Thanks to his disarming smile and a mop of thick blond curls, Paul Nicholas became Britain’s heartthrob playing Vince in hit sitcom Just Good Friends.
Forty years on, the actor is glad he’s no longer deluged with letters covered in hearts and sprayed with heady 1980s scents – but he misses his halo of luscious golden ringlets.
Paul, 77, says: “I’m not a heart-throb any more. I’m an almost bald old chap who’s desperately trying to hang on to his last bit of hair – without much success, I might add.
“At my age, some people are lucky enough to hang on to their hair and their looks. I wish I looked like I used to but I’m not going to have Botox or anything. Ageing comes to all of us and I am what I am.”
A UK audience of more than 21 million viewers were glued to the 1986 Christmas Day finale of Just Good Friends to see if Vince would finally marry Penny (Jan Francis), the ex he’d jilted at the altar.
Many of those viewers, if the letters which flooded the BBC were anything to go by, had a crush on Paul.
“I used to get a bit of fan mail,” says Paul. “I was always a little shy of those kind of things. But people were always nice when I signed autographs. It was flattering while it lasted.”
Just Good Friends was the brainchild of writer John Sullivan, who died in 2011. Its first episode in 1983 was an immediate ratings winner and the vintage comedy has aged well.
Can fans expect to see an update on the later lives of Vince and Penny, who was played by Jan Francis?
“I don’t think so,” says Paul. “John Sullivan created it because he’d written Only Fools and Horses and Citizen Smith and was challenged to write a romantic comedy featuring a female lead. He was the heart and soul of that show. I remember getting the script and thinking, ‘God, this is a bit special.’ Actors tend to know.
“Jan and I are still in touch occasionally. If I’m in panto down where she lives she might come and see me. And we email. She was lovely to work with, we got on very well had a similar sense of humour and it was a great success for us. But actors move on.”
Just Good Friends may have made Paul a household name but he’d been a West End star ever since his 1968 debut in Hair. After his leading role in Jesus Christ Superstar he launched a pop career as Paul Dean from 1976.
Each decade since has seen Paul in demand and he recently ended a stint in EastEnders when he terrorised Albert Square as Kathy Beale’s evil third husband Gavin Sullivan.
With every acting offer comes a reminder that he’s in a more mature category now. Paul says: “Just before the pandemic, I got a call from my agent who said I was being considered for Guys and Dolls. I said, ‘Oh that’ll be the Sky Masterton role – the Marlon Brando part?’ But my agent said no. So I said, ‘It must be the Sinatra part, Nathan Detroit?’ My agent replied, ‘No, no’. Then he said, ‘It’s the Grandfather’.”
In Paul’s latest role, as Douglas in a new stage version of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, he performs alongside fellow acting legends Hayley Mills, 76, and Rula Lenska, 74.
“The play deals with older people which is nice because you don’t get many plays where seven or eight of the leading cast are over 70,” he says.
“It’s about older people going to India and living in a retirement hotel, how they get on with each other.
“It’s a happy, fun show. If you’re old you’ll recognise yourself and if you’re young and you’ll see characters who remind you of your Auntie Marge.”
When the play tours Britain until June 2023, should local nightclubs expect to see the cast partying wildly?
“Our aftershow parties will be simpler and perhaps end a little earlier,” says Paul. “Although we’re all in our 70s, there’s a great line in the play which is, ‘We’re not old, we’ve just been young for a very long time’.
“That pretty much sums up the cast. So I doubt if our partying will have changed very much from when I was in my 20s but I don’t think we’ll be in our slippers.”
Paul has no plans to retire. Over the past couple of years he has produced his own CD and written his autobiography Music, Marigolds and Me. He plans to keep working.
“I don’t do any exercise but then I never did. I’m not that interested in food so I’m slim-ish and pretty much the same weight.
“So I feel OK. I was never a big drinker – half a shandy and I’m anybody’s. The important thing about growing older is to keep a sense of humour.”
Born Paul Beuselinck in Peterborough, Paul’s father Oscar was an MI6 agent.
“Dad spoke Dutch and French and I know he was at the Allied Landings. Then he became quite a successful showbusiness lawyer, representing The Beatles and Sean Connery.
“To some extent I was introduced to showbusiness by him because he took me, at a young age, to see The Crazy Gang at the Victoria Palace.
“But we didn’t entertain Dad’s showbiz mates at home – probably because my mother couldn’t cook.”
Paul, who has been married to second wife Linzi Jennings for 38 years, has six children, 13 grandchildren and three great-grandkids.
“I have an extremely tolerant wife,” Paul adds. “I’m quite quiet. I don’t have lots of friends. I’m not very sociable but she is. It’s that opposites attract thing. We’ve got a lovely family, we share similar values.
“She’s honest, straight-forward, unpretentious and a lovely looking lady. A very kind person. I love her. I’ve loved her for a long time. And I’ll love her till the end of my days.”
- The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is at the Theatre Royal Brighton from tomorrow to Saturday, at Theatre Royal, Glasgow, from September 27 to October 1, at Theatre Royal, Newcastle from October 4 to 8, then touring. See marigoldshow.com
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