Amanda's passionate past

With her blonde hair, flawless skin and luminescent blue eyes, Amanda Redman is every inch the glamorous actress. At 44, her career is on a high and she can take her pick of the best roles on offer.

Next month her award-winning ITV show, At Home With The Braithwaites, returns for another series. And later this year she will star with her former lover Dennis Waterman in a new police drama.

Her private life is now settled, following an acrimonious break-up with her former husband, actor Robert Glenister, and a string of failed relationships.

She has bought a house with marketing designer Damian Schnabel, who at 32 is 12 years her junior. Their friends say they are head over heels in love.

Yet for all that, she has been unable to overcome the personal agonies which overshadow her happiness.

In the last series of At Home With The Braithwaites, the script called for her to become pregnant with an unwanted child - while in real life, by cruel irony, she was desperately hoping for a baby of her own.

It was all the more poignant because she has suffered six miscarriages and two ectopic pregnancies in her attempts to have a brother or sister for her 15-year-old daughter, Emily.

'All the old traumas and frustrations of the past kept flashing in front of me,' she says. 'In the last episode, I gave birth to the baby, Katie, and I was in floods of tears because it seemed so unfair that I was only acting.'

The trauma continues in the new series, for she has to hold Katie in several scenes, and she could hardly bear to put her down. 'To cradle her in my arms and then have to give her back to her real mother was almost too much to bear.'

THE link with the more painful parts of Amanda's own life do not end there. In the new series - continuing the story of a dysfunctional family who have scooped a £38 million lottery win - she goes through a bitter divorce from her screen husband, Peter Davison.

She found it upsettingly similar to her breakup with Emily's father, Soldier Soldier star Glenister.

And in a new BBC1 series to be screened later this year, she has a fling with Waterman - with whom she had a passionate affair 20 years ago. 'I fell very hard for Dennis - he is one of the major loves of my life,' she says. 'I'm

a very emotional person and it tears me apart to relive old agonies. I know a lot of people will say that it's only a part I'm playing, but I defy anyone not to be stirred by having to relive unhappy times.'

She and Glenister have been divorced for 11 years, and 'a lot of water has flowed under the bridge,' she says. 'I'm pleased that enough time has passed for me to enjoy the fact that at least Robert and Emily keep in touch. But the break-up wasn't at all easy, and I don't like to be reminded of it.

'As for the pregnancy, for years doctors kept telling me there was no discernible medical reason why I couldn't have another baby.

'I'm only too aware that I'm 44 and time is running out. I so much want another baby. I simply cannot imagine any mother-to-be not wallowing in delight at finding there is a tiny bundle of love growing inside her.

'I didn't want those unhappy times to come flooding back, but they did. I forgot I was playing a character and ended up crying for myself.

'It's bad enough for any woman who has lost a baby during pregnancy. But I've lost eight, and each one was harder to come to terms with than the last.

'I've had so many problems during pregnancy, and nobody knows why. So now I try not to get upset about it. I tell myself that having another baby would be very nice - and if it happens, it happens. Also, unlike a lot of women who have had similar problems, I already have a daughter. So I am very lucky.'

Amanda's affair with Waterman began when they appeared together in the West End musical Windy City.

He was still married to his second wife, Patricia Maynard, but was in the throes of a high-profile affair with Rula Lenska, whom he

later married and then divorced. 'We clicked at once. He is a truly mesmerising, deeply intelligent man. It was a very messy situation, what with his wife and Rula and me, and I was so young and impressionable that I honestly believed I wasn't worthy of him.

'We were together for 18 months and it was mostly a very well-kept secret. But eventually it got to Dennis. He told me: "I can't do this. I'm too weak.î I just wished him luck and moved on, although with a heavy heart. Actually, I felt guilty about his wife and children more than I did about Rula.'

AMANDA plays a top policewoman who brings a detective played by Waterman out of retirement in the BBC1 drama, New Tricks. The sexual tension simmers between them - but this time it will stay on screen.

'What happened in the past was wonderful, but neither of us would dream of taking it further,' she says.

After her affair with Waterman she married Glenister, but they broke up in 1992, unable to survive the strain of three miscarriages and her first ectopic pregnancy.

Almost immediately she threw herself into a relationship with actor Nick Caunter - which led to two further miscarriages, another ectopic pregnancy and another break-up.

Next, she took 17-year-old Oliver Boot, a drama student whom she was tutoring, as her lover. The

relationship lasted two years, but again it was a miscarriage that led to the break-up - she felt that Oliver, 21 years her junior, was too young to deal with it.

'To me, a man's age is immaterial. It just so happens that the only men who have asked me out in recent years have been younger.

'I don't get asked out by men of my own age because most are already married or in a long-term relationship - or they're going through the male menopause and only want much younger women.'

Now, she is with Damian Schnabel. They met at a party four years ago and have bought a house together.

'After Oliver, I thought I'd had enough. I was convinced I'd never meet anyone else. Then Damian walked into my life and it feels like we've been together for ever. We are radiantly happy, but it has been a long journey for me.'

Even her first teenage romance had been traumatic. While she was still at school, a teacher - married and in his 30s - left his wife for Amanda. But he dumped her just before her A-levels.

And there were dark moments in other relationships. In 1999, she admitted that she had been beaten up by two of her boyfriends. She says it took superhuman effort to go public because she felt ashamed.

'Until then, my understanding had been that domestic violence was acceptable so long as you didn't talk about it. Suddenly, I decided it was something that should be brought into the open.

'The first time was when I was a 20-year- old drama student. My boyfriend, who was also a student, tried to strangle me. Twice, in fact. He would kick me and punch me on a daily basis. I got black eyes, a split lip and I lost teeth.

'Another boyfriend beat me on a regular basis as well, but he was careful never to damage my face or bruise me where anyone would see the marks.'

She believes it is possible his attacks damaged her internally. 'He kicked me in the stomach, which was a favourite area for him because it gave me a lot of pain without leaving any outward sign of his abuse. I have often wondered if that is at the root of my pregnancy Amanda is a patron of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, which she says has given her an insight into not only her own problems but those of other women, too.

'We are trying to get more support and counselling for women. I never grieved properly, and perhaps I should have done. Some doctors need to understand what women go through.

'I was in my mid-30s when I had one of my miscarriages, and the doctors just said: "Well, it's getting too late for you to have another baby now, anyway.î

'There are times when I'm watching a film or reading a book and I find myself in floods of tears. Apart from the problem with babies and my biological clock

now that I'm in my 40s, I used to dread getting older because that's when actresses become invisible to casting directors.

'But with Damian I've found my partner for life, and that sort of insecurity doesn't bother me any longer.

'I realise now that I was in the wilderness until I met him. I used to think that all I had to look forward to in life was arthritis and the menopause, but he's made me realise there's much, much more.'

¿ At Home With The Braithwaites returns to ITV early next month.