‘My life has been good, awful, sad, and tragic,’ says Dallas actress Linda Gray of the two decades it took her to leave her emotionally abusive husband.

‘We can have as much fun as we had when we were 25. Maybe even more because we don’t have to worry about children breaking into the bedroom.’

Linda’s gripping new book The Road to Happiness is Always Under Construction is half practical self-help guide to aging gracefully and part brutally honest biography.

Still attractive and thin, she might pass for a woman in her 50s in a beige silk top and J-Brand jeans, her enormous brown eyes gleaming, red hair pulled up in a bun. Her face is lined and full of character, so I believe her when she says she has never undergone plastic surgery.