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United States Brian May's wife says it was tough becoming 'cook, cleaner and carer' after his heart attack
Anita Dobson has admitted it was tough going from showbiz to being “cleaner, cook and carer” following her husband Brian May’s heart attack.
The former EastEnders star said it was a “nightmare” when the Queen guitarist, 74, suddenly fell ill in May 2020 during the first coronavirus lockdown.
And she admitted she feared her showbiz life had changed forever.
Anita, 72, said: “My husband had a heart attack, sciatica and a haemorrhage, and I suddenly went from being a working actress to being a cleaner, cook and carer.
“Not a role I’m easily castable for! I did the best I could and thank God he’s all right now.
“He’s very kind. He says, ‘It’s down to Anita that I got through it’.
“But what you would have seen behind the scenes was a menial who was so grumpy it just wasn’t true.
“I’d go off into a corner and mutter away to myself, the cat, the fish and the birds in the trees – anybody who would listen.”
Anita said that when Brian – who she wed in 2000 – started to get better she questioned whether she would always have to be his carer.
She said: “Lockdown was dreadful, a nightmare that I wish never to go back into.
“Even when Brian started to get better there was this awful feeling of is this my life now?” But the star, who is best known for playing Queen Vic landlady Angie Watts in EastEnders from 1985 to 1988, has managed to returned to acting.
She plays Grace Stephenson, the downtrodden wife of spiritual Brethren leader Dennis Stephenson (Martin Shaw) in new ITV drama The Long Call.
The actor said the part was “a gift from the Gods to play”.
She said: “She’s a sad little wretch of a woman. She’s very quiet – her social skills have gone – and she’s trapped in a limbo land, where she can’t go forward in her life, but she can’t go back. She’s slowly imploded.
“I’m stripped back to nothing. I look like death on legs. There’s not much of a twinkle.”
Anita said she hoped to continue to act for a long time and told Woman’s Weekly magazine she had no plans to retire.
She added: “I have no fears of playing old. This is what I love best.”
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