Nanette Newman and John Standing, Oldie In-Laws of the Year. By Charlotte Metcalf
Actress and author Nanette Newman, 90, is the mother-in-law of actor John Standing, also 90.
United by their acting careers as well as their family, Nanette and her son-in-law are just three months apart in age.
John’s wife is the journalist Sarah Standing, Nanette’s older daughter by the film director the late Bryan Forbes (1926-2013). Nanette and Bryan also had a second daughter, Emma, the television presenter.
Bryan Forbes is most famous for his debut film Whistle Down the Wind (1961). Nanette met Bryan in 1953 at Marylebone Station when he was on the tracks acting the part of someone killing himself. Eighteen-year-old Nanette had been sent to try for a part in the film, but it was the last day of shooting.
Nevertheless, Bryan drove her home, and that was that. They were married for 57 years. She’s said that marrying Bryan was the cleverest thing she ever did.
Nanette went on to appear in nine of her husband’s films, including The Raging Moon (1971), The Stepford Wives (1975) and International Velvet (1978), for which she won the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actress.
Oldies will remember Nanette for starring in numerous Fairy Liquid ads, particularly the one in the ’60s with four-year-old Leslie Ash playing her daughter and marvelling at her soft ‘hands that do dishes’. Nanette is also the author of 30 children’s books and six cookery books.
John Standing is one of the most instantly recognisable oldies on stage and screen. He’s played numerous parts in TV series such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Crown, Midsomer Murders and Patrick Melrose, and last year starred with Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson in The Great Escaper.
Despite his success as a thespian, John wanted to be a painter and studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art. However, he comes from a big family of actors who didn’t think a job was a job unless it was on the stage or screen. He landed his first part in 1955 as a spear carrier in Titus Andronicus with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Oliver, and has gone on to work with some of the greatest of our time, notably with Maggie Smith in Private Lives directed by John Gielgud.
Happily he now has more time to paint and see his family, including his dear mother-in-law.
