IN the 1970s, Sally Thomsett was a household name, a versatile star of big and small screen who appeared in classic films The Railway Children and Straw Dogs, and the hit TV sitcom Man About The House. She was in constant demand, and enjoyed all the fruits of a successful acting career - a wardrobe full of designer clothes, a central London penthouse, and trips to Europe's most glamorous casinos. Her string of luxury cars included a Bentley, a Rolls-Royce and a Ferrari. Then she mysteriously disappeared from our screens. Today she reveals why she put her career on hold, and insists that, unlike many stars of her generation, she will never sell out to reality TV.
Sally started in showbusiness as a child actor and soon found herself in constant demand. After years of working non-stop, she realised she wanted a breather and decided to take some time off to travel.
"I'd been working for years and needed time for myself," she said. "I hadn't travelled other than for work so I went round the world a couple of times."
She eventually moved to Los Angeles, married a film producer and didn't return until the late 1980s. A few years later, estranged from her husband, she met her partner Paul Agnew and, to her amazement, fell pregnant at the age of 46 with her daughter Charlotte. "I thought, I'm not going to be my best while I've got a little child, so I won't do any acting. I'll take seven years out and when she's old enough I'll go back to work.
"But the timing didn't turn out well. That was the time of Big Brother and reality TV starting, and they'd stopped making nice comedies.' "I've done a few chat shows and things like that, but actual acting is what I want to do.
"I'd say the chances of that happening are zilch.
"The actresses of my ilk who are still working are doing things like campervanning with four other famous people. No way I'd do that. Nor would I go on Big Brother or in the jungle - they can offer me £10million and I still wouldn't do it. But I'd still say I was very, very lucky because I'm proud of the work I did."
Seventies star Sally Thomsett (Image: NC)
Sally only went into showbusiness aged 11 because her big brother bribed her with five shillings to attend an open audition for The Max Bygraves Summer Show in Brighton. She got the job, and the chance to sing a solo.
But although she loved performing, she quickly found the audition process could be difficult, even for a girl of such tender years.
"When I was 12, I auditioned for a Michael Winner movie," she recalls. "When I went in to see him, he looked me up and down and told me to turn to the side."
Sally says the late director made a sleazy comment about the effect her figure might have on male members of the audience.
Fortunately her agent had instructed her to leave and phone immediately "if anything strange happens". So she walked out. A few years later, while appearing in panto, she was invited to a male actor's dressing room under a pretext, and had to flee.
But despite those experiences, she can't really see the point in the MeToo movement.
"Nothing awful happened," says Sally, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"It was clearly awful and has affected quite a lot of people, but it was so long ago and a different world then. I wouldn't condone anything, but just leave it. It's not going to do any good."
Sally with Paula and Richard (Image: Fremantle Media/REX/Shutterstock)
She made the transition from child actor to starlet with ease and from the mid-60s she was in endless demand for TV parts, appearing in everything from Dickens' David Copperfield, starring Ian McKellan, to classic
