Charles Dance has said that becoming a sex symbol in the Eighties put a strain on his former relationship.
The actor, who can currently be seen alongside Eddie Redmayne inThe Day of the Jackal on Sky Atlantic, was married to sculptor Joanna Haythorn for more than three decades from 1970 to 2004.
They had two children together, Rebecca and Oliver, but their marriage hit difficulties after Dance starred in ITV drama The Jewel in the Crown in 1984.
In the show, about the final days of the British Raj in India during and after World War II, Dance played a strapping young sergeant called Guy Perron, a role that turned him into a bit of a heartthrob.
“I was the thinking woman’s crumpet,” the actor, 78, told The Times in a new interview. “It was ridiculous.”
Dance was unfaithful to Haythorn, who died around 10 years ago. “We divorced after 32 years but after the first 18 months, which were not great, thankfully we ended up the best of friends,” he said.
“But all that attention, yes, it did go to my head a bit… and it must have been very difficult for Jo. Difficult for anybody in the public eye because they then get attention as well, you know? The kids get scrutinised, the wife gets looked at. That’s not what they bargained for.”
On whether it was hard for him, he added: “Well, it’s a learning curve. I don’t want to pass the buck but I wasn’t terribly well advised at the time. I was advised, ‘You’ve to do an interview for this, an interview for this.’ Bloody Hello! magazine, even. Please.”
He said his marriage “wasn’t a failure”, but he regrets “that it didn’t last longer than it did”.
Dance is now in a relationship with Alessandra Masi, an Italian production manager and former actor who is 22 years his junior. They met in Italy in 2018 while making a film.
The Game of Thrones star also has a second daughter, Rose, born in 2012, from a four-year relationship with the artist Eleanor Boorman.
He can next be seen as Michelangelo in Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty, a docudrama that begins on BBC Two on 2 December.
