A Legacy
March-April, 1975, five-part serial, BBC
Role: Eduard Merz
This serial was an adaptation of Sybille Bedford's first and best-loved novel, A Legacy. (You can read much of the book by doing a "Search Inside" at Amazon.com.)
The novel focuses on three German families at the beginning of the 20th century: The Merzes are wealthy Berlin Jews; the Feldens are cultured, old-fashioned Bavarian intellectuals; the Bernins are flashy and ambitious Catholics from the south. The story is told through the eyes of Francesca, whose father, Julius Felden, married into the Merz family. The Bernins, in turn, marry into the Feldens.
A review of the novel tell us that "multiple tragedies, melodramas, comedies unfold, all of them interwoven, narrated with skill and joy and wit."
Jeremy played Eduard, the eldest son of the Merz family. He was a "club man, a rake, a gambler," the novel tells us. "In the 1880s and '90s, his debts had been paid 11 times by his father and three times by his wife."
The marriage had been a love match but eventually, his wife, Sarah, wearied of his infidelities, debts and irresponsibility pressed for a legal separation of their property. She made it clear to Eduard what to expect if he ever got in debt again. Eduard, of course, winds up bankrupt.