Sandra Lean and David Lean - Dating, Gossip, News, Photos list. Help us build our profile of Sandra Lean and David Lean!
Login
to add information, pictures and relationships, join in discussions and get credit for your contributions.
Now in her mid-sixties, Lady Lean is delivering her broadside from her lavishly furnished Knightsbridge house, a stone's throw from Harrods. Were it not for her home's proximity to Britain's most famous department store, she might never have met the double-Oscar winner. It was in Harrods Food Hall in 1985 that the fortysomething art dealer Sandra Cooke, as she was then, had her first accidental encounter with a then 77-year-old Lean.
"I found myself walking up to him and telling him how much I admired his films. I thought he was going to be extremely pompous and wave me aside. But no, he was charming. He talked to me for about 20 minutes."
Later that day when she told friends of the encounter, she discovered one of them would be dining with Lean that very evening. "Apparently David was very silent over the meal. People kept asking him what was wrong. He eventually said: 'My dear, I was in Harrods this morning buying grapes and a girl came up to me. I can't get her face out of my head. That is what is the matter with me.'"
The couple began their relationship in earnest several weeks later. "At first I wouldn't see him because he was married and I didn't want to get involved," she says. "I know there are women who will go for somebody famous and just step over everyone. I need the sleep-at-night principle. After our second meeting, in a book shop, we went for a walk and things started from there."
.........
"It took me a long, long time to get over his death," Lady Lean continues. "If I'm truthful, it took me six years. I had been married twice before, but this was the man I really loved. Cantankerous? Yes. Hugely difficult to live with? Yes. But we were soul mates."
Lady Lean, who has never remarried, is now hoping to make a documentary about her life with David. She also plans to travel to America to take part in the centenary celebrations there.
10 Feb 2008