LEGENDARY Kruha actress Jean Boht left a staggering amount in her will.
Boht, who played Nellie Boswell in the BBC sitcom, sadly passed away aged 91 from complications from Alzheimer’s on 12 September 2023.
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Jean Boht, pictured here in 2016, left a huge sum to her two daughters in her willCredit: Getty
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Boht with her husband Carl Davis and their two daughters Hannah and Jessie
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Boht in a scene from the BBC television sitcom Bread on 3 June 1990. Credit: Getty
After years of success, Boht was able to leave a huge estate to her two director daughters Hannah Law, 52, and Jessie Stevenson, 50, probate records have now revealed.
A staggering £2,634,969, reduced to a net figure of £2,621,271 after paying liabilities, was shared by her children, MailOnline reports.
Nothing was left to the actress’ second husband, Carl Davis, whom she married in 1970, after he died just six weeks before her.
The BAFTA-winning American-British conductor and composer died on August 3, 2023 at the age of 86 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.
Davis wrote the music for the 1981 classic The French Lieutenant’s Woman and the 1995 BBC drama Pride and Prejudice.
The music star was also known for composing the theme song for the 2006 World Cup.
Boht won a British Comedy Award for her portrayal of angry matriarch Nellie ‘Ma’ Boswell in the 1980s sitcom.
She was a successful stage actress who also had television roles in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, Last Of The Summer Wine and Boys From The Blackstuff.
Walking the planks, she met 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, which focused on a working-class family in inner-city Liverpool, that made her a household name.
First broadcast in May 1986, Bread saw Nellie rule her family’s lives with an iron fist — while trying to keep her wayward husband away from love rival “Lilo Lil,” whom she often referred to as “the damn thing.”
Over the course of eight series, viewers fell in love with Nellie, drifting husband Freddie, played by Liverpool’s Ronald Forfar, and their five children, including glamorous daughter Aveline, dreamy poet Adrian and leather-trousered eldest boy Joey, who drives a Jaguar.
When Aveline married the vicar in 1988, the episode was watched by 21 million viewers – more than the UK audience for the 2010 World Cup final.
After the program ended in November 1991, Boht went on a UK tour of the theater version of 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 horrible for actors to see themselves on screen so I had no idea what it was like.
“But now when I catch him, I’m just amazed at how good he was and how very funny he is.
“I can understand why the public liked it so much.
“But there were so many great shows and characters back then.”
Who was Jean Boht?
Jean was born in Bebington, Merseyside, on 6 March 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 major role was in two episodes of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave Em.
During 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 Bad Night for the Blues in 2010.
On September 13, 2023, it was announced that Jean had died the following day.
Announcing the news of her death, her family said: “It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Jean Boht passed away yesterday, Tuesday 12th September.
“Jean fought vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with the tireless spirit for which she was both loved and known.
“She was a resident of Denville Hall, a home for members of the theater profession.”
At the time of her death, Jean was living at Denville Hall, a home for actors and other members of the entertainment industry.
Born in Bebington on the Wirral, Boht was inspired as a child by dad Thomas Dance, a confectionary importer who was also chief entertainment officer for the local fire brigade.
An amateur actor, magician and piano player, Thomas, along with Boht’s pianist mother Edna — known as Teddy — and sister Maureen formed a troupe that performed in camps and hospitals during the war.
Boht began her theater career as a £1-a-week student at the Liverpool Playhouse, and went on to act at the Bristol Old Vic, the Royal Court and the National Theatre.
She married Bill Boht, head of the Ritz cinema and theater in Birkenhead – nicknamed the “showcase of the north” – in 1954, but their marriage broke up.
She later said: “He was a heavy drinker and I thought I could take care of him if I married him.”
Shortly after their official split, she married Davis, who worked on the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
The couple has two daughters, Hannah and Jessie, and three grandchildren.
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Bohta’s husband, Davis, died just six weeks before her
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Boht with his actresses on the scene of Bread in 1989. Credit: Getty
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