“GENEVIEVE” GIRL BACK

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32801, 29 December 1971, Page 5

“GENEVIEVE” GIRL BACK

(By

MARY KAYE)

LONDON.

Dinah Sheridan is, at first glance, the epitome of the upper class Englishwoman cool and elegant, in cashmere twin set, well-cut skirt, and a single string of pearls. But she laughs at the idea. “It’s strange, considering I haven’t any English blood in me at all. My mother was pure German and my father pure Russian-” Dinah Sheridan laughs a lot these days, and with good reason. Back in front of the film, cameras for the first time since she starred in the classic “Genevieve” 18 years ago, she has been film-< ing “The Railway Children.” She has the part of the mother, although she looks far younger than her 48 years. But age does not worry her. “I’d play a grandma, if required,” she says. And, in fact, her 24-year-old son, Jeremy, recently made her a grandmother. BITTER BATTLES It was because of him, and her 22-year-old daughter, Jenny (both children by -her first marriage to the late Jimmy Hanley) that she kept out of the limelight for so long. "I wanted to see them grow up in a proper home, with lov6 and security,” she said. “And it is difficult when there is only one parent.”

Her second marriage to the Rank'Organisation chief, John« Davis, lasted 11 years before ; ending in 1965. Then came bitter legal battles which lasted until the end of 1966, when she was awarded £B5OO a year, and a lump sum of £25,000. “I didn’t feel like working even after it was all over," she said. "And I couldn’t think of the future.” HAD ENOUGH Most of all, she says, she shrank from the idea of , putting herself on the mar- ■ ket again. “I had lost confid- : ence,” she confessed. “And I ; was sure that people wouldn’t i remember me. “When I married John • Davis, I had been in the bus- . iness for 20 years, and I felt , that I had had enough. I told i my agent, "no matter what I’m offered don’t tell me. Just

say no.’ It wasn’t until a lot later that I realised some of the opportunities I’d missed. “But there was so much travelling to do then—thousands of miles a year, acting as a sort of international hostess.” Starting all over again from scratch was quite an ordeal. But there years after the divorce, she plucked up courage and asked her agent: “If I wanted to come back into the business, what would you say?” Within a couple of days she had an offer of one of the starring roles in the stage play: “Let’s All Go Down the Strand.” SCARED “Then I realised what I had let myself in for. I was scared stiff. I went back and said, ‘Look, maybe a maid’s part next year. But not this. It’s too quick.’ Thank good-

ness, everybody refused to listen.” Then came television roles, and then the film cameras once more. “The first day was agony”, she said, “and after that, it was like coming home. Now I seem to have recaptured the mood I had had when I first started in the theatre in 1932. I kicked up my legs at the Holbom Empire and heavens, it’s a long time ago. “But then, as now, it was like going out to receive life, and enjoy it, and take it as it comes. I have learned though. You can’t have happiness, real happiness, unless you have known tragedy, too.”

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