Jane Asher

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Jane Asher

Jane Asher
Born April 5, 1946
England Marylebone, London, England
Spouse(s) Gerald Scarfe (1981 to date)

Jane Asher (born April 5, 1946) is an English film and television actress and the author of several full-length novels.


Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Asher was born in Marylebone in London, the second of three children to Dr Richard Asher and Margaret (née Eliot), who taught oboe. After some roles as a child actress, including an appearance in the 1955 science-fiction film The Quatermass Xperiment, she worked as a panelist on the BBC's Juke Box Jury.

[edit] Relationship with Paul McCartney

In 1963, Asher interviewed The Beatles. A photographer for the BBC's Radio Times asked them to pose with Asher, who was a seventeen-year-old red-headed actress.[1] McCartney and Asher commenced a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney (they became engaged in 1967[2]). She inspired many of McCartney's songs, such as "Here, There and Everywhere," "I'm Looking Through You," "You Won't See Me," "We Can Work It Out," "And I Love Her," and "For No One" (all credited as Lennon/McCartney). Her brother Peter was half of the duo Peter & Gordon, for whom Lennon/McCartney penned the number one hit "A World Without Love."

Paul McCartney wrote several Beatles songs in the Ashers' house. He wrote in a room that was usually used for music lessons. The Asher house was also a place of intellectual stimulation for Paul McCartney. He enjoyed the rarefied atmosphere of upper-middle class conversation and company that the house provided, and to which he aspired.[3] Asher refuses to discuss McCartney.[4] According to Cynthia Lennon, Paul was "as proud as a peacock" to have Jane as a girlfriend,[5] and saw her as "a great prize".[6] Marianne Faithfull remembered Paul and Jane "never getting on very well", and described one evening at Cavendish Avenue when Paul wanted a window to be open and Jane wanted it shut. Paul would repeatedly get up and open the window and then Jane would get up and close it, although neither of them made any comment about it during the whole evening.[7] McCartney didn't stop having one-night stands with other women during his time with Asher,[8] because he felt that as they were not married, it was allowed.[8]

[edit] Acting

Asher appeared in Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death in 1964, Alfie, opposite Michael Caine, in 1966 and in Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End in 1970. Thereafter, she was more commonly seen on television: The Stone Tape (1972); Rumpole of the Bailey (1978); Brideshead Revisited (1981); as Faith Ashley in Wish Me Luck (three series in 1987, 1988 and 1989); Crossroads Mark III (2001).

She guest starred in an episode of the British television comedy series The Goodies in the episode "Punky Business", as a trend setting newspaper writer, patterned on the punk journalist Caroline Coon. In 1994, she portrayed the Doctor Who companion Susan Foreman in a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?. Another notable radio appearance was in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 2002 in the episode "The Peculiar Persecution of Mr John Vincent Harden".

[edit] Marriage and Later Career

In 1971 she met the illustrator Gerald Scarfe, and they married ten years later in 1981. They have three children.

Now well known as the author of recipe books, Jane Asher runs a company making novelty cakes for special occasions, and still acts on television and in the theatre. Asher recently starred in the Richard Fell adaptation of the 1960s science fiction series A for Andromeda, which aired on the UK digital television station BBC Four.

She is a shareholder in Private Eye and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. She is also President Of the National Autistic Society in which she takes an active role. She was also a speaker at the launch of the National Autistic Society's "Make School Make Sense" campaign. She has been one of the most striking examples of a rare but true 'strawberry blonde'.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Miles. p102.
  2. ^ "McCartney's lament: I can't buy your love", Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2004 (link)
  3. ^ Bob Spitz, "The Beatles"
  4. ^ "Butter wouldn't melt", The Daily Telegraph, 3 October 2005 (link)
  5. ^ Lennon (1978)
  6. ^ Miles. p103.
  7. ^ Miles. p453.
  8. ^ a b Miles. pp142-143

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Jane Asher
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION actress, author
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Marylebone, London
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
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