Inside Crossroads’ Noele Gordon’s doomed 20-year love affair with married TV exec she never spent even a full night with | The Sun
SHE was one of the most famous soap stars of her era, so much so that her screen wedding at Birmingham Cathedral attracted a crowd of 10,000 fans during filming.
But despite dozens of proposals, Crossroads icon Noele Gordon – whose life is immortalised in the new drama Nolly – never tied the knot in real life, for a heartbreaking reason.
For 20 years she “left her life empty” in a doomed romance with married TV impresario Val Parnell – who brutally dumped her when he found a younger mistress.
The actress, known as the Queen of the Midlands, is portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter in the three-parter, which airs on ITVx from tonight.
It follows the star’s cruel axing from ITV soap Crossroads, in 1981, after 17 years in the lead role of hotel matriarch Meg Mortimer and her death from cancer in 1985.
The drama briefly touches on her tragic romances, and her heartbreak over the man she called the “big love of my life”.
Read More in Features
I wish my mum had cashed in on sex tape, says Pamela Anderson’s son
Spain’s king ‘was injected with female hormones to curb his SEX DRIVE’
The secret affair, which she finally revealed to fans in 1981, meant she turned down high profile suitors – including My Fair Lady composer Frederick Loewe – but, she said none of them stood a chance “while I was obsessed with Mr Television”.
“My association with Val was plain and simple – we were lovers, although we never lived together,” she said.
“We were in love. This I can’t deny, nor would I wish to. I’m proud to have been head over heels in love with a most marvellous man, a true friend. I’m happy to have given him 20 years of my life.
“And if it was to happen all over again tomorrow I would do the same. I don’t need to make any excuses.”
Most read in Soaps
Emmerdale star teases return of legendary couple after shock split
Emmerdale fans are all saying the same thing about Laurel Thomas
Emmerdale star's 'dream business' shuts down two years after quitting soap
EastEnders fans stunned as they realise where they recognise 'fit' newcomer from
9
9Jilted six days before wedding
Nolly first met Val, 27 years her senior, at 18, when she was engaged to Army captain John Crichton – later a high court judge – who proposed during an air raid on the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.
The young actress was touring in Black Velvet and, having met her at a party, John came to every show he could.
When German bombers flew over the city, the gallant soldier, “boyishly handsome in his khaki uniform”, joined her in the hotel’s cellar, along with other guests.
“As we crouched there in semi-darkness he held my hand – more to calm my fears, I thought, than to be romantic,” she said.
“But love can hit you at any time and at any place – even in a Liverpool cellar.
“Before I realised what was happening this Army captain was telling me how much he loved me.”
The smitten soldier begged her to marry him and she agreed, adding: “He kissed me and it was only at that moment I realised I had accepted him.”
The pair planned a registry office wedding, invited guests and planned a honeymoon. But just six days before the big day, she got a letter from her fiance saying he couldn’t go through with it.
“I cried. I cried a lot,” she said. “Months later, mutual friends told me his family had put pressure on him not to marry me. They had nothing against me personally but they didn’t want him to marry an actress.”
'Magic' and romance
Nolly’s first encounter with Val was on the same tour, on the final date before her doomed wedding.
Seeing her leaving the theatre with her bags packed, he asked where she was going and she told him she was giving up showbusiness to get married.
“You’ll be back in six months,” he said. “Marriage isn’t for you. You’re not the type.”
As predicted, she soon returned to the tour and went on to star in the musical Let’s Face It, in London’s West End, and soon afterwards she bumped into Val at a charity gala at the Grosvenor House Hotel, and asked her to dance.
Describing him as “slim, elegant… a marvellous dancer” and the evening as “pure magic”, she added: “All my girlish dreams had come true. This had to be my Great Romance.
"We sipped champagne. He looked into my eyes and at that moment I knew I’d met Mr Right. Nothing special was said. He didn’t flirt with me. He didn’t have to. But at that moment we both knew our love story had begun.”
The following morning he called at her parents' London house, winning them over with an armful of lettuces and cabbages from his Buckinghamshire Garden, and they began to meet every day for lunch.
Secret affair
While Noele was an up-and-coming young actress, Val was already a huge name in showbusiness.
He was owner of several theatres including the London Palladium, and known for discovering stars including Norman Wisdom, Max Bygraves and the then 12-year-old Julie Andrews.
His TV show, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, boasted huge US headliners including Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Judy Garland.
Still “prim and virginal”, Nolly revealed it took months before she “succumbed to his overtures that we should become lovers in the full sense of the word”, finally giving in over champagne at his Westminster flat.
“The more I saw of him, the more I loved him,” she added. He was such an entertaining, thoughtful and considerate companion. He made me laugh. He was lots of fun. He was the most attractive man I’d ever met.”
Throughout their 20-year affair, the couple remained “discreet” in a bid to avoid hurting his wife, Helen, and limit any damage to Nolly’s career.
Despite being “head over heels in love”, they never spent a full night together and, when she joined him on his frequent trips abroad, they travelled on separate planes.
“It was always separate rooms in whatever cities we were visiting, whether in England or abroad,” she said. “I was deliriously happy and I know Val felt the same.”
Brutal split
Despite his connections, Nolly was adamant the relationship didn’t help her career, insisting “the fact that I was Val Parnell’s girlfriend actually worked against me.”
Noele’s other admirers included New York stockbroker Sumner Walters, who met her at a cocktail party and “fell madly in love” but she turned him down because he wanted her to move to Long Island and give up her career.
Another unnamed Hollywood agent proposed on Broadway and “used to phone me every night from California. It must have cost him thousands in phone calls. Every call was a proposal. I never said ‘yes.’ I just didn’t love him.”
After she auditioned for the musical Brigadoo, composer Frederick Loewe asked her to marry him, “so that you will always be there to sing my songs”.
Despite the many offers, however, Noele remains devoted to Val for two decades, describing their romance as a “deep, sincere, permanent love match”, adding: “Instead of burning itself out, our love became stronger each day.”
But in the mid-60s, when Noele was at the height of her Crossroads fame, she was staying in New York when he arrived at her studio flat and “the bombshell dropped”.
“I’d expected to be taken out to dinner and had bought a new dress, had a hair-do, drenched myself in my favourite perfume which Val had bought me in Paris, and taken extra care with my make-up,” she said. “I needn’t have bothered. There was no greeting kiss.”
Val told her: “It’s all over Baby, I’m sorry. I’ve fallen in love with someone else.”
“He carried on talking but it was as if the voice came from another world,” she said. “To this day I’ve no idea what he was saying. I was numbed.
"Everything around me became a total haze. I just kept hearing those first few words, “It’s all over, Baby,” going round and round in my head like a long-playing record.
“I stared at him; stunned, confused, in utter disbelief. I was completely shattered. But I had to face it. If he didn’t want me in his life anymore, there was no use shouting or screaming. That would have gotten me nowhere. Much better to walk away from the whole situation.
“When he’d gone I fell to pieces. The next few days were a nightmare of sorrow. I looked ghastly and felt even worse.”
The other woman was the much younger aspiring singer Aileen Cochrane and Nolly faced further heartbreak when Val – who had insisted he couldn’t divorce his wife because of his Catholic faith – went on to wed his new mistress in 1966.
Nolly eventually went on to have a fling with actor Anthony Waters, 27 years her junior, who she called “My Viking”, but they eventually drifted apart.
She died in 1985, aged 80, three years after being diagnosed with cancer.
In her book, My Fabulous Brothers, Lew Grade’s sister Rita Grade Freeman wrote that Val Parnell was “a man who just had to have the adulation of other women. One woman could never satisfy him."
Read More on The Sun
Mum-of-nine says people always want to know how many baby daddies she has
How a twitching eye could be a sign of something serious – and when to see your GP
In contrast, Nolly was a one man woman, who pined for her “Darling Pussy” until the day she died.
Nolly is available on ITVx from today
Source: Read Full Article