Jane Seymour's Story - written by Jane Seymour exclusively for Hello- Part Three

(copy right Hello Magazine)

As far as I was concerned I was retired, but my agent didn't quite share my views. He kept a look-out for jobs. At some point someone offered me the role of Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House. A good opportunity, a good role. I rejected it.

Geep found out and he asked what was wrong with me and why I hadn't accepted it. I replied that I simply couldn't return to the theatre.

"Of course you can," he said, a bit fed up with so much nonsense. "Pick up the book and vanish from my sight until you've learned by heart the first ten pages! I don't want to see you until you've done so!"

I locked myself up in my bedroom and emerged half an hour afterwards. I'd learned the first ten pages by heart! Geep made me say them out loud.

"See how you can do it?" He said.

Thanks to Geep's encouragement, and his trust in me, I returned to acting. When I stepped back on stage again, I felt that same old love for my profession and I never betrayed that love again.

The play was a success and the offers started coming in again. Theatre, television. Above all television. In the following months I did Our Mutual Friend by Dickens and King David. Something very funny happened to me when I was working on the latter.

I was playing the role of Bathsheba and at some point I was supposed to give birth. I didn't have any experience of this sort of thing then. So, since my father was one of England's top gynecologists, I went to him for advice. And he briefed me very thoroughly on the matter, maybe even too thoroughly..

The birth scene arrived. Everything was ready. The director yelled "Action" and I got down to it. I did such a good job that some gypsies hired as extras thought the real thing was happening. They started calling for water thinking I was going to give birth right there and then! They made such a fuss and caused such a stir that filming was suspended that day.

I would experience the joys of having a child years later and that was quite a different affair..

Maintaining a relationship means hard work on both sides. I've always been romantic and I've been lucky enough to share my life with men who also possessed this quality. A romance or a marriage will just fizzle out if neither partner is willing to make the effort to make a loved one happy by caring and giving little surprises. A brief holiday in the sunshine far away from the cold winter; a basket with bread, flowers; a quick picnic in Hyde Park, won't ruin anyone. All you need is a bit of imagination.

We, Geep and I, didn't have much money, but we pleased each other often with small details. One winter morning Geep turned up with a surprise. Neither of us knew then it would be one of the big ones.

"I have a present for you." Geep said, hiding something behind his back. "Would you like a brief sunny holiday on a Mediterranean island?"