Monmouth is home to a very famous showbiz family – The Gregsons. Richard Gregson, who lives just outside the town was in his time a very high flying agent. He represented the author Frederick Forsyth and was Robert Redford’s UK agent. But his biggest connection with Hollywood was when he made a business trip there in 1967 and met, fell in love with and subsequently married a young actress called Natalie Wood. She was already a big star thanks to films like West Side Story. That catapulted him into the realm of the Rat Pack and he regularly found himself in the company of Mr Sinatra and his cohorts. They had a daughter called Natalie Gregson Wagner, who is also an actress. Richard was also involved in film production and writing.
His younger brother is called Michael and he began acting in 1949. He changed his professional surname to Craig and the older readers of this blog will be well aware that Michael Craig was one of the most prolific film and TV actors of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s. He was in a huge number of British films such as Campbell’s Kingdom, The Silent Enemy, Mysterious Island, Doctor in Love and Modesty Blaise amongst others. His TV work dates back to Emergency Ward 10 which is ironic as one of his last TV appearances was in the BBC soap Doctors about six years ago. One of his most memorable TV roles was in the soap Triangle about the dramas on a cross channel ferry which co-starred Larry Lamb and Kate O’Mara and ran for three years in the early 80’s. These days Michael lives in central Monmouth.
