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Joan Wilson Sullivan Brett

Jeremy talks about Joan
(Audio clip from 1991
Desert Island interview)
Jeremy talks about
Joan's death
(Video clip from 1988 Wogan
TV interview)
Joan and Jeremy married on Nov. 22, 1976.
Her death on July 4, 1985, eventually led to major turmoil in
Jeremy's life. "We had a decade
together," he said of his soul mate. "I loved her dearly, she was so beautiful and gutsy."
They shared a birthday -- November 3 -- and
a common bond. "We had a once-in-a-lifetime love," he has
said. "She was an incredible person, the best wife a man could have.
This was the kind of relationship where I would start a sentence
and she would finish it. Sometimes you can see behind somebody's
eyes and feel as if you have known them all your life. That's
how it was."
Joan had gone to see
Design for Living in 1973 in London and saw Jeremy on stage.
She declared, "That's the man for me!" Later, she interviewed
him for Classic Theatre -- to introduce his performance
in The Rivals when it aired
on PBS. According to Joan, it was love at first take: "My audio
man put together a video cassette and you could see the
chemistry."
Here's
some background information about Joan from a Boston Globe
article, Joan Wilson
bids for Masterpieces, Dec. 13, 1980:
She was executive producer of public television's
Masterpiece Theatre
as well as Classic Theatre,
Piccadilly Circus and
Mystery!
Her official bio listed her as "a Scorpio born in
Wisconsin." A believer in the occult, her black Mustang ...
bears a plate that reads "WITCH." She has been married three times ("four, if you count
another relationship that was never formalized") and has two
children -- Caleb and Rebekah.
Jeremy regarded Caleb and Rebekah Sullivan
as his children -- a legacy for him from Joan -- and kept in
touch with them after her death, as well as Joan's mother.
Joan and Jeremy thrived on work, and their
absences from one another must have made their hearts grow
fonder! During one span in 1980, Joan recounted, "I spent a week with Jeremy in January. In
February, we got together when Mobil threw a party for
Masterpiece Theatre. In April, I saw him in London. Mostly,
he stays in Los Angeles and I'm here in Boston. We see each
other in different places -- wherever we happen to be."
Joan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
in 1984, when Jeremy was working on the first Sherlock Holmes
series.
In
a 1991 interview on National Public Radio (NPR), Jeremy said, "I knew at
the end of The Final Problem in '84 that she had cancer, and the
lights really went out in my life. ... We were
going to do all the treatment in England and then we decided to
do it in Boston because she ... worked for WGBH."
To be near her and keep working, Jeremy
took on two projects in New York City -- co-starring in
Aren't We All? and serving as a narrator in Song.
She died on July 4, 1985, and Jeremy
continued in Aren't We All? through July 23. "I don’t
know how I did those performances," he told NPR. "And I was contracted to start
[Sherlock Holmes] again on
September the 3rd of that year. And they said, 'Well, Jeremy, it
may help if you get back on the bike.' ... And I did the
next five films with the most appalling ill grace I’m afraid. I
mean, I just didn’t want to do them.
"And then I had ... an
almighty breakdown. And when I came through that, thanks
entirely to my darling son, David, who was a valiant friend to
me through that ... I got back on the bike again!
(chuckles) And I remember saying, 'If I can get to
Manchester [where Sherlock Holmes was filmed], I’ll be all right.' And then I made
The Sign of Four
and I began ... to feel better with
Holmes, and I wasn’t quite so ... cross with him, 'cause I
blamed him a little.
I was working, you see, so far away from Joan, and it had taken
up so much of ... our last few years. And ... you know, time is the great
healer. And now ... actually, Caleb, my eldest,
my legacy from Joan, says that I’m looking much better than he’s
seen me in years.
"So,
slowly, slowly, slowly. You never get over a loss like that. You
get used to it but you never get over it."
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