The Hardacres actress Julie Graham says husband's unthinkably tragic death made her 'crumple'

The Hardacres star Julie Graham says that TV bosses have stopped offering her glamorous or sexy roles, but insists that she doesn’t care.

The actress, who plays tough-talking matriarch Ma Hardacre in the hit rags-to-riches period drama, said that she was no longer interested in her looks and revealed she would now actually like to let her hair go grey.

Julie, who has won plaudits for her portrayal of The Hardacres battleaxe explained: “Being an actor, you get so consumed about the way you look sometimes, especially if you are playing characters that are a little bit glamorous or sexy. Now I don’t really get asked to play those characters anymore, but I don’t really care, because the characters that I’m being asked to play now are much more interesting anyway."

The Hardacres debuted in October and by the time of the finale aired earlier this week, it had become one of the biggest new drama successes of the year.

Julie added: “I just don’t have that sort of obsession with looks and my figure. I don’t care about the way I look anymore; it’s liberating, it’s so freeing. I was always bothering about other people’s opinions of me, but now it’s water off a duck’s back. I call it my crone zone; I’m going into my witch years. I’m really empowered by it.”

The former Benidorm star also insisted that at 59, she no longer turned men’s heads. But rather than feeling sad about it, she was actually delighted. In fact it was one of the biggest advantages of ageing, as she can now go out without being hassled. “I love not getting that stupid attention from men in the street,” she told Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast out tomorrow. “I feel I can go under the radar.

“Now I see my daughters going through it and it boils my blood. I don’t miss that at all. I’ve got a much younger husband, that’s all the male attention I need!”

The TV star is married to Belgian sky-diving instructor Davy Croket, 16 years her junior. The couple met in Spain when Julie was filming Benidorm and tied the knot in Brighton in 2019. But she admitted that she initially thought the age gap would put him off.

“He’s 16 years younger than me. I met him when I was 50,” she told How to be 60. “I thought - in 10 years’ time he’s going to be forty bloody four, I’m going to be 60, there is no way he’s going to want to be with me, and yet here we are.

“I think that’s to do with Davy, he’s such a special person, he’s so lovely, he never makes me feel like there’s an age gap at all, he never has.

“I’ve got quite a childish personality and he’s got quite a childish personality. So I just feel like we’re the same age, because we’re both a couple of idiots and we make each other laugh.

“I don’t feel the age gap and I don’t think he does either. He certainly hasn’t made me feel like there’s an age gap, so I’m just ignoring it at the moment.”

The Scottish-born actress, who played Sheron Dawson in the ITV comedy Benidorm and also had starring roles in Doctor Who and The Bletchley Circle, was left heartbroken when her first husband, actor Joseph Bennett killed himself in 2015.

She said his death came at an already difficult time in her life and admitted she began drinking a bottle of wine a night to help her cope.

She told Kaye: “I was having a terrible time. My best friend died, my husband died, I lost my house, I wasn’t working. My cousin died, my dog died. It was just a catalogue. All in the space of two years. And then I was going through this perimenopause which I didn’t realise. I just thought I wasn’t sleeping because I was grief stricken, I thought I was angry because I was grief stricken. I just didn’t feel like me. I would pretend to the outside world and then I would crumple.

“I was drinking far too much. I would turn to booze, self-medicating, all the unhealthy stuff that you do. I think I was drinking a bottle of wine a night behind closed doors on my own.

“Then I wouldn’t sleep and I’d have a hangover. It wasn’t until I started taking HRT and had a bit of therapy that I came out the other side of it.”

Julie said the family tragedy had made her even closer to her daughters, Edie and Cyd, now 20 and 18.

“They were nine and 11 when they lost their dad,” she explained. “Obviously I prioritised their feelings above everything else, to the detriment sometimes of my own grief. I pushed it down and made sure that they were ok, but I definitely needed to speak to a counsellor about it.

“They can talk to me about anything. And I think that’s possibly to do with losing their dad, because their dad died by suicide.

“It’s difficult for children to lose any parent in any way, but suicide has this particular sting, because it can make them feel that they’re not wanted, it can make them feel that they’re not loved, it can make them feel abandoned.

“We had to work through a lot of stuff, so it just meant that no subject was off limits in our household and I always tried to keep an open dialogue with them about anything they were going through.”

Julie, who made her TV debut 40 years ago and has starred in At Home with the Braithwaites and alongside Martin Clunes in William and Mary, said the older she got the better the roles she was now getting.

The Channel 5 period drama The Hardacres has been a huge hit with viewers gripped by the story of a working class family in 1890s Yorkshire, who move from a grimy fish dock to a vast country estate. The final episode earlier this week saw fans turning to social media to beg for news of a second series. And with 2.8million viewers, it's one of the channel's biggest new dramas of the year.

Julie said: “Going into my 60s, touch wood, I’m getting lots of work. It can be unusual for somebody my age because it gets harder for an actress, especially when you get older, but I seem to be getting much more interesting parts, so long may it continue.”

As feisty Ma Hardacre, Julie sports long brown locks, but she says she is now desperate to go grey and only continued to dye her hair brown because TV bosses kept asking her to.

She explained: “I did consider letting it go grey, but what happens is, you get a part and they go – we don’t want you with grey hair, we want you to put highlights, or we want to do this.

“It’s more to do with the work than the way I am in my life. I think at one point I’ve just got to put my foot down and go – I’m going grey and that’s it. It is a pain in the arse, I would love to grow it out and just go grey.”

Kaye Adams: How to be 60 is available from tomorrow on all podcast providers

If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can contact Samaritans 24/7 by calling 116123 or via any method here. If you're in crisis and immediate danger, call 999. For more advice visit www.samaritans.org