Jane Asher

Jane Asher
Born	5 April 1946 (1946-04-05) Willesden, London, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1952–present
Spouse	Gerald Scarfe (m. 1981) «start: (1981)»"Marriage: Gerald Scarfe to Jane Asher" Location: (linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Asher)
Partner	Paul McCartney (1963–1968)

Jane Asher (born 5 April 1946) is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.

Early life

Asher was the middle of three children born to Richard Alan John and Margaret Asher, née Eliot, in Willesden, North West London. Her father was a consultant in blood and mental diseases at the Central Middlesex Hospital in Acton, west London, as well as being a broadcaster and author of many notable medical articles; her mother was a professor of oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and taught George Martin to play the instrument and Paul McCartney to play the recorder.^{[citation needed]} Jane was educated at Queen's College in Harley Street, London. Her younger sister is Clare Asher, who was for a brief time a radio actress and is now a schools inspector; her elder brother is record producer Peter Asher, formerly one half of the duo Peter & Gordon, and whose daughter is Victoria Asher, keytarist of the band Cobra Starship.

Asher's first appearance as a child actress was as Nina in the 1952 film Mandy, followed by her appearance in the 1955 science fiction film The Quatermass Xperiment. She also recorded the title role in dramatised versions of Alice in Wonderland (1958) and Through the Looking-Glass for Argo Records, acting alongside Tony Church, Norman Shelley and Carleton Hobbs, with Margaretta Scott as the narrator. In 1961 she co-starred with Kenneth More and Susannah York in the UK film The Greengage Summer, released in the United States as Loss of Innocence. She also appeared as her distant relative^{[citation needed]} Lady Jane Grey in the 1962 film and Disney TV programme, The Prince and the Pauper. British TV appearances included three episodes (1956–1958) of the British TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood (working alongside her brother Peter) and as a panellist on the BBC's Juke Box Jury.

Relationship with Paul McCartney

In 1963, Asher interviewed The Beatles. A photographer for the BBC's Radio Times asked them to pose with Asher. Asher subsequently commenced a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney, becoming engaged in 1967.

McCartney stayed in the Asher family home at 57 Wimpole Street from 1964–66 and wrote several Beatles songs there. He wrote in a room usually used for music lessons. The Asher house was also a place of intellectual stimulation for McCartney. He enjoyed the rarefied atmosphere of upper-middle class conversation and company that the house afforded, and to which he aspired. According to Cynthia Lennon, McCartney was "as proud as a peacock" to have Jane as a girlfriend, and saw her as "a great prize." However, Marianne Faithfull remembered McCartney and Asher "never getting on very well," and described one evening at Cavendish Avenue when McCartney wanted a window to be open and Asher wanted it shut. McCartney would repeatedly get up and open the window and then Asher would get up and close it, although neither of them made any comment about it during the whole evening.

On 25 December 1967 McCartney and Asher announced their engagement, and she accompanied McCartney to India in February and March 1968 to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Asher ended the engagement in early 1968, after returning from Bristol to discover Paul in bed with another woman, Francie Schwartz. However, Schwartz stated that McCartney and Asher had already broken up before the incident. They attempted to mend the relationship, but finally ended it on 20 July 1968 when Asher told the BBC they were no longer engaged. Asher has consistently refused publicly to discuss McCartney or her time with him, and has maintained her position on the matter to this day. On this basis, she is described by the Beatles' 1968 biographer Hunter Davies as the only major Beatles associate not to have published her recollections.

Acting

Asher appeared in Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Alfie, opposite Michael Caine in 1966, and in Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End. Thereafter, she was more commonly seen on television: she guest-starred in an episode of the British television comedy series The Goodies in the episode "Punky Business", as a trend-setting newspaper writer, patterned on the punk journalist Caroline Coon alias Caroline Kook; The Stone Tape; Rumpole of the Bailey; Brideshead Revisited; as Faith Ashley, A Voyage Round My Father opposite Laurence Olivier; Wish Me Luck (three series in 1987–89); The Mistress (1985–87); Crossroads Mark III (2003) as hotel owner Angel Samson who, as the series ended,woke up behind a supermarket checkout to realise she had dreamt the whole thing and the characters in the hotel were made up of colleagues and customers.

In 1994, she portrayed the Doctor Who companion Susan Foreman in a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman? Another notable radio appearance was in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 2002, in the episode "The Peculiar Persecution of Mr John Vincent Harden". She starred in The World's Biggest Diamond, by Gregory Motton, at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005.^{[citation needed]} In 2006, Asher starred in the Richard Fell adaptation of the 1960s science fiction series A for Andromeda, which aired on the British digital television station BBC Four. In 2007, she portrayed the widow Sandra in the Frank Oz film Death at a Funeral. Asher appeared in the BBC medical Drama, Holby City as Lady Byrne, a role she still occasionally reprises - although as Luke Roberts, who played her onscreen son, has now left the show, it is unlikely she will reprise the role again. In October 2007, she played Andrea Yates in a story in The Sarah Jane Adventures, in the episode "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?" Asher co-starred in the 2008 ITV drama series The Palace, filmed in Lithuania; she played Queen Charlotte, mother of King Richard IV. The Palace broadcast on ITV1 at 9pm every Monday for eight weeks, beginning on the 14 January 2008.^{[citation needed]}

In August 2008, Asher appeared in the reality TV talent show-themed television series, Maestro on BBC Two. In summer 2008, Asher participated in the BBC's Maestro series where eight well-known show business personalities competed for the "prize" of conducting during Proms in the Park. In 2009, she played Sally in the BBC One comedy series The Old Guys.

In October 2009, she appeared as Delia in Peter Hall's revival of Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce at the Rose Theatre, Kingston and in her first pantomime, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Richmond Theatre in December 2009, receiving enthusiastic reviews for both.

Businesses and philanthropy

Asher has written three best-selling novels: The Longing, The Question and Losing It, and published more than a dozen lifestyle, costuming, and cake decorating books. Asher runs a company making party cakes and sugar crafts for special occasions.

She is a shareholder in Private Eye, President of Arthritis Care and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. She is also President of the National Autistic Society, in which she takes an active role. She was a speaker at the launch of the National Autistic Society's "Make School Make Sense" campaign alongside Joshua Muggleton. She is President of Parkinson's UK.

In March 2010, Asher became Vice President to Autistica, a UK charity raising funds for autism research.

Family

Asher met the illustrator Gerald Scarfe in 1971, and they married ten years later when Asher was expecting their second child. They have a daughter and two sons:

1. Katie Scarfe, born 1974
2. Alexander Scarfe, born 1981
3. Rory Scarfe, born 1984

Asher is the aunt of Victoria Asher, keytar and backup vocalist of Cobra Starship.

Selected filmography

• Mandy (1952) as Nina
• Adventure in the Hopfields (1954)
• Charley Moon (1956)
• The Greengage Summer (1961) as Hester Grey
• Girl in the Headlines (1963) as Lindy Birkett
• The Masque of the Red Death (1964) as Francesca
• Alfie (1966) as Annie
• The Winter's Tale (1967)
• Deep End (1970) as Susan
• The Buttercup Chain (1970) as Margaret
• Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972) as Jane Seymour
• Hawkmoor as Lady Johane Williams (1978)
• Runners (1983) as Helen
• Success Is the Best Revenge (1984) as Bank Manager
• Dreamchild (1985) as Mrs. Liddell
• Paris by Night (1988) as Pauline
• Closing Numbers (1993)
• Tirante el Blanco (2006) as Empress of Visantia
• Death at a Funeral (2007) as Sandra
• Sarah Jane Adventures- Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? (2007) as Andrea Yates
• Old Guys (2008–2010) as Sally
• Waterloo Road (2011)

References

• Lennon, Cynthia (June 1978). A Twist of Lennon. London: Star Books. ISBN 0-352-30196-1. 
• Lennon, Cynthia (September 2005). John. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-89511-X. 
• Miles, Barry (October 1997). Many Years from Now. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-28022-1. 
• Spitz, Bob (November 2005). The Beatles: The Biography. London: Aurum Press. ISBN 0-316-80352-9. 

External links

• Jane Asher blog
• Jane Asher at the Internet Movie Database
• Jane Asher at the Internet Broadway Database