EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Frederick Forsyth’s ‘glamorous, beautiful’ wife Sandy dies aged 76 after years-long battle with opioids that left him in despair

Although it’s been more than 50 years since it first wowed British cinemagoers, The Day Of The Jackal generated a fresh wave of camera flashes this week as Eddie Redmayne and co-stars Charles Dance and Lashana Lynch attended the London premiere of the ten-part TV series next month. amendment.

But there was one man whose rise was particularly notable: Jackal author Frederick Forsyth, who wrote what fellow novelist Lee Child has called “the book that broke the mold.”

Notable because I can reveal that Forsyth was mourning Sandy, his wife of 30 years, who died on Saturday, more than four years after entering a brutal tailspin that left him at his wits’ end.

From their home in Buckinghamshire, Forsyth tells me: ‘The first year and a half were here. When her health deteriorated, she was carried on a stretcher to the first of a series of hospitals and care homes.’

None of this was conceivable when Forsyth wrote his last thriller, The Fox, in 2018.

Sandy, a former screenwriter, was fiercely protective of her husband, then 80 years old, as he adhered to his publisher’s punishment schedule.

But then, he tells me, ‘the roles slowly turned. Normally the younger woman takes care of the old coder. In our case it was the other way around: Sandy was 76 against my 86’.

As Sandy moved from hospital to hospital, looking for a place that would eliminate her pain, Forsyth became aware of the terrible truth: she had succumbed to a form of hypochondria, convinced that the only way to cope was by taking endless opioid painkillers. consume.

“She was cleaning them up. But it contained morphine. Instead of healing her, they made her sick. Eventually her health broke down completely.”

It’s a crushing end to a romance that began in 1989 after their first marriage ended. “She was bright and glamorous, beautiful and full of life,” Forsyth recalls.

Good in a crisis, are we Gina?

Gina Coladangelo, whose affair with Matt Hancock caused a crisis for Boris Johnson’s government, has a new job… in crisis management.

Hancock, 46, resigned as health secretary after CCTV showed him kissing and hugging Gina, his aide, in Whitehall in 2021, in breach of Covid distancing restrictions. The couple was both married to other people.

Gina, 47, is an associate at Coulson Partners, the PR agency founded by ex-News Of The World editor Andy Coulson, where she will ‘support clients with… reputation management’.

Strictly judges Shirley Ballas is still in the money

Strictly Come Dancing may have lost some of its luster, but head judge Shirley Ballas is still in the money.

I hear she has earned £1million in income from her firm Dance With Passion, where she funnels her fees.

The latest accounts show £900,000 in retained earnings (net of accounts of £124,000) and an accumulated profit of £200,000 for the year to March.

Mama Mia! Lily sings the blues

Lily James seems determined to follow the example of her fellow British actress Suki Waterhouse and become a pop star.

Surrey-born Lily, 35, made her music video debut earlier this year on Australian singer Ben Abraham’s song Never Been Better.

Now, the Mamma Mia! The Here We Go Again star has recorded another duet, this time with celebrated blues singer Eric Bibb on his latest track, Victory Voices.

Bibb, 73, describes their collaboration as “a gift to my soul.”

Former model Suki, 32, who starred alongside Lily in the 2016 film Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, released her debut studio album I Can’t Let Go in 2022 and performed as a support act for Taylor Swift at Wembley Stadium in August.

Poirot starrer that follows Agatha Christie’s journey

Poirot star Sir David Suchet traveled through Hawaii, New Zealand and South Africa for a new TV series about Agatha Christie’s 1922 journey.

‘I got to know the character of a young lady who loved surfing, who loved to have fun.

She was lively,” Suchet enthuses. ‘On the ship she openly writes in her diary that she was kept up until the early hours with one of the officers on board. She was a little flirty. I wish I had met her.’

Does Country Life editor Mark Hedges bark angrily?

He put an image of the cartoon character Snoopy on the cover of the hunting, shooting and fishing set’s diary.

The latest edition chronicles the palatial lives of country house dogs, including the kennels at Goodwood where pampered puppies had central heating a century before their owners.

“Snoopy was my hero as a teenager,” Hedges says. ‘He understood the world when he was in his kennel with his friend Woodstock. So forty years later I’m very happy that my hero is on the cover.’

Nat wakes up early!

Just like the run-up to Christmas, Halloween seems to come earlier every year.

Sky Sports presenter Natalie Pinkham, 47, right, says her family celebrated this week before heading to Mexico so she could cover the F1 Grand Prix.

Neighbors might have been shocked by her creepy wig, black lip and the fake blood pouring from her eye, but she adds: ‘They were all very nice about it.’