Long before the bodice-ripping antics of Bridgerton, there was Colin Firth emerging wet-shirted from a lake in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride And Prejudice.
The famed encounter saw Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) getting hot and bothered at the sight of the brooding Mr Darcy (Firth) in his damp undergarments.
It also marked a turning point for Jane Austen adaptations, which had previously relied on chaste looks and witty repartee for romantic tension.
That two-minute scene has become part of TV folklore, leading to Firth’s now infamous white shirt selling at auction for $50,000 last year.
Only, according to Firth, it never actually happened. Talking about his sexy stint as Mr Darcy, the British actor revealed he never went swimming in his britches and undershirt. And the perceived Austen peepshow was all down to the magic of television (and the wishful thinking of viewers).
“The shirt was barely soggy or clingy or any of the things it’s mythologized to be,” a bemused Firth has said.
“They have even got me coming out of a lake, which I know I never did, and that got voted the most memorable moment in television history: the thing that never happened!”
Nonetheless, the wet shirt device was used again in season two of Bridgerton when Jonathan Bailey’s character paraded his rippling muscles after an icy dip.
And Firth himself would pay homage to the career-making scene in Love Actually, when his lovelorn character falls for his Portuguese maid after she (and he) dive into a lake to save his manuscript.
The 1995 retelling of Jane Austen’s famed novel proved period dramas could be sexy and draw a crowd, inspiring author Helen Fielding to pen her own adaptation of Pride And Prejudice, Bridget Jones’s Diary – which would, of course, also feature Firth as a modern Mark Darcy when adapted for the screen.
Having already inspired countless film and television series – the best of which being the 1940 Oscar-winning version starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, and 2005’s coupling of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen – producers are taking the plunge on Pride And Prejudice again.
This time, Everything I Know About Love author and one-time Made In Chelsea story producer Dolly Alderton is bringing her unique perspective to Austen’s 1813 novel with Emma Corrin (who won a Golden Globe playing a young Princess Diana in The Crown) as Elizabeth and Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden as the new Darcy. Rounding out the cast is Oscar-winner Olivia Colman as the social-climbing Mrs Bennet.
“Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be part of it,” Alderton said.
“Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy – it has been a joy to delve back into its pages to find both familiar and fresh ways of bringing this beloved book to life.”
