“You have it in you to become the greatest actress of the 20th century ” – Sir Anthony Hopkins.

 

The actress Jacqueline Pearce is best known to television audiences as the villainous Servalan from the fondly remembered Blake’s Seven (BBC 1978-1981). But her career has taken her from RADA to Hollywood, via starring roles in international comedy films, Hammer Horror, BBC Shakespeare, and London’s West End. So how did she end up living in the African bush with her belongings in black bin-bags? Find out with this gripping memoir of an extraordinary life – from Byfleet to the Bush.

Jacqueline’s motherless upbringing in suburban Byfleet was unconventional and her education at the hands of nuns left her emotionally scarred. Through the course of her erratic career, she found love, laughter, heartache, breakdowns, fame, obscurity, and sex drugs and rock and roll. On the way, she encountered such stars as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Sammy Davis Jr, Jerry Lewis, Alan Bates, John Hurt, Dervla Kirwan and Rupert Penry-Jones. Candid, vivid, mordant and funny, this is an unusual and enchanting memoir.