Jenny Seagrove: Barbara Taylor Bradford backed women before it was fashionable

Actress Jenny Seagrove has said Barbara Taylor Bradford “championed women before it was fashionable”, after the best-selling author died at the age of 91.

Seagrove, 67, played main character Emma Harte in the Channel 4 TV adaptation of her novel A Woman Of Substance, and described the writer as “very special” with the ability to “make you feel very special as well”.

Taylor Bradford’s book follows the story of a woman who launches her own retail empire after starting out as a maid, and is part of her Emma Harte Saga, which spawned eight books, concluding with 2021’s A Man Of Honour.

When asked on BBC Radio 4’s World At One if she felt the author had tried to change things for women in the creative industries, she replied: “I don’t think consciously, but I do think in a certain way, because she fought, she was a journalist at a time when it wasn’t fashionable for women to be journalists.

“I think on some level, she championed women before women were fashionable to be championed as it were, and that is a great legacy.

“I think she wrote from her heart, semi-autobiographical, as I said, and I don’t think people set out consciously to do something, but if it’s in them, it’s in them, and it comes across, and it’s a great, great legacy.”

Seagrove said she had remained friends with the author after playing the character, regularly going for dinner with her and her husband Robert E Taylor, whose death she said “broke her heart”.

She added: “Every time Bob and Barbara came to London, we’d all meet up, and we’d have dinner, and we’d have a chat.

“And then lockdown happened, and she’d lost Bob, and it broke her heart. It absolutely broke her heart, because that was one of the great marriages.

“Then I flew over for her 90th birthday, where in true Barbara form, even though she was ill, she put on her finery and was piped in by a bagpiper, and she just never changed.

“She was always curious, always kind, always championing women, and always giving and sharing, and we had a mutual love of dogs. She used to write with her little white bichon frise dogs under her desk.”

Seagrove said her favourite moment with Taylor Bradford was when she congratulated her for her performance as Emma.

She said: “That one magic moment when she walked over to me, and she just went, ‘Jenny, you are my Emma’, with her slightly northern tones.

“It meant so much, and her eyes lit up when she saw me in the room on her 90th birthday.

“She said, ‘oh, my Emma, you’ve come’, she was very special, and she had the ability to make you feel special as well.”

Seagrove said she had initially picked up the novel in New Zealand, intending to “see if I can buy the rights”, but when she returned home she was contacted by her agent who told her “they want to see you for A Woman Of Substance”.

A spokeswoman for Taylor Bradford said Monday that she died peacefully and “surrounded by loved ones” on Sunday following a short illness.