Coupling star Sarah Alexander's former lover Gerald Harper dies aged 96 as tributes pour in for Hadleigh actor

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Coupling star Sarah Alexander's former lover Gerald Harper had died aged 96.
The actor was well-known to 60s and 70s TV audiences as the suave star of Hadleigh, and before that Adam Adamant Lives!, an Edwardian gent who finds himself propelled into London in the swinging sixties.
CDM Talent Agency confirmed the sad news in a statement on social media on Friday.
They wrote: 'It is with great sadness that Gerald Harper has recently passed away - he was a valued client before he went to Spain to enjoy his retirement.'
Sarah, 54, was only 25 when she was first spotted dating Gerald Harper, then 68, in 1996.
A passer-by told the Sunday People of Alexander and Harper: 'They were super-glued together! They were all over each other and didn't care who saw them.
'Funnily enough, the young lady was making a lot of the running and kept grabbing him to French kiss him – it was quite a display.'
When Sarah, whose big TV break would come in Coupling with Jack Davenport in 2000, moved in with Harper in his large Notting Hill house, friends' eyebrows were raised, especially as she is eight years younger than her new boyfriend's daughter, confusingly also named Sarah.
But they refused to allow the generation gap to get in their way. Friends said Harper was 'absolutely bereft' when Sarah left him for Amandaland star Peter Serafinowicz in 2002.
Before his relationship with Sarah, Gerald was married to Carla Rabaiotti, a former Pan American air stewardess.
The pair, who later divorced in 1983, share a son.
Harper was previously married to actress Jane Downs from 1957 until they divorced in 1975. They share a daughter.
At the height of his fame Harper was TV's most eligible bachelor in ITV's Hadleigh, which ran from 1969 to 1976.
He was perfectly cast as urbane English toff James Hadleigh, a wealthy, handsome playboy who lived in a mansion in the West Riding and ran the local newspaper.
He told the Express in 2006: 'There wasn't that much to watch back then, so we had huge audiences.
'The top brass at Yorkshire Television didn't think Hadleigh would work, though, and placed us very late at night.
'When they realised they were wrong, they apologised. I tore up my contract and said: 'Shall we start again?'
'Not only did I get more money, I was given the loan of a country estate for a year complete with staff. I lived like a lord. It was very glamorous.
'I was a TV star on my own terms and for the best part of 20 years I virtually didn't have a day off.'
Following his TV career, he returned to his main love, the theatre. His classical work includes playing on Broadway with the Old Vic company, playing Iago at the Bristol Old Vic and Benedick at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
Age never held Harper back, and when he was approaching his 75th birthday, he flew to the Masai Mara in a light aircraft and rode horseback across Kenya's Masai Mara game park.
On the return leg, the plan crashed through a hedge and ended up on its side.
He recalled: 'I turned to the pilot and said: 'Do not bother with the next venue, my good man. Just get me the hell out of here to Nairobi and civilisation!' Enough was enough.'
A former pupil at Haileybury public school, he originally planned to become a doctor, but caught the acting bug while doing his National Service and won a place at RADA.