By RICHARD KAY
As Sir Bruce Forsyth polishes his one-liners and tweaks his black tie for the start of his latest Strictly Come Dancing stint tonight, he has more things to worry about than criticism of how he squints at the Autocue to read his jokes.
For, unknown to the millions who tune in to the show — whose latest contestants include ex-Bond girl Fiona Fullerton, golfer Tony Jacklin and Countdown’s gorgeous Rachel Riley — Bruce is soon to face details of his romantic past being exposed by a former lover.
Britain’s second ever Miss World, Ann Sidney, is writing her life story, in which she reveals their steamy nights of love-making while he was still married to his first wife, Penny Calvert, whom he wed in 1953.
Passion : At 19, Ann Sidney was having a steamy love affair with Bruce Forsyth, who was 35 at the time
Ann had a tumultuous affair with Bruce when he was hosting Sunday Night At The London Palladium aged 35. She was 19.
‘We met when we were both in summer seaside shows on the South Coast. Bruce pursued me all over the place,’ says Ann, who went on to marry West End producer Duncan Weldon.
‘It was mad,’ she tells me. ‘We were together for quite a while but it ended badly. Bruce never forgave me.’
Raven-haired Ann, still vivacious at 69, actually left the Miss World dinner after she had been crowned in order to spend the biggest night of her life with Bruce downing bottles of champagne in his London flat. ‘He was married at the time but told me he was separated,’ she tells me.
The 85-year-old is still a Saturday TV favourite
In fact, Forsyth was still living with his dancer wife, who believed her husband’s affair broke up their marriage.
Says Ann: ‘This is the right time to talk about all of this because next year it will be 50 years since I was crowned Miss World, and the competition is still watched by so many people.
‘It’s also about growing up in the Fifties and what Britain was like then. I was a trainee hairdresser after I left school but discovered I could make £700 a week on the beauty contest circuit, which was fabulous money in those days.’
Ann has completed 90,000 words of her story and is now looking for a literary agent. Perversely, while disclosing much that Forsyth might have wanted to remain private, she will undoubtedly greatly contribute to sexing up Brucie’s image just when he needs it.
Delight: Jazz singer Emma Munro-Wilson
Unlike society design guru Nicky Haslam, who was given star treatment when he performed Cole Porter songs at the Savoy Hotel in London, lovely jazz singer Emma Munro-Wilson had to use the staff entrance and sign herself in and out.
Not that she objected. For now Emma — daughter of the Duchess of Cornwall’s childhood chum, merchant banker Broderick Munro-Wilson, is getting the red carpet treatment at a much more unusual venue — the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
Emma, 34, who once spent a year singing jazz standards on board the Queen Mary II — she was only seasick once — is performing a specially-written song in front of 15,000 people this weekend at the remembrance charity’s annual Ride To The Wall.
‘A composer friend has written a special song for the event entitled You Are Not Fallen and approached me out of the blue to sing it. I was absolutely delighted,’ says Emma, who is more frequently to be found performing Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald numbers.
‘This will be very different but I am really looking forward to it,’ she adds.
The event attracts thousands of motorcyclists who travel to the memorial from all over the country.
Hit it off: Ruth Kelleher and Simon Dutton
Once married to Laurence Olivier’s restaurateur daughter Tamsin, actor Simon Dutton reveals that after a chance encounter with a blonde on a cross-Channel ferry he is taking the plunge again.
Indeed Simon, who starred as TV’s The Saint in the Eighties, is not just planning to wed nurse Ruth Kelleher, but is about to become a father for the third time at 55.
‘It was like something out of Brief Encounter when I met Ruth on board a ferry from Portsmouth to Caen,’ twice-married Simon tells me at a Dorchester reception for William Boyd’s new novel, Solo.
‘We were on deck when I asked for a light for my cigar. I bought her a glass of wine and we hit it off but went our separate ways.
When I disembarked I thought: “I’m not going to let this lady go” and ran after her car for her number.’
A few weeks later Simon travelled to the Cotswolds, where mother-of-one Ruth lives, and took her out for dinner.
‘We will be getting married as soon as we can get round to it,’ adds Simon.
Back at No 10, where he was co-hosting a reception for 22 former international cricket captains, Sir John Major led the guests, who included Sir Vivian Richards, David Gower and Andrew Strauss, into the Cabinet Room.
Prompted by the sight of the well-padded Mike Gatting sitting in the only chair with arms — the Prime Minister’s seat, if you please — one-Test skipper Chris Cowdrey observed: ‘Not since Winston Churchill has a chair felt such strain.’
Beloved by celebrity foodies such as Gwyneth Paltrow and yummy mummies, I am sad to report Tom’s Deli, the Notting Hill delicatessen owned by Tom Conran, has closed.
‘After 23 years, it’s the end of an era. I feel like crying,’ says Tom, 49, son of Sir Terence Conran and his second wife, cookery writer Caroline.
‘But the area has become so fashionable, greedy landlords are pushing out all the individual traders.
‘My rent has increased from £10,000 to £110,000 a year. I was losing loads of money and I was in denial because the business meant so much to me I didn’t want to give it up.
‘Now everything is becoming faceless fashion shops. The powers-that-be should be doing more to protect small businesses that add colour and character to the area.
‘When I put the notice up on my door saying we were closing it broke my heart,’ he adds.
Indeed, Tom’s life during the past few years has not been easy. He also tells me he is now divorced from his American ex-model wife Cynthia, mother of his three daughters.
Shoppers who spot supermodel Erin O’Connor sashaying down her local supermarket aisle without a trolley need not be alarmed.
The gangly mannequin is simply practising her technique for the catwalk. ‘Sometimes I get so carried away I forget my trolley,’ says Erin, 35, at the Royal Opera House launch of Sky’s TV modelling series, The Face.
She was instructed how to walk properly at fashion shows by the late Gianni Versace.
‘He taught me to walk like a woman,’ Erin says. ‘It took me a while but I got there in the end.’
P.S There will be a champagne celebration in the West Sussex village of Southwater today for the 90th birthday of still bubbly French actress Violetta Farjeon, star of the original 1954 London production of Sandy Wilson’s musical The Boy Friend.
The widow of Players’ Theatre director Gervase Farjeon, Violetta stopped the show nightly with the number It’s Nicer In Nice.
Wilson remembers her dance routine for the song becoming ‘so vigorous that at many performances her vital assets often popped out of her costume and were on full display to the audience’.
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