Tragedy, Drugs and a Dad Who Wanted to Have a Sex Change Op ; DA VINCI CODE WEEK: PAUL BETTANY's AMA

(May 16, 01:43 AM)

By JULIE McCAFFREY

EVEN in the weird world of showbiz, few stars have had an upbringing more unconventional than Paul Bettany.

The Da Vinci Code star endured merciless bullying at school and a tragic bereavement in his early years that drove him to the brink of self-destruction with drink and drugs.

Later Paul suffered the breakdown of his parents' marriage and the shock of discovering his dad was gay and considering a sex change.

But learning to cope with life's tragedies and turmoil fuelled his drive for success and helped turn him into the charismatic Hollywood A-list star he is today.

A family friend says: "Life wasn't kind to Paul when he was young. But his family troubles toughened him up and gave him the thick skin actors need to succeed. Seeing how far he has come, and how happy he is in his career and home life today, makes his family exceptionally proud."

His father Thane is expected to leave his picture-postcard cottage in rural Fife, Scotland, to fly to Cannes for tomorrow's glitzy world premiere of The Da Vinci Code. He will sit beside Paul, 34, and his beautiful Oscar winning actress wife Jennifer Connelly to watch the film, in which Paul plays Silas, the murderous monk.

Yet if his father hadn't been discouraged from having a sex- change operation five years ago Paul might have to had to explain to his co-stars Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou why his dad was now his second mum.

Thane, 75, was confused about his sexuality for years and thought seriously about having the drastic operation. He kept this secret from some members of his family but discussed it with his sensitive actor son.

Thane has said: "A few years ago the operation cost pounds 7,000, and I did think, yes. But pounds 10,000 is a lot of money. I have to pay for it. I'm too old to have it on the NHS. It also depends on whether it's wise for me, at my age, to have the procedure.

"It's an idea I have played about with. In fantasies I've thought it would be much easier to have a relationship."

HE added: "Can you imagine me trying to make my living as an actress? It would be much too late."

Paul was born into a show-business family. Thane was a ballet dancer and actor who performed with legendary names including Margot Fonteyn and Sir John Gielgud. His mother Anne Kettle was a talented singer and performer whose parents were also wellknown stage stars.

But because Paul picked up his parents' posh accent, he stood out at the state school in North London where he was taught by nuns.

"I was bullied horribly," he recalled. "And I hated everything about school. Part of the reason was that when I was young we lived on quite a rough estate in Harlesden and I suppose I spoke posh. But we didn't have much money and I didn't fit in."

When he was eight the family moved to Hertfordshire, where Thane taught drama at Queenswood School, a private girls' school. The hardworking dad - who had bit parts on TV, including an appearance alongside Tom Baker's Dr Who as evil peasant Tarak - wanted to build a financially secure life for his family.

Paul, his elder sister Sarah and younger brother Matthew were happy in their new life.

But eight years later the family idyll was shattered by the death of eight-year-old Matthew, who fell from a roof of a tennis pavilion on a fine spring day in 1988.

Thane remembers well the tragic day that ripped the family apart and nearly drove him to suicide. He said: "Paul was 16, and he, Matthew and I had been out looking at planes.

"Back home, Matthew and his friend Jamie asked to go over to play at a place near our home. I told them I would collect them from the pavilion in an hour. About half an hour later little Jamie came running up in tears and said: 'Thane, you'd better come. Matthew's had a fall.' They had been climbing on the pavilion and he lost his hold and fell on to concrete.

"Matthew was still conscious when I got there and he was conscious a lot of the night. He had a massive fracture across the skull.

"But as the evening wore on the answers to doctors' questions got stranger and stranger. Then they decided to operate and he never recovered from that."

TWO days later Thane and Anne were told their bright son would be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.

Together they made the heart-wrenching decision to turn off his life-support machine and said goodbye to their beautiful boy.

"I felt guilt for ages afterwards," recalled Thane. "It broke my marriage, purely because myself and Paul and Sarah needed to talk about Matthew and my wife couldn't cope with it. It became very difficult and our marriage ended.

"It hit Paul hugely, because they were great buddies. Matthew just worshipped Paul."

Thane and Anne divorced in 1993 after 25 years of marriage. Six years later he settled down in Scotland with his partner Andy Little.

He had suicidal thoughts as he struggled to cope with the tragedy.

"I was in such a state of grief that I decided to drive straight at a lorry," he said. "But then I heard Matthew's voice say to me: 'So, Dad, you are going to put Mum, Sarah and Paul through it all again?' and I realised what an awful, selfish thing it would have been to do."

Paul, too, sank into a deep, dark depression. Blaming himself for his beloved brother's death, he moved to London, lived in a cockroach-infested flat above a Greek restaurant and tried to support himself by busking.

He has said: "What happened to Matthew really tore me apart. I thought I should have stuck closer to him, been there for him. But I wasn't. I had this need to punish myself.

"I mixed with some pretty dreadful people when I was busking with a guitar on places like Westminster Bridge in London. I struggled for many years to get through it." But in the end his brother's death shaped his career - which has seen him outshine Russell Crowe in seafaring adventure Master And Commander and star alongside Kirsten Dunst in Wimbledon.

Thane, godfather to Prince Edward's wife Sophie, explained: "When Paul was auditioning to get into drama school shortly after Matthew died, the interviewer said to him: 'Well, you're from a middleclass family and you won't have had any problems or tragedies in your life.'

"Paul said: 'Well, actually, I very recently lost my young brother.' But the guy misjudged Paul and said to him: 'Oh, got drunk and fell out of the window, did he?'

"Paul got up, clambered across the table, grabbed the guy by the lapels and shook him. After that he got straight into drama school because of the passion he showed. It helped make him the actor he is now."

As an up-and-coming actor who had a relationship with actress Emily Mortimer, Paul lurched from a battle with booze to an addiction to cocaine. But years of therapy helped him get clean and come to terms with his brother's death.

He recalled: "I think there will always be a part of me which is inconsolable. But through therapy I stopped doing all the bad stuff. It was slowly destroying me."

Paul is close to his father and is said to be comfortable with his sexuality and glad to see him happy.

He married Jennifer in Scotland on New Year's Day in 2003, and they are said to have one of the strongest marriages in Hollywood.

They have plush homes in New York and London and dote on their son Stellan, two, and Paul's stepson Kai, nine.

With his career firmly on the up and global fame at his feet, it seems that pin-up Paul has finally found the happiness that eluded him in his early years.

So when he beams a handsome smile at the countless cameras that will flash in his pale blue eyes at the Da Vinci Code premiere, no one will grudge him an ounce of the riches and success coming his way.

He'd have liked the op. Imagine Dad trying to make his living as an actress..

I should have been there for Matthew. I had this need to punish myself

julie.mccaffrey@mirror.co.uk

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