Carol Drinkwater (born 22 April 1948) is a British actress, writer and filmmaker residing in France. She portrayed Helen Herriot (née Alderson) in the television adaptation of the James Herriot books All Creatures Great and Small, which led to her receiving the Variety Club Television Personality of the Year award in 1985.[1][2]
Drinkwater portrayed Helen Herriot (née Alderson), the wife of James Herriot, for the first three series of the original BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small. She left the role in 1985 after appearing in 39 episodes. She later said:
I'd given everything I could and I couldn't think where else I could take the role, because there was no more material. I wasn't leaving in any kind of spiteful thing. The BBC was so angry with me, they put a ban on using me. So they re-cast and another actress got the role. I was terribly upset because it was a wonderful role and would have been very good for me. I must say now, looking back on my career, it's one of the few things in my life I would do differently, and I wouldn't have left.[3]
"Carol will always remain my favourite actress," All Creatures make-up artist Maggie Thomas recalled;
She was a breath of fresh air; never moody or difficult, a warm, merry and very natural girl. I can remember our first day on location. We were only working with Chris and a cow, which had fallen and become stuck in a small burn, so Carol had decided to come out to watch and meet everyone. She hadn't got any scenes that first day, so she was dressed for the summer in her own clothes. The shorts she wore were kind of Boy Scout-cum-M*A*S*H ex-army drill, but on her figure they looked anything but. There was always an impishness about her and an air of complete unawareness of her own effect on men. The male members of the crew went into meltdown. She was oblivious, smiling and chatting to everyone, just enjoying the beautiful weather and getting to know who was who on the crew. They all remained in love with her for as long as she was the leading lady.[4]
Later career
In the 1981 episode of the Granada Television series Ladykillers she played Margaret Seddon, wife of the Edwardian poisoner Frederick Seddon, in an episode entitled "Root of All Evil."[5]
While working in Australia, Drinkwater wrote her first successful children's book, The Haunted School.[6] She has since written further children's books.[1]The Haunted School was produced as a television mini-series[1] and film. Bought by Disney, it won the Chicago International Film Festival Gold Award for Children's Films. It was through this that she met her husband, Michel Noll, and relocated to Provence.[6]
Her books for adults include commercial fiction and a series of best-selling memoirs about her experiences on her olive farm in Provence.[1] In 2013 Drinkwater worked on a series of five documentary films inspired by her two Mediterranean travel books, The Olive Route and The Olive Tree. The Olive Route films were completed in February 2013 and have since been broadcast on international networks worldwide.[7]
In 2015 Penguin Books UK announced a deal signed with Drinkwater to write two epic novels. The first, The Forgotten Summer, was published in March 2016. The second, The Lost Girl, was published in June 2017.[8] Drinkwater alleged to The Guardian, in October 2017, that the experience of the starlet Marguerite in The Lost Girl was based on her own experience of being sexually assaulted by Elia Kazan while auditioning for the leading film role in his film The Last Tycoon (1976).[9]
In 2018 Penguin signed a second deal with Drinkwater for two further novels. The first, published in May 2019, was The House on The Edge of The Cliff. The second, An Act of Love, was published on 29 April 2021.[10]
During the summer of 2021 Drinkwater spent four months filming a six-part documentary film series for UK's Channel 5 called Carol Drinkwater’s Secret Provence. The filming took place across Provence from the Italian border to the Camargue in the west of southern France.[11][12]
Personal life
Drinkwater is the daughter of the bandleader and agent Peter Regan (born Peter Albert Drinkwater) and Irish nurse Phyllis McCormack; her sister is actress and author Linda Regan.[13][14] She was unrelated to the late actress Ros Drinkwater, although this has sometimes been suggested to be the case.
Drinkwater was born in London,[15] and acquired her Irish passport (later in life) because she felt vulnerable when travelling on a British passport in certain countries, including those in North Africa.[1]
During the 1978–1980 first run of All Creatures Great and Small, she had an affair with her on-screen husband, Christopher Timothy, which Drinkwater claims resulted in negative behaviour towards her by members of the general public.[16]
She is married to French television producer Michel Noll, and has two stepdaughters from Noll's first marriage.[1][2]
In 2017, Drinkwater accused the late American film director Elia Kazan of sexual harassment and attempted rape in 1975 when she was under consideration for a part in Kazan's film The Last Tycoon.[17]
^Maxford, Howard (2018). Hammer Complete: The Films, the Personnel, the Company. McFarland. p. 677. ISBN978-1476670072. Her (Linda Regan) father is the bandleader and agent Peter Regan (real name Peter Albert Drinkwater) and her sister is the actress and writer Carol Drinkwater.
