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MYSTERIOUS Swedish indie-pop band MIIKE SNOW have written hits for KYLIE MINOGUE and BRITNEY SPEARS.
But for me, most impressive is casting JEFF STEWART - ex-star of The Bill - in the video for their upcoming single Black & Blue.
Jeff is pictured in the promo with the big barnet and beard he has grown since losing his TV job as PC Reg Hollis last year.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...now-video.html
I'm pleased he's getting on with life and seems well.
What happened to Jeff?
He had a problem with drinking and was late and unreliable when it came to turning up for filming, he then got the sack.
Oh what a shame :(
He reportedly tried to kill himself in his dressing room.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hannelene
I really never knew he went through all of this.
IT WAS one of The Bill's BLOODIEST and most DRAMATIC moments . . . only Jeff Stewart, who played PC Reg Hollis for 24 years, WASN'T acting.
And today, for the first time, the star reveals what was going through his mind when he famously CUT HIS WRISTS in his dressing room minutes after being told he was being sacked from the hit show.
"There was a blackness - a void. I wasn't thinking rationally," says Jeff, 54, in a gripping interview with the News on the World in the week The Bill too is slashed from our screens after 26 years.
The Bill star Jeff Stewart relives nightmare moment he cut his wrists
"I walked from the producer's room straight into my dressing room in shock.
"If you are told that it's about to end after 24 years of crying with laughter and working with people you think are marvellous, then that's a big thing.
"So I took it out on myself. I cut my wrists - and then I thought, 'I might die here'. The next thing I remember I was in the corridor - and there was a lot of blood."
Distraught Jeff - who had become a household name as lovable Reg - found himself plunged into an abyss of despair and grief for his lost world after his contract was ended in 2008.
GOOD POLICEWORK: Jeff played clean-cut Reg Hollis for 24 years
The bachelor had spent nearly half his life pacing the corridors of Sun Hill police station. The Bill had meant everything to him and now it was over.
After recovering from the initial shock Jeff didn't shave or have his hair cut for more than TWO YEARS. And his shocking appearance - and bizarre dress sense - led to rumours among fans that he had suffered a breakdown.
But today the actor arrests that myth and throws it in the cells - while also making his own witness statement on the axeing of a show that has been part of our TV culture since it launched in 1984.
"I was surprised when I heard it was ending," he says. "My heart goes out to those who've lost their jobs."
Jeff knows only too well how shattering that can be. He had no inkling of what was to come when he was called in to see the producer shortly after Christmas 2007.
"The show was my universe. I wasn't expecting my contract not to be taken up and I felt safe there," he says.
"There was no warning. Then the producer just said they weren't going to be keeping me on. In the same way that I didn't like leaving school - that was what that moment was like for me. It was a huge shock.
"I had lived in dreamland for 24 years and now I was in a nightmare. My world stopped turning. I was just like, 'What? What?' After leaving the producer's office in a daze, Jeff lost control in his dressing room.
"I'd rather not say what I used to cut my wrists. I wasn't in my right mind.
"I didn't know what I wanted or why I'd done it," he says. "It was like a water boiler exploding because the safety valve wasn't functioning.
There was a lot of blood and I remember thinking 'I might die here'
"But the fact I wasn't ready to die saved me at the last moment. I suddenly thought, 'What am I doing?' It wasn't logical." All he can remember now is calling for a security guard to bring him a towel to staunch the blood and then stumbling into the corridor, bleeding heavily from his wrists.
"I remember someone fussing around me and asking if I was OK. I said something like, 'I'm OK, I will be all right'," says Jeff.
"It was like banging your knee. You jump around at first for a bit, but then you rub it and it feels all right.
"I went from the initial pain to feeling OK quickly. I even remember asking for a cup of tea! It wasn't melodramatic, it was very real."
It was reported that Jeff had walked down the corridor covered in blood shouting, "I am The Bill!"
But Jeff insists: "That didn't happen. I don't know why anyone would say I said that. It's not my personality."
After that, Jeff says everything became a blank until he woke up in hospital having his wounds stitched by a doctor - with a massive sense of relief that he was still alive.
He says: "A couple of people from the show who had taken me there looked after me. Everyone was brilliant. It made me feel relieved I was OK and that everyone else was too, and others hadn't gone into shock because of what I did."
Jeff stayed in hospital overnight before being taken back to his home in Richmond, south west London, where he was cared for by a neighbour. "Not long after I got home, my family and friends started to turn up, and people from the show and the company, with flowers and things," he says.
"The familiar faces helped me feel ordinary again. You realise life will go on, and you wonder if you'll work again."
In the months that followed, Jeff started to find his feet and received offers. He decided he wanted to put clean-cut Reg behind him and grew his curly hair long with a bushy beard.
HAIR TODAY: Jeff with big bushy beard
Fears grew that he'd cracked up and become a recluse. "I wasn't reclusive at all," laughs Jeff. "I had just wanted to grow my hair and have a beard for a long time - and this was the first opportunity. So I didn't get a haircut from just before Christmas 2007 until January 2010 when my agent told me I needed to get it cut!
"But the entertainment industry loves the quirky and I seemed to get more work when I had the hair. So I'm growing it back again!"
Jeff has featured in four films and two period dramas since The Bill. He says: "You either get work after 24 years on a show like The Bill or you're never seen again. Luckily work hasn't been difficult to get, and I've not been typecast as Reg. I'm really happy again, and love life. I feel great."
But he does admit to being stunned when it was announced in March that the Bill was going.
"The public still seemed to like it and were tuning in in their millions. And it was a success because its fans came from all walks of life," says Jeff.
"I was lucky enough to meet the Queen at an ITV party years ago," he says. "From the conversation we had it was clear she enjoyed The Bill.
"Then at Christmas I go to the Tate & Lyle warehouse in East London to say hello to homeless people and it is amazing the number who say to me, 'Oh, we remember when you bought a Big Issue off us'. It's wide appeal is amazing."
But after the show's final episode airs this Tuesday, Jeff is sure its legacy will live on.
"If the letters I received are to be believed, a lot of people became policemen and women because of the show and its portrayal of friendships within the force," he says. "Seeing what it was like to be a policeman - with the camaraderie and fun - made them join up. The Bill will be missed. It set the standard for TV drama shows and whatever fills that slot will have to be nothing short of brilliant to get the ratings."
Meanwhile, Jeff will still go on enjoying being recognised by fans when he walks down the street.
"People still say 'Hello Reg!' all the time," he says. "The Bill was my hit. I wasn't like Reg in real life, but I loved the cloak of putting him on.
"He was bookish and a bit of a square but he was fascinating and brilliant - and I never got bored playing him."
Big Mistake sacking Reggiebabe
Jeff Stewart has opened up about the reasons behind slashing his wrists when he was axed from The Bill in 2008.
The actor, who played PC Reg Hollis for 24 years, admitted that he found it hard to cope with leaving the ITV1 drama after so many years and that it left him in a state of shock.
He told the News of the World: "There was a blackness - a void. I wasn't thinking rationally. I walked from the producer's room straight into my dressing room in shock.
"If you are told that it's about to end after 24 years of crying with laughter and working with people you think are marvellous, then that's a big thing. So I took it out on myself. I cut my wrists - and then I thought, 'I might die here'. The next thing I remember I was in the corridor, and there was a lot of blood.
"The show was my universe. I wasn't expecting my contract not to be taken up and I felt safe there. There was no warning. Then the producer just said they weren't going to be keeping me on. In the same way that I didn't like leaving school - that was what that moment was like for me. It was a huge shock.
"I had lived in dreamland for 24 years and now I was in a nightmare. My world stopped turning. I was just like, 'What? What?' I'd rather not say what I used to cut my wrists. I wasn't in my right mind.
"I didn't know what I wanted or why I'd done it. It was like a water boiler exploding because the safety valve wasn't functioning. There was a lot of blood and I remember thinking 'I might die here'.
"But the fact I wasn't ready to die saved me at the last moment. I suddenly thought, 'What am I doing?' It wasn't logical."
He added that his friends and family helped him through his ordeal, saying: "The familiar faces helped me feel ordinary again. You realise life will go on, and you wonder if you'll work again."
The Bill would have still be going if they didn't axe characters like Reg. That was the shows downfall. I k.now shows need to axe main characters sometimes but it has to been for the beneift of the show and this wasn't
Reggie Babe was a very popular character with true fans of the soap formerly known as the Bill