Helen Mirren - Mirren's Mortgage Pretence

DAME HELEN MIRREN once had to pretend to be engaged to persuade a bank to give her a mortgage.

The British actress admits she was unable to get on the property ladder single-handedly when she tried to buy her first home.

And The Queen star came up with a cunning plan to fool the money-lenders to grant her a loan.

Mirren teamed up with a male friend and they pretended to be engaged to allow them to share the mortgage on a house in Fulham, south-west London, which had already been converted into two flats.

She says, "He had a girlfriend, but in those days we had to pretend that we were going to get married in order to get a joint-mortgage. So we went into the mortgage company and I sort of very fakely sat on his knee and said, 'Oh darling, I can't wait for us to get a house together.' In fact, we were always going to live completely separately."