Sue Upton [age removed by webmaster], was the longest-serving of Benny Hill's Angels from 1976 to 1989. She is now married to musician Roger Watling and has two children, Richard, 17, and Louise, 15.

Sue says: I always wanted to be famous. Before I did the Benny Hill Show I did child modelling and was a professional dancer. I also did commercials and I liked the exposure. When I auditioned for Benny's show I went to his flat. I didn't think it was out of the ordinary. He was wary of being called a dirty old man by the papers. And for that reason he was very careful.

I went on my own - Benny had a large flat by the Royal Albert Hall. He was a very polite, formal man. He knew what he was looking for: a girl with a bit of sparkle. Obviously she had to sing in tune and dance, but if he could see talent, he wanted to bring it out. He looked upon himself as a starmaker. He made you feel at ease. He was a very likeable gentleman - and I use that word because people see the smuttiness of the show and think he was like that in real life. He wasn't, he was quite prim and proper. It didn't feel sexist at all. Benny's shows weren't crude: he never had swearing or toplessness - not like now.

Benny became a friend, and I thought of him as a dad. He regarded my children as his "littlies" and would come and stay in school holidays. We'd go to the circus and the Tower of London. It gave him the excuse to do all the things a man of his age couldn't do alone.

After he died in 1992 none of the Hill's Angels got offered any jobs at all. It was almost as if people didn't want to know us because we were Benny's property. I don't think I ever really got back in the swing of things. I still do bits of filming and promotions - but nothing is going to compare with the Benny Hill Show. I'm proud to have been part of it.

The Lipstick Years, a six-part series, starts on Wednesday on BBC2 at 9pm.