TUESDAY will mark a year since much-loved movie star Leslie Phillips died.
On that day, his widow Zara will take two Underground trains and a bus ride to spend the day beside the comedy legend’s grave, as she has done every week since he passed away aged 98.
At the plot in Chigwell, Essex, she will ask Leslie — who appeared in 120 movies, plus TV and radio series, during a career that spanned more than 80 years — to help her stay in the house that was their marital home for a decade.
Suave Leslie is remembered for his “ding dong” and “well, hell-ooo” catchphrase when he saw an attractive woman in Carry On films.
Now Zara is caught up in a legal ding-dong over what she says were his plans for his wife’s future after he was gone.
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The 66-year-old insists plum-voiced Leslie, who she married in 2013, always promised that after his death she could stay at their £5million home in West London for the rest of her life.
But in a moving interview with The Sun, Zara reveals she has been told to get out in a year and nine months.
Lawyers for her late husband’s estate have informed her that the four-bedroom property is to be sold and the proceeds split between Zara and other beneficiaries.
At the four-storey Edwardian house, filled with pictures of Leslie, Zara says: “This is my marital home.
“I want to live here for the rest of my life, not to move out.
“Leslie always promised me I could stay here.
“I’ve been under so much stress I almost lost the sight in my left eye and I had to have surgery.”
Leslie and Zara, a former air stewardess, had been friends for 18 years before they married.
They met in 1995.
Leslie was walking near his home when he spotted Zara, then a 39-year-old widow.
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She remembers: “It was nearly Christmas time, I was wearing nice clothes and a bit of make-up.
“We met on the crossing, Leslie was going the opposite way.
"He looked at me, came back and said, ‘Excuse me, are you an actress?’.
“I started laughing and said, ‘I wanted to be but my father wouldn’t let me’. He said, ‘Can I have your telephone number?’.
“I laughed, said, ‘Next time’, and walked away.
“I didn’t know who he was.
“After a few weeks I bumped into him again and he said, ‘Hell-ooo . . . we meet again’.”
He asked for Zara’s number once more and she told him: “If we meet again I will give you my number.”
On the third time they met in the street she kept her promise and for the next decade they became good friends.
Zara says it was two years before she even learned, from a friend, that he was an actor.
She says: “Leslie never told me.
“I realised that whoever he was, I made him happy.”
At the time Leslie — who married Penelope Bartley in 1948 — was married to his second wife, Bond actress Angela Scoular, who suffered from depression, alcoholism and bowel cancer during their 29 years together.
Leslie was devoted to her.
Fearing her cancer had returned, in 2011 Angela took her own life.
Leslie found her body on the steps of their home.
The distraught actor credited Zara with saving him from despair.
She says of the time they had together early on: “I didn’t want to say anything to hurt him or to hurt his reputation.
“I protected him to the best of my ability so he was happy.
“After years and years he started opening up about problems he had at home.
“I encouraged him to support his wife as much as possible.
“That is how we got closer and closer.
“By then we’d been friends for 14 years.”
Zara says: “When Leslie’s second wife passed away he started relying on me.
“I cooked for him, did his cleaning and looked after his clothes.
“I must be the luckiest person on earth that Leslie came into my life.
“I loved him to bits.
“You know, he wasn’t about age, he wasn’t about money.
“He was just pure, he was my soulmate.
“He used to come a lot to my place and sometimes stayed overnight.
“At that time it never crossed my mind that one day I was going to marry him.
“Never. That was never on the cards.”
In September 2011 Leslie asked Zara to move in.
He told her: “I feel lonely at night time.
“So I’d like you to stay here.”
Zara recalls: “I was quite reluctant but then I said, ‘OK’ but first thing in the morning I’d run home because I’d been on my own for 30 years.
“I’d go home, get ready, go to work and then, in between, Leslie would call me about 20 times during the day.”
By now Zara was working as a carer for elderly people with dementia and did not want to give up her job.
One night in the kitchen, as Leslie was washing up, he turned to Zara and asked her to marry him.
She asked him for time to think it over but finally said yes.
In December 2013, when Leslie was 89 and Zara in her mid-50s, they married at Westminster Register Office in central London.
Zara claims that the day before their wedding Leslie made a new will in which he wanted to give his future wife, who had given him love and happiness, security for the rest of her life.
She believes Leslie also intended that his home, which he bought in 1965 while he was starring in the series of Doctor films, could not be sold without Zara’s consent, as long as she was living there as her main residence.
The year after their wedding, Leslie suffered a massive stroke and for eight years Zara looked after him day and night.
She even missed her own mother’s funeral in Pakistan and her son’s wedding in Spain to care for Leslie.
Then, in 2020, when she was shielding Leslie from Covid, Zara says she learned Leslie’s will had been changed, giving her just two years and nine months after her husband’s death before the house would be sold.
Zara says: “One time when it got too much I just broke down.
“He asked me, ‘Why are you crying?’. I didn’t know what to say so I said, ‘No, no, it’s just me, I’ve got a cold’.
“I don’t want to move out within the deadline.
“I want to stay here, which I feel is my right because my husband insisted upon it.”
Her beloved Leslie died on November 7 last year.
He is buried next to his working-class mum and dad, who lived in Tottenham, North London.
Zara is planning to take the case to court to get the estate to honour what she believes were her late husband’s wishes that she should stay on at the home until her death.
It is a house where she is sure Leslie is still with her.
Zara says: “Not long after his death I was sitting in my bed and I saw Leslie was standing next to me.
“He touched me. I didn’t get scared, not at all.
“I had a peaceful night and slept very well knowing that he is still with me 24/7.”
- Zara Phillips has not been paid for this article.
