—– Original Message —–
From: "merligo" <moonroll@ntlworld.com>
To: <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 2:32 PM
Subject: [shiponedingroup] Hi> Thanks for inviting me to join the Group.
>
> I LOVE Onedin Line and am a great fan of Anne Stallybrass & Peter
> Gilmore.The cast list over the years the show was aired has many famous (now) names,
just from memory and without thinking too much about it, we have Jane
Semour, John Thaw, Michael Billington, Windsor Davies, there are others.
Quite a few careers were "launched" (nice tie to shipping). There were also
of course actors of long standing, such as the excellent James Hayter
(Captain Webster).Probably the biggest star of this outstanding series at the time was Jessica
Benton (Elizabeth).Most accounts of the series one reads now seem to barely mention her. I
believe this is mainly because she decided to withdraw from the acting
profession and the public eye.The last I heard of her was that she married a photographer called Charles
Waite and now lives in Dorset. She remained good friends with other cast
members particularly Howard Lang until his death (Baines) and Peter Gilmor
(James).Jessica was a "household name" over the years the series ran in the UK a big
star at the time, her fans who I am one, missed those outstanding
performances and wonder what might have been if she had continued her
career.Michael Billington has a website:
http://www.michaelbillington.org.uk/
and seems to be quite approachable, perhaps the list owner might like to
invite him to join our group?I have every copy of the show on tape (I think 91). Some I recorded when
originally aired, some when repeated on the BBC Circa1984 and the rest from
UK Gold some years ago. (Unfortunately the image quality of a lot of these
while "watchable" is not very good and of course the tapes are getting quite
old now, so I am hoping for repeats on a digital service sometime.I would like yourself welcome the whole series on DVD but I suspect there
might be some rights problems . Also just how good is the present offering
on DVD?If I can help with any information let me know,
Bill.
Skip to content
