Veteran actor Nigel Havers - who will shortly star at the Gaiety Theatre - credits his wife Georgiana Bronfman for saving him from grief following the death of his second wife, Polly Williams.
The Chariots of Fire star was happily married to Polly Williams for many years before her death from ovarian cancer in 2004 at the age of 54. Havers took a sabbatical from his acting career for a three-year period to be by her side as she fought the illness.
A mutual friend, Georgiana Bronfman comforted him after his wife's death and the pair were married three years later.
Havers credits Bronfman for saving him in his grief, and marriage, he tells today's Belfast Telegraph, is a condition that suits him.
"I'm of an age now that I'm very settled, nothing's going to change now," he says. "I'm a very lucky man. If you have that, you can go off and do anything. I can only really work properly that way.
"Some people can be very chaotic and still manage to get it all together. I think it's quite unnerving if the background isn't settled. It's enough panic doing a play. It's like going to the gallows - it's D-day happening in two and a half weeks' time. Acting is living on the edge of a precipice."
Havers, who is now 66, was a mere 22 when he married his first wife Carolyn Cox. The marriage lasted 15 years, the couple subsequently separated but are on good terms nowadays. They have a daughter, Kate.
According to today's Belfast Telegraph, Havers left the marriage after falling for model and actress Polly Williams.
The effects of the split drove him into a severe depression and he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. "I couldn't speak any more, I found difficulty speaking to anybody, not chatting, just speaking about anything," the actor told Piers Morgan last year, blaming himself for the marriage break-up.
Of more immediate interest, Nigel Havers stars alongside Denis Lawson and Stephen Tomkinson in Yasmina Reza's multi award-winning comedy, ART, which plays at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, from March 19 to 24.
"It is twenty years since Dafydd [Rogers] and I first produced the comedy masterpiece ART in the West End, and the original post-London tour played for 78 weeks, " producer David Pugh declares of the production which opened in Cambridge this month.
"This time, we want to break our own record; in fact, we want to play as many theatres as Sir Ken Dodd has played in his wonderful career, and with this marvellous cast, we think we have every chance."
