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In the earliest stages of her career, Swedish actress Britt Ekland was “famous for being famous” as the wife of film comedian Peter Sellers. Often depicted as a “tortured genius” Sellers was in fact a “genius who tortured” and the impressionable young swede suffered greatly at his hands. Asked many years later whether he was madly in love with her or simply mad, her answer was refreshingly forthright: “I think today we would say he was bipolar, although that word is bandied about so often. He had mental problems and he should have been on therapy. If I’d met him today I would know so much more, but I didn’t. I had no experience of that sort of life but I learnt very quickly.”

She appeared in two Italian pictures before marrying Sellers in 1964, and later co-starred with him in “After the Fox” (1966) and “The Bobo” (1967), whilst enjoying favourable reviews for her role as a prim Quaker girl who inadvertently invented the strip-tease in “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968).

Most of Ekland’s subsequent films were low-budget action melodramas and leering sex comedies. She did acquit herself nicely, however, as James Bond’s overseas contact in “The Man With the Golden Gun” (1974) and that year’s cult thriller, “The Wicker Man.”

Ekland is unlikely to be remembered for her cinematic triumphs though, and her two year relationship with Rod Stewart is notable for the worst recordings of his entire career. Like many high profile ladies she now lives on her own, though seemingly ever willing to discuss her already well documented private life. Still working in panto and other theatrical presentations, she retains a commendably strong work ethic even in her mid 70’s, and remains philosophical about past events that have shaped her life. One suspects however, that it could have been all so different, both professionally and romantically, if she hadn’t fallen under Seller’s control at such an impressionable age…………………..