Sandra Dickinson: Why I'm marrying a man 20 years younger than me

By Richard Barber for MailOnline
Updated: 01:06 BST, 27 July 2009

If the cascade of golden curls and brilliant white smile are 即時に familiar, the breathy, sing-song, Marilyn Monroe 発言する／表明する is unmistakable. It belongs, of course, to Sandra Dickinson, the American actress who became a 世帯 指名する in Britain by playing young airhead blondes.

Sandra, who is now 60, still ぐずぐず残るs in the public imagination as Trillian in the classic BBC television serialisation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The 星雲.

But her 事実上の／代理 credits 含む such 情愛深く remembered ‘classics’ as 2point4 Children and Triangle ? the soap オペラ 始める，決める 船内に a North Sea フェリー（で運ぶ） ? together with a host of cameo 外見s と一緒に the likes of The Two Ronnies.

Glamorous gran: Sandra at home with her new love 示す Osmond

Sitting in her spacious bungalow in West London, Sandra seems almost untouched by the passage of time and her excitement ? almost palpable ? has an uncannily youthful 質.

It’s just 同様に, because she is about to 乗る，着手する on a 劇の new 一時期／支部 in her life. On August 16, she will marry her fiance 示す Osmond, an actor and 演劇 teacher 20 years her junior.

Relaxing in a cream 最高の，を越す, 黒人／ボイコット cotton Capri pants and high-heeled clacky mules, Sandra cheerfully points out that 示す was born in 1969, the year she arrived in Britain from her native Washington DC as a 20-year-old ingenue.

They first met in panto in Poole, Dorset, in 2002. Sandra played the 皇后 of 中国 in Aladdin, 示す was PC Pong and, she says, the attraction was mutua l.

‘But when we first got 伴う／関わるd, I told 示す I thought it was an 不適切な 関係,’ Sandra explains.

‘I was old enough to be his mother. He said he felt I was timeless. I （機の）カム to realise that you 落ちる in love with a person, not their age.’

And when asked what 示す’s mother thought about her son’s choice of partner, Sandra is as honest as she is forthright: ‘If I’d been her, I’d have been beside myself that my son was hanging out with some old 幅の広い like me,’ she laughs.

‘After all, I’m a grandmother, I’ve been married twice before and my new mother-in-法律 is only seven years older than me.

'But luckily ジーンズ couldn’t have been nicer about it all. She’s just thrilled that 示す’s so happy.’

And as Sandra points out, this has been no whirlwind romance.

示す 提案するd on bended 膝 in the 支援する garden a year after they met, producing an 約束／交戦 （犯罪の）一味 from his pocket. ‘He’s terribly romantic,’ she says.

‘I burst into 涙／ほころびs and blurted out, “Thank God!” I realised in that moment just how much he meant to me.’

Moving apart: Dancing with Peter Davison during their 16-year marriage

So why has it taken them so lon g to tie the knot? ‘As a 事柄 of fact, 示す was keener than me,’ says Sandra. ‘In the end, we decided to wait until I was 60 and he was 40.’

These days, they make light of the difference in their ages, but it wasn’t always so. ‘When the 関係 started to take off, 示す would tell me not to worry,’ she 解任するs.

‘He’d say that when I got really old, he’d 押し進める me around in a 車椅子. I was never sure whether he was 存在 肉親，親類d or humorous ? probably a bit of both.

‘にもかかわらず, it would always make me furious. I’d reply by 説 that if my family is anything to go by ? both of my parents are 91 this year ? it would be me doing the 押し進めるing.’

示す takes little 誘発するing to explain why Sandra is the woman for him.

‘She’s fun to be with, I like her tremendously and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else,’ he says.

‘She’s the love of my life. I delight in going to bed with her each night and waking up with her each morning. I love her to pieces.’

Nor does he worry about what the 未来 might bring. ‘We live life in the moment,’ he says.

And Sandra 主張するs: ‘権利 from the start, no one has ever said to either of us that we look wrong together. We feel like a good fit and other people must think so, too.’

There is no question of their having children together. ‘We’ve discussed this,’ says Sandra. ‘Apart from me, my grandson Ty is the love of 示す’s life.

‘He’s also very の近くに to his niece and 甥 and then there are all the youngsters he teaches at our own 演劇 school in Shepperton and at two colleges in Poole and Bournemouth.

‘Anyway, I’ve told him that when I turn up my toes, he should find someone else who’d make him a father.’

Ty is the son of the successful actress Georgia Moffett, Sandra’s 24-year-old daughter from her marriage to TV actor Peter Davison, whose career has embraced a string of 攻撃する，衝突するs 含むing All Creatures 広大な／多数の／重要な And Small, Doctor Who and A Very Peculiar Practice.

They married in 1978, when Sandra was, professionally, the more successful partner. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 to start a family but failed to get 妊娠している.

She was on the point of を受けるing IVF when, seven years into the marriage, she 自然に conceived Georgia.

As she longed for a second child, Peter’s career took off. 必然的に, perhaps, 割れ目s began to appear in the marriage, which ended in an acrimonious 離婚 in 1994.

Iconic: Sandra in The Hitchhikers' Guide to the 星雲

If Sandra 泡s with unforced enthusiasm about why life at the moment is ‘just heaven’, she will 収容する／認める that it wasn’t always so.

This is the first time in 16 years that she has felt ready to talk 率直に about her ‘destructive’ 関係 (the adjective is hers) with Davison.

‘In the end, I had to go,’ she says. ‘My spirit was dying. It was Peter’s 完全にする 無視（する） for me that made me realise that I deserved more, that I deserved the chance of finding happiness again.’

All these years later, she still finds it difficult to talk about the painful episode. But it is （疑いを）晴らす that she felt Davison’s career was more important to him than their 関係.

‘It was ve ry difficult,’ she 収容する／認めるs. ‘I didn’t want our marriage to end but our 関係 had been 悪化するing over a long period. Apart from anything else, I’d have 代表するd a poor 役割 model for my daughter if I’d stayed in so bad a marriage.

‘When I look 支援する now, I see an emotionally 乱打するd woman. I was はうing through life on all fours.’

When she did finally leave, there was much public 憶測 about the 推論する／理由s. ‘And it was all codswallop,’ she says.

But at the time she 辞退するd to defend her corner.

‘Everybody 手配中の，お尋ね者 my 味方する of the story but I didn’t want to get into mudslinging, so I turned 負かす／撃墜する every interview request.

‘But I feel stronger now because I’ve got this wonderful man on my 味方する. The truth is that Peter and I ますます 手配中の，お尋ね者 different things from life. And, one day, I （機の）カム to the sad 結論 that our 関係 was never going to work, that it was never going to be good again.’

What she hadn’t 心配するd were the 発言／述べるs せいにするd to her estranged husband. Whether they are 正確な or not, she’s still not sure. ‘明らかに, one of the 推論する／理由s we 分裂（する） was that I spent too much of each day Hoovering our house

in Berkshire,’ she says. ‘And that I’d also become impossible to live with because of my いわゆる desperation to have another child.’

It is （疑いを）晴らす that the barbs stung her 不正に. She 吸い込むs 深く，強烈に and collects her thoughts. ‘I was angry at the 不正 of what Peter was 報告（する）／憶測d as 説 about me.

‘Was I fond of my home? 絶対, and I won’t apologise for that. And yes, I’d had trouble conceiving Georgia. Wouldn’t most women in that position have then 手配中の，お尋ね者 to give her a brother or sister with the man they loved?’

She shakes her 長，率いる. ‘I 設立する it incredibly hard to live with the lies told about me in the 圧力（をかける）.’

Davison and Dickinson still don’t 捜し出す each other out, she says, although occasionally they find themselves in the same place at the same time.

‘I’m very dear friends with my first husband, Hugh, who’s an Oxford don,’ she says. ‘I hoped I’d have that 肉親，親類d of 関係 with Peter. But he made it （疑いを）晴らす he wasn’t 利益／興味d.’

Even so, Sandra has let go of any residual bitterness. Davison went on to marry the writer Elizabeth Morton.

‘They seem very happy, which is 広大な／多数の／重要な,’ 譲歩するs Sandra.

‘And I’m delighted for him that he’s had more children.’ Louis is ten and Joel is seven, just a few months older, in fact, than Sandra’s grandson, Ty, also seven.

And there hangs another tale. She was starring as Mrs Robinson in the West End 生産／産物 of The 卒業生（する） when her daughter Georgia, then just 16, told her she was 推定する／予想するing a baby that she ーするつもりであるd to keep.

‘It was a defining moment,’ says Sandra. ‘In that instant, I 決定するd I’d be as much of a support to her as I could かもしれない be.

'She was no longer with the baby’s father, so I became her boyfriend, husband, mother and personal assistant all rolled into one.

‘She was a child having a child. She needed me.’

But Georgia saw no 推論する／理由 why 存在 a teenage, 選び出す／独身 mother should stand in the way of her ambition to become an actress, and went on to land 役割s in The 法案 (as Lisa Maxwell’s wayward daughter), Where The Heart Is and, more recently, as Doctor Who’s daughter.

In this instance, the good Doctor was played by David Tennant, with whom Georgia is now enjoying an off-審査する romance.

In the 合間, Sandra is preoccupied with her own wedding. It will be filmed for a 文書の called Four Weddings, to be 審査するd in September.

And in August, Sandra will also be seen in the BBC1 series New Tricks. ‘I play an ex-actress who’s a cokehead,’ she says. ‘It was an unadulterated joy from start to finish.’

Sandra sighs and stands up. ‘示す is, やめる 簡単に, everything to me,’ she 発表するs. I have someone who is wonderful, committed, 養育するing and funny.

I have so much to be thankful for, but then, I do feel it’s my turn. And I’m so looking 今後 to a nice old age.’