Likely Lad James Bolam Didn't Even Get In Touch When My Wife Died But I'd Like To Be Friends Again

• Report rights infringement
• published: 05 Sep 2015
• views: 1430

The fall-out between Likely Lads James Bolam and Rodney Bewes was one of the most spectacular in showbusiness The fall-out between the two stars who kept the whole nation laughing as The Likely Lads is one of the most spectacular in showbusiness. The double-act which pulled in TV audiences of 27 million was sundered forever when Rodney Bewes told a harmless but personal story about James Bolam and his wife in a 1976 press interview. He rang to apologise the next day. But New Tricks star Bolam put the phone down and has never spoken to him again. Not even the sudden death of Rodney’s wife Daphne, 73, has been enough to soften his ex-co-star’s heart. “I got letters from people from all over the world,” says Rodney, now 77, “but there’s not a letter from Jimmy about Daphne dying. I didn’t expect him to get in touch. It would have given me a dreadful shock if he did. “He knew her very well. We were all great friends when we worked together. “It was terrible. She had a stroke and died in four weeks. She could have lasted four or eight years in a nursing home, but just four weeks it was all over.” The original black-and-white Likely Lads series, set in Newcastle, ran from 1964 to 1966, and was followed in 1973-74 by the equally popular Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. The duo played old friends whose lives stayed locked together – Bolam as the cynical, defiantly working-class Terry Collier and Bewes as the quieter, going-up-in-the-world Bob Ferris. Their 40-year estrangement formed part of Rodney’s one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lad? But he didn’t tell audiences of his heartache over the death of Daphne three months ago. The couple married and had daughter Daisy in 1973, then triplets Tom, Billy and Joe in 1976. It was a surprise, as they’d been expecting twins. “When my three boys were born, the first place I went to that night was Jimmy’s house to tell him Denise had had three babies instead of two,” says Rodney. “I remember Jimmy said, ‘Here’s a glass of wine.’?” The triplets played an curious part in the original fall-out between the two stars. In the fateful press interview, Rodney recalled the moment Bolam’s wife, actress Susan Jameson, told her husband she was pregnant while he was driving. She said: “Jimmy, you know Daphne had three babies at once... well, I’m just having the one.” He promptly swerved on to the kerb and nearly hit a lamppost. Rodney realised his innocent anecdote may have overstepped the mark so made the phone call that was his last-ever communication with Bolam, now 80. “I would love to be friends with him, but he doesn’t want to be friends with me,” he says. “I can’t be like Jimmy, I can’t be that angry. We’re different animals.” Sunderland-born Bolam went on to star in the drama When The Boat Comes In, comedy Only When I Laugh and The Beiderbecke Trilogy. He was serial killer GP Dr Harold Shipman in a docu-drama and until 2011 was in BBC crime drama New Tricks. He got an MBE too. “Now he doesn’t want to talk about The Likely Lads at all,” says Rodney. “He hates it. He thinks it’s beneath him. It’s not beneath him – it’s what made him.