Michael Winner called me in one day for an interview: "Well, my dear, how would you like to co-star with Marlon Brando?"

Well naturally, I thought he was talking about a maid's part or something like that, but I said: "Sure, why not?"

Michael was a bit taken aback by my nonchalance and said, "You're certainly taking this very casually, my dear..."

At which point I realised he was not talking about some waitress role or a walk-on part. He was offering me a serious chance to co-star with Brando in a film. I thought about it for a few minutes and said, "I'll do it on one condition."

I'm sure Michael thought: 'Actresses! This girl's looking at a chance to co-star with Marlon Brando, and she's already putting conditions on the thing.' I could see it in his expression!

Nevertheless, I went right on: "I want to have a meeting with Brando before we start the film."

"Fine," answered Michael. So we set up a day and time for a meeting.

I wasn't kidding around when I asked for that meeting. I wanted to meet Brando or, rather, I wanted him to meet me, to make sure he would like me and that we wouldn't have problems with the filming. I was trembling in my boots at the possibility that we would end up with "incompatible personalities" after just one week of shooting, and he would kick me out of the film.

I don't think I was asking for anything extraordinary. I would prefer a hundred times over to be kicked out of a film before it started, than to be kicked out after a week on location.

But I also had another reason. I knew that Michael had sent photographs of two different actresses to Brando, so that he could choose one. But both of the pictures were of me! One was a nice photo and the other a bad one. So, Marlon hadn't really been given very much of a choice!

We finally did meet. We went out with a group of people to see a John Ford movie. I don't remember which one. I imagine I wasn't concentrating too hard on the screen action that day. A chance to co-star with Brando! That's not the kind of thing that happens to an actress every day.

And Marlon is... indescribable. In my entire life, I have only met two other men - a sportsman and a king - who had as much charisma as Brando: There are not too many people like him in this world.

Once I had "passed the test", we started shooting The Nightcomers. Michael Winner was the director, naturally, and it was partially based on The Turn Of The Screw, Henry James' celebrated short story.

Michael Hastings, who wrote the screenplay, related the events that led up to the point where James' story began. Brando played Peter Quint, the butler, and I played the nursemaid, Miss Jessel, his lover.

The story, quite horrifying and passionate, ends with their death, a double murder in a pool of acid. We filmed on the outskirts of London, and it was icy cold.

But what everyone remembers about that movie are our love scenes which, according to some people, were too explicit for that time, although they were nothing compared to what you see on the screen nowadays. However, I do have one particular vivid memory from that film.

Brando was having a bit of a black humour attack. We had a scene where he tied me to the bed posts with ropes. Suddenly, the bell to break for lunch rang. Marlon got up, and without saying a word, marched off to his dressing-room. I tried to untie myself. I tried and tried, but I couldn't get those knots undone. I couldn't believe it. He had been able to do it so easily. Then some of the crew came to my rescue, but they couldn't untie me either! Finally, someone called Brando who, very calmly, came back on the set and proceeded to untie me with the greatest of ease.

When he finished, he laughed his head off. I don't think I greatly appreciated his sense of humour at that precise moment... however, he did make me laugh a whole lot while we were making that film and it was great fun to work with him. I suspect, though, that he wasn't overly interested in that movie.

At times he appeared to be a bit lazy about it, in the sense that he just didn't show much interest in the shooting. I don't know, maybe he was just worried about other things... his weight, for example. He thought he had got too fat. I remember he was on a diet because he said his sex life was being impaired... So I'd think his sex life must, in fact, be finished by now! (I'm only joking.) Seriously, Marlon Brando is a great guy. I learned a lot from him. He's an actor who comes on the set totally prepared, ready to begin his work. You definitely cannot improvise when working with Brando...

Between the film's subject matter, the love scenes, and Brando, The Nightcomers got a lot of publicity and quite naturally, this affected me, as well. I was just a young thing at the time, and I didn't understand anything about this business. Fine, so I had some love scenes with Marlon, but they were an integral part of the movie. Yet people began to take them out of context. My role consisted of much more than simply a few kisses here and there.

I definitely wasn't prepared for the way they blew things up in the publicity and especially the way they dealt with the fact that I was nude in bed with Marlon Brando. I wasn't prepared for all that in the least.

I felt fairly confused about the whole thing. All of a sudden I had a million people around me offering advice, which I hadn't asked for in the first place. I was literally besieged by people saying: "You have to do this and that." "You just watch, this is going to make a star out of you!" "Stick with me, darling, I'll take you to Hollywood!" Managers, agents, producers... everybody wanted to make a superstar out of me, and they thought The Nightcomers was my free ride to Hollywood.

All of that scared me. I couldn't find anybody that I could really trust or that I could really believe in. Everybody seemed more interested in making money on me than actually helping me. But, I wasn't interested in the money. It was the least of my concerns.

I also felt a bit manipulated. It seemed to me that everyone wanted to organise my life, and I was supposed to do what they told me to. But I wasn't convinced. I didn't like all those people running my life.

Up to that point my career had gone very smoothly. I was surrounded by creative people, writers, actors - very talented but unpretentious people. My life had been in the theatre, and my film career had developed in an extraordinarily easy fashion. I really hadn't had to resort to auditions, and I hadn't to wait and take little things as they came along. In a space of two years I had worked in two American films, without really making any effort on my part to get the roles. And, all of a sudden, these people were laying Hollywood at my feet... they were practically offering it to me on a silver platter. But, like I said, it really frightened me. Fear of the unknown.

If someone could have guided me slowly towards a career in the United States, little by little, I would surely have followed the path. But it wasn't like that, and I ran away from the American movie scene and everything that went with it. I decided to return to my dear old theatre, where I'd been so happy, to the security of the known. And that's the way I said goodbye to my possible big future in Hollywood...

During the spring of 1972, I was offered work with the Nottingham Playhouse. It was a great offer and included playing: Nora in A Doll's House, Ruth in The Homecoming and June in The Tempest. I immediately said yes. I then asked who was going to be in it, and they read off a list of names, among them John McEnery. Great, an old friend! And my friend became my husband...

The story went like this. John and I had met a long time ago, when I was 17 and working in that Liverpool company, where I first started work as an actress.

John was older than me. He was already an experienced actor, quite recognised, and one of the members of the Everyman theatre, where he played the leading roles. He was one of the top members of the company, and I was the "baby".

At the time he seemed so much older... so serious. He used to try to give me "classes". Every time I saw him coming I would try and hide, because he was always giving me extra work to do.

I was working in stage management, in addition to my acting, but the director said I was always distracting the actors too much. I suppose that was true, because I talked a lot, and was always asking a million questions, I was just a curious 17-year-old! So he said, "I'll have to find something else for you to do around here."

He sent me to work in the costume department, working with one of the director's wives. I was locked up the whole day in there, sewing. Then they would "let me out" in the afternoon to do my parts. So every time I saw John or one of his friends coming I'd run in the opposite direction because it meant "an extra job". They'd want me to sew up this or that. I spent a lot of time hiding.

We saw each other a couple of times over the next two years at social dos in London, but nothing happened, until I got that offer from Nottingham.

He was playing Ariel in The Tempest, and Lenny in The Homecoming and, on the basis of our work together, and my admiration for him as an actor - and destiny - John and I fell in love. That was the beginning of our story...