Jane Asher (born April 5, 1946) is a British film and television actress and the author of several full-length novels. She was born in Marylebone in London. After some roles as a child actress, including an appearance in the 1955 science-fiction film The Quatermass Xperiment, she worked as a panelist on the BBC's Juke Box Jury. In 1963, Asher interviewed The Beatles, and then commenced a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney. She inspired many of McCartney's songs, such as "Here, There and Everywhere", "I'm Looking Through You", "All My Loving", "And I Love Her" and "For No One" (all credited as Lennon/McCartney). Her brother Peter was part of the duo Peter & Gordon, for whom Lennon/McCartney penned the number one hit "A World Without Love".
Asher appeared in Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death in 1964, Alfie, opposite Michael Caine in 1966 and in Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End in 1970. Thereafter, she was more commonly seen on television; The Stone Tape (1972); Rumpole of the Bailey (1978); Brideshead Revisited (1981); Crossroads (2001).
She guest starred in an episode of the British television comedy series The Goodies. In 1994, she portrayed the Doctor Who companion Susan Foreman in a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?. Another notable radio appearance was in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 2002 in the episode The Peculiar Persecution of Mr John Vincent Harden.
In 1971 she met the illustrator Gerald Scarfe, and they married ten years later in 1981. They have three children. Asher refuses to discuss McCartney.
Now well known as the author of recipe books, Jane Asher runs a company making novelty cakes for special occasions, and still acts on television and in the theatre. Asher recently starred in the Richard Fell adaptation of the 1960s science fiction series A for Andromeda, which aired on the UK digital television station BBC Four.
She is a shareholder in Private Eye and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association
