Emma Noble, has undergone heart surgery at the age of 46
Sir John Major’s former daughter-in-law, Emma Noble, has undergone heart surgery at the age of 46.
Her devastated second husband Conrad Baker, who has been holding a bedside hospital vigil, tells me that the operation was caused by an underlying condition.
‘She had the heart operation this morning and she’s doing very well,’ he tells me. ‘The details are difficult to explain, but it should make her life easier.
‘It’s been a worrying time, but she is being well looked after.’
Earlier, he sent out a message to well-wishers, thanking them for their ‘kind words and wishes for my beautiful and brave wife, Em. She is out of theatre and doing really well.
‘As some of you may know, Emma has been unwell for a while; it’s been a really tough time for her. But this is a positive step forward.’
By bizarre coincidence, Emma’s first husband, James Major, also suffers from a heart condition. He had a pacemaker fitted to correct an irregular heartbeat when he was just 24 in 1999.
Emma (pictured) was best known for her role as a hostess on the TV game show The Price Is Right when she met James.
They got engaged three months later and married in the Palace of Westminster in 1999 in a lavish ceremony that earned them £400,000 from Hello! The couple had a son, Harry.
However, the union ended in an acrimonious divorce in 2004. Noble was alleged to have cheated with actor Graham McGrath, her co-star on former ITV soap Crossroads, which she denied.
In 2007, Emma spoke about the pressures of bringing up her autistic son as a single parent. The following year, she cDlaimed that Sir John and Lady Major took little interest in their grandchild, failing even to send him a birthday card. The allegations were rejected as ‘wholly false and hurtful’ by James.
Emma wed businessman Conrad in 2013 at Canterbury Cathedral and Harry walked her up the aisle.
James later married Kate Dorrell, the woman he fell for when she was the married deputy head at Harry’s school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.
ALL-STAR LINE-UP FOR JOOLS HOLLAND’S 60TH
Jennifer Saunders, Ruby Turner, Jools Holland, Mary McCartney, Kylie Minogue and Melanie C at Jools Holland 60th Birthday Party at the Boisdale of Belgravia, London
Although musician Jools Holland gathered a full Jurassic Park of rock legends to his 60th birthday bash at Boisdale in Belgravia — Jeff Beck, Sir Tom Jones, David Gilmour and Bob Geldof among them — he had the good taste to be snapped surrounded by his most photogenic female guests.
His admirers included (from left to right) Jennifer Saunders, R&B star Ruby Turner, pop pixie Kylie Minogue, Spice Girl Melanie C, clutching the left hand of Jools’s wife, Christabel McEwen, and Mary McCartney.
DISGRACED DJ DLT IS GIVEN A JOB LIFELINE
Partial rehabilitation for disgraced DJ Dave Lee Travis, who is still banned from being shown on TV’s Top Of The Pops repeats.
The former Radio 1 star has been given a job on a new national radio station.
DLT, now 72, known as The Hairy Cornflake in his broadcasting heyday, was given a suspended sentence after being found guilty of a historic sex offence after a retrial on various charges in 2014.
He has now been hired for a job on United DJs, staffed by veteran former Radio 1 and Radio Luxembourg DJs.
Fellow former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read, 70, who will also be presenting on the self-styled ‘Station of the Stars’ says: ‘We agreed he hadn’t done anything [bad] for years, we can’t judge him, he isn’t working at the moment so we’re having him on board, he’ll be doing a show for us.’
The British Backscratching Corporation was in full swing at the premiere of Rupert Everett’s Oscar Wilde biopic The Happy Prince in Utah.
Alan Yentob tagged along, as he is filming Everett’s quest to make the movie for his BBC Imagine show.
‘The Happy Prince is a BBC Films co-production and Yentob is thanked in the credits,’ says my source at the Sundance Film Festival, ‘so one arm of the BBC is merrily promoting another at licence-fee payers’ expense.’