Life is different outside the walls

Press, 12 April 1978, Page 15

Life is different outside the walls

By

MARY KAYE

London. Fun is hardly a word you would associate with life behind the grim walls of Stone Park Prison, but the new governor is determined to inject a bit of humour into life there. “If you are living in the unbalanced world of a prison, humour is particularly important,” says Sarah Lawson, who has taken control of the women’s jail in the TV series “Within These Walls,” screening on TV2 on Thurdays. “I am trying to play the governor, Susan Marshall, with drive and enthusiasm,” said Miss Lawson “In real life we are very different characters.

I Mrs Marshall is a born orI ganiser. She never worries unduly. And temperamentally, she keeps on a very ; even keel. I’m a born wori rier, and as far as emo« I tions are concerned, I tend I to be a real up and downier — wildly happy and excited one minute, and depressed the next.” “I . don’t know what I birth sign Susan Marshall | was born under, but I’m a I Leo, and I suppose I run I fairly true to type.” Nevertheless, Miss Lawson has scored a big success in what has been her ; biggest TV role in 12

years, and the critics have been unanimous in their praise of her. In private life, she is married to an actor, Patrick Allen, who has made a recent hit with a plum role in “Hard Times.” They have two sons. Patrick Allen has gone into business making television commercials — so successfully, says his wife, that his company now works on nearly 70 per cent of all the advertisments made in Britain. They have a luxury home in London’s Belgravia, and he drives a very stylish Bentley. “The funny thing is, though,” she said with a laugh, “unless you actual? ly appear regularly on the box — and by regularly, I mean really regularly, in a series like I’m doing now — people tend to think you are either dead, or you have just faded away.” Both Sarah Lawson and her husband are very much alive. He is still strikingly handsome, and she, although she will be 50 this year, is vividly attractive, with the looks and figure of someone 10 years younger. “I have never lied about my age, for two reasons,” she told me frankly. “One is that journalists always find out the truth, anyway. The other is that it’s so much nicer to tell the truth, and have people express surprise.” What was the secret of

her still beautiful skin and stunning figure? “Well, I’m very lucky,” she said. “Our two sons are away at boarding school, so I dont’ have to cook enormous meals for them every day. “And Pat, being an actor, likes to keep a reasonable eye on his weight, too.

“Obviously, it’s very much easier to stick to a fairly sensible diet, if you can persuade your husband to go along with you on it. And, fortunately, neither of us has a very sweet tooth, and we hardly ever eat bread.” And for beauty care? “Well, I do like to get plenty of sleep,” she said. “And I look after my-skin and my hair with plenty of conditioning creams —the studio lights can be terrib? ly drying.”