MUSES, WIVES AND GIRLFRIENDS No.239 :: JANE ASHER’S FAVOURITE PHOTOGRAPH

 My favorite photograph

by actress Jane Asher

Article about Jane’s favourite photograph taken in 1982 and published with her article in the UK’s S Magazine, November 8, 2009 issue.

Jane, 63, is as well known for her cake-making as her acting. Here, she tells Hilary Whitney about a treasured snapshot of her son taken by a press photographer

“This picture was taken of me and my son Alexander, just round the corner from our home in London. My husband and I were very protective of the children’s privacy and never took them anywhere if we thought they might end up in a newspaper, so it’s ironic that I got caught on my way back from Waitrose. I hadn’t expected to see any photographers but they were hovering because Ingrid Bergman was staying at a house nearby. Just as I walked past, one of them spotted me and took this picture.

It did end up in a newspaper but I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I thought it was very
funny. What I love is the way that, after all my careful shielding, dear little Alexander is peering boldly and full-faced into the camera. I still see the photographer from time to time and he remembers this picture well. I think he’s very fond of it, too.

Alex is 28 now, and I have two other children - Katie, 35, and Rory, 25. Juggling motherhood and a career is always tricky but it’s probably easier for an actress compared to some professions. Once you’re established you can choose jobs that fit around your family. West End plays were perfect when the children were very small because I could spend all day with them, put them to bed and then go and do the show, and they wouldn’t even realise I’d been out. I can also remember sneaking Katie into my dressing room to breastfeed her at various television studios.

Having young children meant I couldn’t go away on tour or make films on location, but that wasn’t such a sacrifice because I’d decided that I wanted to be at home.

I must admit there were a few times when I felt a little wistful at some of the parts I turned down, but staying at home led to another opportunity that would never have arisen if I’d been single-mindedly pursuing my career.

I’d been decorating cakes since I was a teenager; at first they were fairly conventional but gradually I started to make them funnier and more personal - I think that was my showbiz side coming out. It was the actress Phyllis Calvert who suggested I write a book about it, after I’d shown her some pictures of a cake I’d decorated with forty naked ladies for a friend’s 40th birthday.

I contacted several publishers and, like all first-time authors, received plenty of
rejection slips. But I had a feeling I was on to something and persisited until finally I got a publishing deal. Much to everyone’s surprise the book was a bestseller and eventually I opened a small shop in Chelsea.

I was also approached by a fiction editor who’d read an interview with me that convinced her I had a novel in me. I didn’t believe her but she gave me the courage to try and, after a terrible struggle, I’ve managed to write three novels.

Now the children are grown-up I’m free to work abroad and do all the things I couldn’t do before, which is some compensation for the fact they are no longer babies. They are still very much around but I do miss them as they used to be.”

source: Truth About The Beatles Girls Jane Asher's Favourite photo