I mentioned that there were a few actresses that I could remember who hated having to do nude scenes, and one that stuck in the memory was an actress I quite liked that started out as a child star and that was Holly Aird. Now best remembered for Soldier, Soldier (1991-95) and Waking the Dead (2000-05) among others, she made her screen debut aged 11 in the 1980 TV version of The History of Mr Polly before finding fame in The Flame Trees of Thika (1981). A child star who made the transition to adulthood, she was a familiar face in numerous things, such as Inspector Morse (1988), Mother Love (1989) and Miss Marple (1991) to name but a few. However, one thing she seemed determined to avoid doing was nude scenes. Often turning down scripts that required her to bare all, she was so determined to avoid flashing the flesh that when she was cast in The Happy Valley in 1987 (as a girl who is regularly caned by her stepfather in a true life story based on the incidents in the film White Mischief) she refused to bare her bum for the crucial scene where she showed the police officer in Africa her injuries in order to prove her story of cruel treatment by her stepfather (as what happened in real life). Instead she ended up showing the Kenyan officer the back of her legs.
However, despite her best efforts, in 1997 she was eventually forced to face her fears when she was cast in the rarely repeated TV drama serial Have Your Cake and Eat It, where she played a woman who has an affair with the married Robert Glenister (on screen, I hasten to add). The nature of the drama meant that she would have to strip off for a nude sex scene, and was eventually persuaded by the director Paul Seed that it was necessary to "contrast the torrid passion of their affair with that of her lover's gentile marriage to Sinead Cusack." (Good excuse, Paul!) Even so, she hated doing it, as she describes in an interview for the Sunday Mirror at the time:
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Torri......-a061121926.
Quote:
The scene is a hotel bedroom. A married, middle-aged man and a beautiful young woman stand facing each other. Both are naked.
Slowly, she falls back on the bed, her arms around his neck, her legs wrapped around his body as they abandon themselves to unbridled passion.
It's their first time as lovers. But as far as peeling off on screen, it's definitely the last time for Soldier, Soldier star Holly Aird.
Holly, 29, loathed every minute of the sizzling scenes in Have Your Cake And Eat It, BBC's new drama about adultery which hits our screens next month.
"Ugh! It was very, very embarrassing," says Holly, "I hated doing it. Hated it. It was the worst thing I have ever done. Never, ever again!"
To add to her embarrassment, Holly was actually pregnant when the cameras rolled. And James Purefoy, her real-life lover and father of her new- born baby son, was also appearing in the four-part drama.
""The fact that I wasn't making love with James was very, very weird," says Holly, who played Paddy Garvey's other half, Sgt Nancy Thorpe, in Soldier, Soldier.
"Of course James has seen the scene and he was a bit strange about it. But it's done now.""
She adds: "I have been acting for 18 years and I have turned down loads of nude scenes in the past because it's just not me.
"Now I have proved it to myself. I'm definitely not an exhibitionist in that way. I feel that if I'd wanted to take my clothes off all the time, I'd have become a prostitute!"
She did it this time, she explains, only because director Paul Seed said it was important to contrast the intensity of the lovers' illicit passion with the calmer bed scenes between the husband - Miles Anderson - and his wife of 20 years - Sinead Cusack.
It was only after signing to play the mistress, Allie, that Holly realised she was pregnant.
The one saving grace was that she knew Miles, who played Lt Col Fortune in Soldier, Soldier.
"Thank God it was him," says Holly. "He was really good with me. He was wonderful,very supportive. We prepared by having quite a few glasses of wine and a laugh.
"I had quite a few talks with Paul because I was worried about exactly how it was going to be done.
"Even then, and despite working with Paul, a director I trusted, I hated it.
"``I suppose part of the reason I hated it so much was that I was newly pregnant.
"I know a lot of actresses, friends of mine, do it all the time and don't even mention it. To them, it's no big deal.
"A lot more are exploited. It doesn't happen with actors so much! Bloody annoying, that!"
I also remember her saying in another newspaper interview that she downed a whole bottle of wine before she could summon up the courage to strip off for the scene, which saw her bare all for the cameras. And even when she got the scene over and done with she vowed never to bare all again on camera - and sadly was true to her word. It was her one and only nude scene, and as for the series itself "Have Your Cake and Eat It" has never been repeated or even been released on DVD - rather like A Time To Dance (1992) with Dervla Kirwan. (Maybe they've been buying up all the copies to stop them being seen?) As for Holly's nudity fear, and also the previously mentioned avoiding the bum baring scene in The Happy Valley (1987), a clue might be in a newspaper article I have that she did in 1991 when she revealed that the part of her body she hated the most was her bum! I'm uploading it here, along with photos of her nude scene in Have Your Cake and Eat It, as it may interest some on here. I loved the part of the interview where they asked her what she wore in bed, and how when she had boyfriends you can't really wear anything because "men get really funny about it." Funny that. Anyway, hope this is of interest.