Bread actress Jean Boht who played Nellie Boswell in BBC sitcom leaves eye-watering amount in will after death aged 91
LEGENDARY Bread actress Jean Boht left an eye-watering amount in her will.
Boht, who played Nellie Boswell in the BBC sitcom, sadly passed away aged 91 from Alzheimer’s complications on September 12, 2023.
Following years of success, Boht was able to leave a whopping estate to her two filmmaker daughters Hannah Law, 52, and Jessie Stevenson, 50, probate records have now disclosed.
A staggering £2,634,969, reduced to a net figure of £2,621,271 after payment of liabilities, was divided between her children, reports MailOnline.
Nothing was left to the actress’ second husband Carl Davis, who she wed in 1970, after he died just six weeks before her.
The BAFTA award-winning American-British conductor and composer passed away aged 86 on August 3, 2023, following a brain haemorrhage.
Davis wrote the music for classic The French Lieutenant’s Woman in 1981 and the BBC drama Pride and Prejudice in 1995.
The star musician was also well known for composing the 2006 World Cup theme.
Boht won a British Comedy Award for her portrayal of the acid-tongued matriarch Nellie ‘Ma’ Boswell in the eighties sitcom.
She was an accomplished theatre actress who also had television roles in Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em, Last Of The Summer Wine and Boys From The Blackstuff.
Treading the boards, she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Sean Connery, Cilla Black, Jeremy Irons, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Anthony Hopkins.
But it was her role as Nellie in the BBC show centred on a working-class family in inner-city Liverpool that made her a household name.
First airing in May 1986, Bread saw Nellie run her family’s lives with an iron fist — while trying to keep her straying husband away from love rival “Lilo Lil”, who she often referred to as a “tart”.
Over eight series, viewers fell in love with Nellie, errant husband Freddie, played by Liverpudlian Ronald Forfar, and their five kids, who included glam daughter Aveline, dreamer poet Adrian and leather-trousered, Jaguar-driving eldest lad, Joey.
When Aveline married a vicar in 1988 the episode 21 million viewers watched — more than the UK audience for the 2010 World Cup final.
After the programme came to an end in November 1991, Boht toured Britain in the stage version, Bread — The Final Slice.
Despite Bread’s popularity, Boht said she never tuned in when it aired.
She said in 2012: “I never watched it at the time, it’s too horrendous for actors to see themselves on screen so I had no idea what it looked like.
“But now when I catch it, I am just astounded by how good it was and how very funny.
“I can understand why the public liked it so much.
“But then there were such a lot of lovely shows and characters around then.”
Who was Jean Boht?
Jean was born in Bebington, Merseyside on March 6, 1932.
The actress was a pupil at Wirral Grammar School for Girls and trained at the Liverpool Playhouse.
She had a long and varied career on stage and screen but became a household name for her role in the hit 80s sitcom Bread.
But her first big role was in two episodes of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave Em.
Throughout her career, Jean also had roles in series including Last Of The Summer Wine, Doctors, Grange Hill, and Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff.
She also appeared in the 2004 film Mothers and Daughters and starred in Chris Shepherd’s award-winning short film Bad Night for the Blues in 2010.
On September 13, 2023, it was announced that Jean had passed away the following day.
Breaking the news of her death, her family said: “It is with overwhelming sadness that we must announce that Jean Boht passed away yesterday, Tuesday, September 12.
“Jean had been battling vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with the indefatigable spirit for which she was both beloved and renowned.
“She was a resident at Denville Hall, the home for members of the theatrical profession.”
At the time of her death, Jean was living at Denville Hall, a care home for actors and other members of the entertainment industry.
Born in Bebington on the Wirral, as a child Boht was inspired by dad Thomas Dance, a confectionery importer who was also chief entertainment officer for the local fire brigade.
An amateur actor, magician and piano player, Thomas, along with Boht’s piano player mum Edna — known as Teddy — and sister Maureen formed a troupe putting on shows at camps and hospitals during the wartime blitz.
Boht began her stage career as a £1-a-week student at the Liverpool Playhouse and went on to star at the Bristol Old Vic, Royal Court and National Theatre.
She married Bill Boht, the boss of the Ritz cinema and theatre in Birkenhead — dubbed the “showcase of the north” — in 1954 but their marriage crumbled.
She later said: “He was a heavy drinker and I thought if I married him I could look after him.”
Shortly after their official split she married Davis, who worked on the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
The couple have two daughters, Hannah and Jessie and three grandchildren.