Biography

He and James Bolam appeared to be good friends off-screen as well as on-screen in The Likely Lads (1964) and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1973). However in reality they had fallen out and not spoken for many years. According to Rodney Bewes' autobiography, "A Likely Story", this stemmed from the time that Bewes mentioned in a newspaper interview the story that when Bolam's wife, Susan Jameson, broke the news that she was pregnant, as Bolam was driving, he nearly crashed his car. Bolam, a very private person, regarded Bewes' comments in the interview as an unforgivable breach of confidence, even though he had made them in good faith, believing that the story was already public knowledge. However when Bewes died in November 2017 Bolam denied there had been a falling out.

Having previously toured the UK with his own highly successful adaptation of Jerome K Jerome's 'Three Men in a Boat' he is on the last stage of his Barnsley to Barnstaple tour with another one man adaptation as Jerome K Jerome in 'On the Stage and Off'.

Children: Daisy Bewes,born 1973 and triplets Billy, Joe, & Tom.

He was expelled from RADA.

Children Daisy born 1973, triplets Joe, Tom and Bill born1976.

Wherever I go people still stop me to discuss The Likely Lads. Some even ask me whether I mind talking about it after all these years. If I minded I'd deserve a swift kick because it was a great show and provided my 15 minutes of fame.

I would love to be friends with him, but he doesn't want to be friends with me. I can't be like Jimmy, I can't be that angry. We're different animals. Now he doesn't want to talk about The Likely Lads at all. He hates it. He thinks it's beneath him. It's not beneath him - it's what made him. Terry was the best part he could ever be offered. That's what he's remembered for. He thinks it affected his career as a great actor. That's the trouble with actors - they get egos.

Instead of being the Likely Lads, we'd have been the Unlikeliest Granddads. We would have been sitting on a park bench in a pair of grubby grey anoraks, feeding the pigeons and grumping about youngsters.

[on James Bolam] We were great friends. When my babies were born, his was the first house I went to.

It's this actor's ego thing - he thinks he is important. Actors aren't important. I'm not important; I have fun. I think Jimmy takes himself very seriously as an actor.