Crossroads' Noele Gordon's love life – throuple, axed wedding and millionaires
On a freezing February day, 10,000 people lined the streets around St. Philip's Cathedral in Birmingham. It was a reception fit for TV royalty … the queen of Crossroads, Noele Gordon.
In 1975, viewers saw Noele, who played the soap's matriarch Meg Richardson, marry her on-screen lover Hugh Mortimer, played by John Bentley.
Noele's loyal fans had braved strong winds and lashing rain in a bid to get a glimpse of one of the most famous women in the country.
At its peak, Crossroads - the Midlands soap set in a motel run by Meg - attracted 15 million viewers three times a week. And when the wedding aired on TV, more than 18 million people tuned in, making it the show's most-watched episode.
The crowd of accidental extras were even kept in, although it was never explained why a motel owner would have so many people at her nuptials.
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Crossroads attracted millions of viewers with the wedding of Meg Richardson and Hugh Mortimer, played by Noele Gordon (left) and co-star John Bentley (right) respectively (ITV/REX/Shutterstock)And Noele was so adored that there was a national outcry when six years later, she was sacked from Crossroads without any warning.
That is the moment which forms the basis of the new TV drama, Nolly - after the actress's nickname - starring Helena Bonham Carter.
For Noele, who died in 1985 from cancer, it was a major heartbreak.
"I put down the phone in tears," she said. "I was shattered. By this time I was shaking. I cried all night."
Noele was used to having her heart broken - and her wedding in Crossroads was the closest she ever got to tying the knot.
Her longest relationship was with Val "Mr Television" Parnell, the managing director of ATV - the company that would go on to make Crossroads.
But their romance was far from straightforward.
The couple first met in 1943 and were together for 20 years. But Noele initially called Val - 30 years her senior - her "secret love" as he was a married man.
Noele never married in real life though, despite numerous marriage proposals from men (TV Times/Future Publishing via Getty Images)Val suggested to his wife Helen that they have an open relationship - with Noele as the other woman - and she was a welcome visitor at the London apartment the couple shared.
When the idea was initially put to Noele over lunch, she said she was "utterly flabbergasted".
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But she added: "I was still in love with him and willing to accept any proposal he put to me, no matter how unconventional, if it meant I could once more be in his arms.
"Helen took me aside and said, 'I'm prepared to accept you as his mistress if you're prepared to accept me as his wife'.
"We kissed and shook hands. From then on, I was to share the man I loved with his wife – not that I saw much of him. I was busy working on my TV shows in the Midlands and only came to London at weekends."
She had a relationship with Val Parnell (right), pictured with Aileen Cochrane (left) (Mirrorpix)Do you enjoy reading about celebrities? Sign up for all the best celeb news from the Mirror .
But in 1963, the ménage à trois came to an end when Val told Helen he was divorcing her to marry singer Aileen Cochrane. He ditched Noele too, leaving her devastated and checking herself into a care home for clinical depression.
And things only got worse when Val later said he was getting back with Helen, but not Noele. She said: "Val came to see me, but there was no dramatic reconciliation - not at that stage, anyway. All that his visit did was produce another unexpected broadside.
"I was distraught. There was nothing left to live for. Any hope I ever had of Val and I getting back together was gone. But somehow I found the strength to carry on. I learned to be a survivor."
There may never have been Val, or Crossroads, in Noele's life had things worked out with her first love, Army Captain John Robertson Dunn Crichton, then 25.
She met him at a party when she was an 18-year-old touring actress. John went to Noele perform in Liverpool one night and during an air raid after the show, he got down on one knee to propose as they crouched in the darkness.
Noele, pictured with her mother Joan Jockey Gordon (right), turned down proposals from other men (Mirrorpix)Noele said yes and quit acting to move back in with her mother in London while John lived in the barracks.
She recalled in her 1975 memoir, My Life at Crossroads: "Everything was happening just as I thought it would.
"I went to Scotland to meet his parents, he bought me a beautiful engagement ring and we were all set for a June wedding. The invitations had gone out, the honeymoon was fixed.
"But then, just a few days before the wedding, I had a letter breaking the whole thing off.
"He didn't give any real reason except that he just couldn't go through with it. I never saw him again. I cried a lot.
"Months later, mutual friends told me why John had made this decision. His family had put pressure on him not to marry me. They had nothing against me personally, but they didn't want him to marry an actress.
"I made a vow to myself that I would never marry or give up the stage unless I met a real Superman."
Noele said she turned down serious engagement proposals over the years, partly because she loved Val and partly because of her past experience of being jilted.
She recalled of New York stockbroker Sumner Walters: "He fell madly in love with me - or so he said - after meeting me at a cocktail party.
She was sacked from Crossroads without any warning (Mirrorpix)
She's being portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter in new ITX series Nolly (ITV STUDIOS)"He was a millionaire and expected me to give up my career. I wouldn't have minded but the trouble was, he wanted to turn me into someone else. He wasn't prepared to accept me as I am."
Other proposals came from a Hollywood agent called Ben, whose surname Noele claimed to have forgotten. This was despite the fact he popped the question in Times Square and called her every night, begging her to marry him.
And the American composer Frederick Loewe also proposed to Noele after she auditioned for him, saying he wanted them to marry so she would always be there to sing his songs.
Noele said that like her on-screen character Meg, she always fell for the wrong type of man.
But aside from Crossroads, it was Val who remained Noele's greatest love - and she had no regrets about their relationship.
She said: "We were in love. I'm happy to have given him 20 years of my life and if it was to happen all over again tomorrow, I would do the same."
Nolly will be on ITVX from Thursday.
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