Introducing Mrs Gale's very elusive other half
Cathy's husband says 'I don't like leather'

HONOR BLACKMAN, whose sneaky sleuthing as Cathy Gale on Saturday-night ITV has turned her into a sort of national "kinky" symbol, acted as if she hadn't heard properly.  The other people in the room blinked in amazement.  But Maurice Kaufmann, from whose lips the stunning sentence had trickled looked not apologetically, but in wonder.

What did he say?  Just this: "I don't really like leather, anyway."

If a leather tanner had said it - hypocritical.  If a goat had said it - understandable.

But for Maurice Kaufmann to say it...

He is married to her.   The public may be more used to seeing photographs of Cathy - but, for the record, that's her husband with her above.

And Cathy (is there anybody who doesn't know it?) has done more for leather than anyone since man first wrapped it around his feet and decided that it didn't wear as well as human skin, but was at least more comfortable.

Cathy reacted a trifle slowly for a girl who can hip-throw a man without knocking a quiff out of place.

"Really, darling, you can't say that now, can you?"

But he had said it, even though he wore the expression of a man who wished he hadn't.

Maurice Kaufmann, a talented actor himself, has learnt with a slipping tongue just as well as he has learnt to live in the shadow of his wife's success.

"Being married to Honor has not proved anything like as difficult as people may imagine," he said. "We both have our careers.  There is a lot of Cathy in the real-life Honor.  She is very determined and strong-willed."

I asked him about tomorrow night's episode, when John Steed at last gets around to the clinching business with Cathy, and lands a kiss on her inviting lips.

"It's called for in the script.  One actor kisses another.  I'm really looking forward to seeing it," he said.

Besides which, he and Patrick Macnee, who plays Steed, are very good friends.  Honestly.

from The Daily Mirror, England, January 10th 1964.

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