She used to be on first-name terms with TV hosts Michael Parkinson and Mike Walsh, and with the superstars — Dusty, Elton, Billy, Twiggy and Ringo — who thought nothing of jetting halfway round the globe to be interviewed by them in front of record-breaking Aussie audiences. In , at the age of 18, she applied to Bristol Old Vic and was offered one of only 20 places. Jeremy Irons was in the year above her; she was mates with Pete Postlethwaite. But in , after just two years in rep, she decided to follow her older brother to Sydney, travelling alone for six weeks on board a ship that docked in Tenerife, Casablanca, Cape Town, Durban, Fremantle and Melbourne before finally dropping anchor one night just outside Sydney Heads. We came round the Heads and there was the bridge in the sunlight! In , just one year after coming to Australia, she gave birth to her first son, James. Over the years, she maintained strong ties to her parents and siblings in Oxfordshire.

There is so much cougar hype that we now have a fake cougar and a real cougar. Cougar cruises are setting sail, cosmetic surgeons are promising to cougarize their clients and online cougar communities are cropping up. But behind the unleashing of cougars in pop culture is what a growing number of sociologists say is a real demographic shift, driven by new choices that women over 40 are making as they redefine the concept of a suitable mate.

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