

Digger: So if you got a plum role, a great script
landed on your desk tomorrow morning then.....

Jane: Yes. I mean it's taken some time but I've
now got some really good people here - there's eight
people in the company and I'm quite sure they
can get along without me.

Digger: I'll mention your business on the site,
of course. It's an employment agency for people
with a linguistic bent, is that right?

Jane: Yes. It's anyone who speaks a foreign language.
My Father started it in 1965. And here
I am, carrying it on.

Digger: Well. Although I presume that these
days you are carrying it on internationally as well?

Jane: Yes, very much so. We've got contracts abroad
and all sorts of things. It's quite interesting and
exciting and the great thing is it's opened up
my life tremendously.

Jane: Quite a bit. And, um, that's what our business
is about. You can't sort of close yourself off in
a little heap and not really know what's going on
in the rest of the world.

Jane: Yes, and I think that you've got to keep your
mind well open and well educated.

Jane: In the office - we've got German, French,
Spanish, Swedish and I sort of smatter along
in French when I have to.

Digger: ( Laughs ) Smatter, that's a good one.
Can you try to sum up your career so far?

Jane: Um. Terrific. Very, very lucky. Yes, so lucky
and wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed every
minute of it.

Jane: Every bit I can get more of - wonderful.
Yes, I've been very lucky. Very happy with it.

Digger: Great. That's brilliant. In Night Of The
Big Heat, how did they make you all seem so hot
or is that an obvious answer?

Jane: It was glycerin. They had bottles of the
stuff that they'd spray on us just before we'd
do our parts. ( Both laugh )

Jane: Exactly. And we did a lot of heavy breathing
and panting and ( huffs and puffs ).

Jane: It was filmed in and around Pinewood, with
lovely people again. So much fun!

Jane: I prefer looking forward. I mean I think
nostalgia has its place - and talking about this
now has brought a big smile to my face, but no,
you have to look forward - you can't
keep looking back.

Jane: Um. I think obviously The Lion In Winter
and a play I did with Edward Fox called Country
Dance at the Hampstead Theatre Club.

Jane: ..... The Lion In Winter and I was terribly
proud of that piece of work and .....

Jane: James gave it up for a while - he went into
some kind of religious thing but he's now
very much back in it.

Jane: Hmm. Definitely. And I also did a play in Los
Angeles called Sea Marks which you will never have
heard of - which was just a two-handed play. And
then the final thing that I'm really quite proud of
- I did a one woman play about Vivien Leigh.

Jane: Oh, absolutely fascinating and you know just
getting up on the stage and doing an hour's
worth of solo work is quite frightening.

Jane: No, it was a play written by a man who knew
her very well actually and who particularly knew
one of her old lovers who knew a lot of her
inside stories - a very compassionate play. And he
wrote this play - she sort of rambles on about her
entire life through the last night of her life and it
was turned into a very clever play and it
was terrific to do.

Jane: It was dead scary, 'cos once you're up there,
that's it. ( Laughs ) It's all yourself.

Digger: Hmm. I saw Victor Spinetti last week in a
small little pub type theatre in north London and
I thought "God, it's amazing that someone can do
that and grab the audience within about
thirty seconds".

Jane: It is. And a lot of people go and think "Oh God,
do I REALLY want to go and watch one person on
the stage" so you've got to work that much harder
to make yourself interesting and fascinating. And,
as I say, this was written rather like a play rather
than a one woman show as it were. I think the best
actors - a lot of the best actors - especially in film
- come from the comic background.

Jane: I mean so many of the good Hollywood film stars
have come from the comedy clubs and ....

Jane: And Eddie Murphy, all starting there. That's
the toughest job in the world is to get up there and
make people laugh on your own. I haven't done that,
I hasten to add, but I think people that can do
that are fantastic.

Digger: Well, you doing what you do is fantastic.
I wouldn't be able to do it. I'd freeze totally.

Jane: ( Laughs ) A lot of people seem to be able
to do it nowadays. They love it. On Big
Brother or something.

Digger: I've given that a little bit of a look but
it just looks dire to me. Slobby, boring people.

Digger: Well, it's been wonderful talking to you.
You've been really easy to talk to.

Jane: Oh, it has been fun. And I'm thrilled to death
that you caught up with me.

Jane: The amazing thing is with some of my shows -
I don't know where people are seeing them - I've
had a couple of fan letters from a chap who's
seventeen. And I thought he must think............
I'm Dorian Gray or something! ( Both laugh )

Digger: Roger Moore was saying - he's in The Saint
and of course you're in that a few times too and
he's still getting loads of fan mail through.

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Actress Jane Merrow who appeared in The Saint, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Alias Smith and Jones, The Incredible Hulk, Gerry Anderson's UFO, Danger Man, Cannon, The Six Million Dollar Man and many cult UK and US TV shows as well as the acclaimed The Lion In Winter.

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