Acting mad is the key to sanity

However, when we slide onto her latest (and most demanding?) theatre role, playing forgotten star Norma Desmond in a lunchtime theatre production of Billy Wilder's dark Hollywood classic Sunset Boulevard, the mood saddens.

The reason? There's been a dramatic sunset in Cadzow's own life in the past year, with the death of her husband David MacLennan, the Scots theatre legend who'd suffered from Motor Neurone Disease. And while creating her own Norma, Cadzow reveals the loss of her partner has, strangely, thrown her in the direction of acute insight.

"Norma Desmond was an extremely fragile person," the actress reminds. "And I've realised life's crazy hands you're dealt can certainly make it easier to feel, and understand, fragility. I've certainly felt fragile since David's death. Yes, friends have been great, but unless people have suffered the death of a partner they don't really understand what it means. Your soul goes with the person. You think about them all the time."

Churchill once said; 'If you're going through hell, keep going' and Cadzow is following this mantra, getting back to work at any opportunity. Sunset Boulevard, directed by old friend Morag Fullerton, has been a godsend. "I've had to reign it in," she says of her stage performance (and at times her public performance?) "It would be easy to let go. But you have to remember Norma Desmond is fighting hard to stay in control."

Cadzow will remain in control. She's one of Scotland's most talented actors, whose worked in rep, for the likes of the Lyceum and the Traverse theatres and featured in countless films and TV dramas. She's bold and she's a battler - even though her background may suggest otherwise.

Her father was a gentleman farmer from West Lothian who also bred cattle on the family-owned Luing Island, off the West Coast. The Cadzow's were most likely descended from Polish aristocracy (the armorial insignia of Glasgow features the sixth century tale of the fish with a ring in its mouth - and the ring was said to be present from Hydderch Hael, King of Cadzow, to his Queen, Languoreth.)

"My great-grandfather was Sir Frederick Leyland, the shipping magnate. He had a mistress called Annie Wooster who was my great grandmother and while Sir Frederick died before he could marry her, the money did go to the two sons, who got a quarter of a million each at the turn of the century, although one of them blew it on the stock exchange."

The Woosters' knew PG Wodehouse, which could have suggested the fictional character. And the Woosters are related to Helena Bonham Carter, another lady of privilege. Not surprisingly, the actress and her brothers and sister were of course sent to boarding school (Juliet to St Margaret's Ladies College).

"Yes, but life wasn't always wonderful," she says, recalling her ten year-old mindset. "I loved growing up on the farm but as for boarding school? I loathed it. I'd cry all the time. It was all about feeling cold huge dormitories and freezing showers. I was always being told to cut my long hair; 'Who do you think you are, the Lady of Chalot?' It wasn't like St Trinian's at all. It was so strict."

Did she remonstrate later with her parent for being sent away so young? "No, I guessed it was a class thing. After the war things were good for farmers."

What the teenage Juliet took from school was the drama classes experience. She knew she wanted to act and applied to Glasgow's RSAMD.

"However, on my first day I was the only person who stood up when the lecturer walked in," she recalls, with a mock grimace. "I'd been so regimented at boarding school. But I really enjoyed drama school. It opened my eyes to people."

Cadzow never considered herself elitist. "On the farm I'd mixed with so many types, Irish labourers the lot, and my father never assumed we weren't all Jock Tamson's Bairns."

Her posh diction helped her land lots of upper class roles. "In the early Seventies, RP was still being taught in drama schools. I had a head start." Yet, some actors couldn't see past the metaphorical tiara on her head. "One actress, who shall remain nameless, once remonstrated; 'You've never drunk out of jam jars, have you Cadzow?' And I replied, 'Actually, I've never drunk out of anything but crystal'. But not everyone was critical. I was great pals with (the late) Phil McCall. On tour, I'd take him to posh houses for dinner and he'd take me to miner's welfare centres and communist clubs and say 'Whatever you dae, keep your mouth shut'."

Actors such as Gregor Fisher and John Bett became close friends. "I'm one of those women who have more male friends than females. But that's not to say I didn't have my heart broken. Many times."

Over the years, Cadzow landed a huge range of roles, appearing in panto, in STV soap High Living, in cult horror The Wickerman. "I didn't know who Christopher Lee was at the time, as I wasn't a horror movie fan," she says rather endearingly.

Along the way she's worked with all the Scots greats such as Stanley Baxter; "Wonderful and a great teacher, but firm." Jimmy Logan; "A lovely man." And Rikki Fulton; "Demanding. The gag always had to go Rikki's way. I don't think Rikki was a very nice man."

The strikingly attractive young actress played a lot of peacocks in posh frocks in costume dramas. And game birds. "In the (1987) TV drama The Houseman's Tale I had this sex scene with a chap who wasn't the most attractive," she says, grinning. "But I had to sit on top of him totally naked, all the trying to avoid my bits connecting. And while it was meant to be a closed set, all the crew watched on a monitor."

The naked Cadzow was also being stared at in November, 1989 while filming Scots movie, Venus Peter. "I played a weird character, the Princess Paloma, who was laid out naked on a gravestone in an Orkney graveyard and the Beadle of the town, played by Alex McAvoy, (of Vital Spark fame) had to scrub me down while singing Rock of Ages. However, years later, at a Children In Need show, Big Brother star Cameron Stout came up to me and said he and a wee pal had watched the filming from behind a stone wall." She adds laughing; "I don't think it affected him too badly."

Cadzow had had a ten year relationship with actor Roy Hanlon, which dissolved 'for several reasons.' She was forty and single in July, 1988, when she met David MacLennan at the wedding of Elaine C.Smith and Bob Morton. "I'd known David for years, but we worked in different acting circles." She adds, with a coquettish grin; "After the wedding he came round to my house - and he never left."

David MacLennan was arguably the most important figure in the history of Scottish theatre, a co-founder of agit prop companies 7:84 and Wildcat and creator of A Play, Pie and A Pint at Oran Mor in Glasgow.

"David was set to give it all up," she says, her voice soft. "We wanted to go off and travel for a year in Europe and David would write. Sadly, we never got the chance. Since then I feel like I've been swimming underwater, not feeling, not seeing properly. He was a huge character, an intellect and full of joy and fun."

Her partner was also as stubborn as a mule with its back legs bound up. Did he ever annoy the hell out her? "All the time," she says breaking into a laugh. "And we both had hot tempers." Spaghetti on the walls at times? "Oh, yes!" she exhales. "Doors slammed, the lot. But we had great fun making up."

Their life together was often about being apart, of touring theatre, of filming abroad. And it was challenging. "When Wildcat went down (1998) we were struggling. (The Cadzow family money had dwindled). To make it worse we'd sent our son Shane to private school." Did this not sit at odds with their egalitarian principals? "Yes, definitely," she admits, "and financially it was a stupid thing to do, but the Thatcher years and the problems with education pushed us. Thankfully, Balamory came along and Edie McCredie dug us out of the hole."

And just as the kids' series, ended, the Oran Mor plays began. And Cadzow's career re-lit, going on to feature in panto and TV dramas such as Dr Who. This Christmas, the actress will star as the Wicked Queen in Snow White at the King's Theatre in Glasgow, alongside Gregor Fisher.

"I haven't been hugely ambitious but work has somehow come along. I've had a fantastic career."

That's down to raw talent and a very clever mind, a performer who can take some of their own fragility and transmit it via their stage character. And for such an upbeat lady, life, in time, will reveal a boulevard ahead.

"It will," she says, smiling. "In the meantime, I'm off to play a mad actress. How much fun is that?"

*Sunset Boulevard, Oran Mor, Glasgow, until Saturday.