Carry On legend Leslie Phillips’s widow REFUSES to leave late star’s £4m home despite his will stating he wants it sold
LESLIE Phillips’ widow is being forced to leave their £4.4million London home – which is to be sold next year.
Phillips, who is well known for his “ding dong” and “well, hell-ooo” catchphrases from the Carry On films, died in November 2022 at age 98, following an illustrious career which spanned eight decades.
He had starred in more than 200 films, TV and radio series, and was also instantly recognisable as the voice of The Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter movies.
His third wife, Zara Carr, had insisted that plum-voiced Leslie, who she married in 2013, always promised that after his death she could stay at their home in West London for the rest of her life.
In a moving interview with The Sun, Zara revealed last year that she had been told to get out, with lawyers for her late husband’s estate telling her the four-bed property was to be sold.
Now, details of the actor’s will – which was drawn up four years before his death – have been revealed.
It stipulates that the £4.4million house is to be sold two years and nine months after his death – meaning August 2025 – with the proceeds going into a trust, the Daily Mail reports.
The trust will be split between Phillips’ four children from his first marriage – Caroline, Claudia, Andrew and Roger – and Zara, his third wife.
Phillips’ two sons and two daughters were each left £50,000 in the will, while his 15 grandchildren were each awarded £5,000, reports say.
Zara was left £155,000, along with ten of Phillips’ belongings – each worth as much as £1,500 – and more than 25% of the shares in the trust fund.
Zara, a former air stewardess and social worker, told The Sun last year: “This is my marital home. I want to live here for the rest of my life, not to move out.
“Leslie always promised me I could stay here.
“I’ve been under so much stress I almost lost the sight in my left eye and I had to have surgery.”
She and Leslie met in 1995, and were friends for 18 years before they married.
Leslie was walking near his home when he saw Zara, then a 39-year-old widow.
She remembers: “It was nearly Christmas time, I was wearing nice clothes and a bit of make-up.
“We met on the crossing, Leslie was going the opposite way.
“He looked at me, came back and said, ‘Excuse me, are you an actress?’
“I started laughing and said, ‘I wanted to be but my father wouldn’t let me’. He said, ‘Can I have your telephone number?’
“I laughed, said, ‘Next time’, and walked away.
“I didn’t know who he was.
“After a few weeks I bumped into him again and he said, ‘Hell-ooo . . . we meet again’.”
He asked for Zara’s number once more and she told him: “If we meet again I will give you my number.”
On the third time they met in the street she kept her promise and for the next decade they became close friends.
Zara said it was two years before she even learned, from a friend, that he was an actor.
She said: “Leslie never told me. I realised that whoever he was, I made him happy.”
At the time Leslie was married to his second wife, Bond actress Angela Scoular, who suffered from depression, alcoholism and bowel cancer during their 29 years together.
Fearing her cancer had returned, in 2011 Angela took her own life.
Leslie had married his first wife, Penelope Bartley, in 1948.
Zara claims that the day before their wedding Leslie made a new will in which he wanted to give his future wife, who had given him love and happiness, security for the rest of her life.
She believed Leslie also intended that his home, which he bought in 1965 while he was starring in the series of Doctor films, could not be sold without Zara’s consent, as long as she was living there as her main residence.
The year after their wedding, Leslie suffered a massive stroke and for eight years Zara looked after him.
She missed her own mother’s funeral in Pakistan and her son’s wedding in Spain to care for Leslie.
Zara says she learned in 2020 that Leslie’s will had been changed, giving her just two years and nine months after her husband’s death before the house would be sold.
She told the Sun previously: “I don’t want to move out within the deadline.
“I want to stay here, which I feel is my right because my husband insisted upon it.”
Leslie is buried next to his working-class mum and dad, who lived in Tottenham, North London.