I had a husband who, I'm convinced, was an undiagnosed manic depressive. He didn't treat me as if I had a brain - I was just this beautiful little doll he could show off.

I'd been a housewife and mother to our son Thomas Jefferson, and I was looking for a new career. So when my agent called and said a producer named Paul Elliott from E&B productions, the biggest panto company in the country at the time, wanted to meet me I agreed.

Back then I was called Dumbo because of my ears. I was called Fatty, too. It was hurtful so I became like the class clown. I became the one who was kicked around.

I was brought up very conservatively. My father was positively Victorian - I wasn't even allowed to wear my hair down.

The idea of doing theatre always terrified me because I get terrible stage fright. In the early 1970s I was offered a panto but the thought of going on stage was just too mortifying.

I believe you need scientific proof that something works before you entrust your health to it.

I would teach U.K. parents how to stop their children throwing litter. London is a beautiful city but its streets are disgusting.