John Nettles has become a huge household name across the UK and beyond, thanks to his starring role in detective dramas Midsomer Murders and Bergerac.
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And although the actor has always embraced the limelight, he has revealed that there was a "huge problem" he faced at the height of his stardom back in the eighties when Bergerac was being watched by millions of viewers every week.
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Chatting to The Mirror back in 2015, the now 78-year-old actor revealed that because of the drama in which he played a rather dashing detective living and working in Jersey, he amassed legions of fans, some of whom took their devotion to him too far and began to follow him around everywhere.
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He said: "You do get your stalkers and obsessives though, and it's a huge problem sometimes. When I lived in Jersey, I used to have a middle-aged lady who, when I'd wake in the middle of the night, I'd see her van parked outside. I'd find her looking in through the window, and everywhere I went she'd be there. I had to get some kind of injunction."
© Photo: RexJohn first rose to fame starring on eighties drama Bergerac
He went on to say that it wasn't an isolated incident as another female fan from Scandinavia also ended up having to be dealt with by the police after overstepping boundaries.
"I had another lady from Norway who used to send me long letters about what she wanted to do to me and it'd make my eyes water!" he joked, before adding: "Then she sent me long lists of diet sheets because she thought I was getting too fat.
© Photo: ITVThe actor has become a familiar face to TV viewers thanks to his recent role on Midsomer Murders
"She also sent very expensive presents so we had to get the Norwegian police involved. It's very sad, and my wife Cathy got hugely annoyed."
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He went on to say that Cathy, who is his second wife who he married back in 1995 in an intimate ceremony in Evesham, Worcestershire is the only one who really knows what he is like when the cameras stop rolling.
"The thing is, Cathy knows the real person behind the character, so she treats it with the contempt it deserves!" he explained. "It's like Sheila Hancock said of [her late husband, Morse actor] John Thaw, 'If only you knew what he was really like!'"
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