Personal Life
Woodward was married twice. His first marriage was to the actress Venetia Barrett (born Venetia Mary Collett) from 1952 to their divorce in 1986. They had two sons: Tim Woodward (born 1953) and Peter Woodward (born 1956), both of whom became actors, as well as a daughter, the Tony Award-nominated actress Sarah Woodward (born 1963). Woodward left Barrett for actress Michele Dotrice, the daughter of his contemporary Roy Dotrice, and married her in New York in January 1987. Their daughter, Emily Beth Woodward (born 1983), was present at the ceremony.
Woodward suffered a massive heart attack in 1987 and later underwent triple bypass surgery in 1996 and quit smoking after two heart attacks. In February 2003 it was announced that he had prostate cancer.
In July 2009 it was announced that a performance planned for later in 2009 of Love Letters, co-starring his wife Michele Dotrice, would be postponed because of damage caused to his hip when he fell down the stairs at his West Country home.
Edward Woodward died at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro on 16 November 2009 at the age of 79. He had lived in Hawker's Cove, Cornwall, near Padstow and had been suffering from various illnesses, including pneumonia.
He is survived by his wife, Michele Dotrice and their daughter, and the three children of his first marriage.
Read more about this topic: Edward Woodward
Famous quotes containing the words personal life, personal and/or life:
“Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters “woman’s peculiar sphere,” her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“What stunned me was the regular assertion that feminists were “anti-family.” . . . It was motherhood that got me into the movement in the first place. I became an activist after recognizing how excruciatingly personal the political was to me and my sons. It was the women’s movement that put self-esteem back into “just a housewife,” rescuing our intelligence from the junk pile of “instinct” and making it human, deliberate, powerful.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“There is a delicate balance of putting yourself last and not being a doormat and thinking of yourself first and not coming off as selfish, arrogant, or bossy. We spend the majority of our lives attempting to perfect this balance. When we are successful, we have many close, healthy relationships. When we are unsuccessful, we suffer the natural consequences of damaged and sometimes broken relationships. Children are just beginning their journey on this important life lesson.”
—Cindy L. Teachey. “Building Lifelong Relationships—School Age Programs at Work,” Child Care Exchange (January 1994)