How Cruising star Jane McDonald went from being frightened of everything to beat snobs with her shock Bafta win
IT was the win that shook the Baftas, leaving telly luvvies with their jaws by their feet.
And for Jane McDonald, the down-to-earth singer from Wakefield, the award was made all the sweeter as she saw off stuffy BBC stalwart Antiques Roadshow.
Even Sir David Attenborough had to rely on a public vote to land a prize at last month’s controversial ceremony after being snubbed by industry bigwigs.
So how did Jane do it?
She reckons her no-nonsense approach to life — not to mention her big hair, fabulous make-up and high heels — might have helped.
In her first chat since the night her Channel 5 series Cruising with Jane McDonald won best feature, she tells The Sun: “The older you get, you don’t care as much and also you realise that you need to enjoy your life a bit more.”
Jane, who shot to fame back in 1998 after featuring on BBC fly-on-the-wall series The Cruise, continued: “When all this happened to me 20 years ago, I was frightened of everything.
“I was frightened of saying the wrong thing, I was frightened of looking a certain way, I had all these people around me sorting my hair and doing this.
“I like big hair, I like fabulous make-up, I like high heels and that is me. And when all these people try and change you in the very beginning they’re doing their job. But now this is trendy and I’ve never ever wavered from who I am.”
Jane was born and grew up in Wakefield, her parents, Peter, a miner from Fife, and Jean, from Coatbridge near Glasgow, having moved to the Yorkshire town for work.
She inherited her vocal talents from Jean and managed to shrug off her shyness working as a barmaid aged 19 at Wakefield club Pussycats.
She spent years singing in pubs and working men’s clubs in the North before performing on cruise liners — and being seen by millions topping the bill as caberet singer on cruise ship The Galaxy on TV documentary series The Cruise.
Her searing honesty won her fans as she secured a number one album, countless sell-out tours and a decade on ITV daytime hit Loose Women.
And now at 55 she’s still working her wonders on TV — not just on Cruising with Jane McDonald but on fellow Channel 5 hit, cabaret show Jane McDonald & Friends.
But she’s under no illusion of the pressures facing older women on telly to look good.
While I’ve heard other fifty-something telly hosts brag about “falling in love with their bodies” as they get older, Jane refutes the notion you have to show off your curves to stay relevant.
She says: “Cover them up. That’s all you do. I’ve got a little waist and little hips, great legs, and I show them off.
“Will you see me in a bikini? No, because I look horrendous. You can look great on the beach without showing all your flesh.
“I admire women who go out and get it all out, It’s fabulous. But for me darling, a little bit of mystique. Gimme a kaftan.”
And despite facing fierce competition on the Bafta red carpet from far younger telly stars, Jane still stole the show with her flowing curls and stunning rose-gold gown.
But by her own admission she drops the glammed-up look immediately she steps through the door of her Wakefield home and returns to fiancé Eddie Rothe, 64.
She explains: “Heels off for a start. I’m very very quiet at home, I’m very Plain Jane. There’s definitely two sides to me and I love that.
“I say to Ed sometimes ‘Don’t you get fed up of this? Me looking like this at home? And he says ‘No because nobody else sees this’ and he feels he’s got that . . . which is quite sweet really and the right answer.”
Jane’s love life has been played out publicly when, following a short-lived first marriage, she met second husband Henrik Brixen, a Danish-born onboard engineer, while starring in The Cruise.
The pair tied the knot in front of a TV audience of 13.5million in 1998 but split after just four years when Jane’s career began to take flight.
She has been with Eddie, a former drummer from Sixties band The Searchers, since 2008 — the couple having first dated for 18 months when Jane was 19.
And nowadays she’s learnt to keep her private life firmly on land.
So there’s no chance of Eddie popping up at the breakfast buffet in an episode of Cruising? She says with a laugh: “That would be his idea of hell. ’Cause I’m up at the crack of dawn and I don’t get in until late at night.
“And he would never see me ’cause I’m filming from dawn until dusk. He loves cruising but without a film crew.”
As the curtain goes up on the show’s fourth series on Friday next week, Jane is keen to reiterate there’s a fight still to be fought with “cruise snobs” who turn their noses up at that kind of holiday.
She says: “Usually people who slag off cruising are the people who’ve never been on one and they don’t know what they’re missing.
“It’s my mission in life now to get everybody paired up with the right cruise.”
And the cruising industry has been celebrating her big Bafta win with her after it reported a massive spike in bookings in the wake of her TV shows.
She continues: “Cruising has gone up 50 per cent since we’ve been doing this programme, which is phenomenal so the cruising industry is on the up and up and up.”
Her next series sees her head for trips around Australia and wine-tasting in New Zealand. And fans can expect plenty more of her trademark humour.
Not every excursion is to her taste and she’s been known to roll her eyes in a packed Budapest market while gasping for a sit down once or twice.
She sure gives airbrushed travel shows a run for their money.
Jane says: “My face says it all. Doesn’t it really? I can’t pretend to be excited about something if I’m not.
“You’ve seen me really excited about things on the cruise and that’s when I’m jumping up and down going ‘oh my goodness me, I love this’. But if I’m not really that bothered it’s not to say somebody else wouldn’t love that trip and that’s why I do all of them.”
She starts a three-month UK tour next week, fits in two cruises in between shows and of course there’s world domination on the cards too.
Jane reveals: “I would love it [Cruising with Jane McDonald] to go to the States.
“It probably will go worldwide ’cause we’re visiting all these different countries and of course we’re showing them to the best they could ever be shown.”
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Of course the irony of her programme’s name isn’t lost on her either.
Although she assures me she won’t be lurking about on Hampstead Heath interviewing some of the shadier characters.
With a laugh, she says: “I wouldn’t have thought so, I’m usually in bed by then.”
- Cruising with Jane McDonald returns to Channel 5 on June 8 at 9pm.
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