Revealed: How Bread matriarch Ma Boswell made a lot of dough! Jean Boht's extraordinary journey from humble Wirral childhood to huge fortune living in £2.75millon Windsor home - and neighbours with the Queen
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She made her name playing the matriarch of the hard-up Boswell family in the 1980s sitcom Bread. But veteran actress Jean Boht rose from a relatively humble upbringing on the Wirral to amass a huge fortune with her American composer husband Carl Davis – and live in palatial luxury in an eight bedroom Georgian town house as near neighbours of the late Queen.
![[Jean has previously said that she and her husband - the US Carl Davis had no money until the 80s before his career took off. Towards the end of their married lived the couple lived in this eight bedroom Georgian town house worth £2.75million]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/19/93971935-0-image-a-14_1736536928016.jpg)
The couple spent many years in the magnificent Grade Two* listed house in Windsor – a world away from the Boswell family’s fictional terraced home in the working class Dingle area of Liverpool. Their house which backs on to Long Drive next to Windsor Castle and was previously home to several Royal doctors serving former Monarchs sold for £2.75million in 2022.
![[The magnificent property Jean and Carl called home was described by estate agents as ‘one of the most prominent and convenient positions in Windsor’ - and is close to the famed Long Walk]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/11/08/93986615-14272113-image-a-44_1736584259200.jpg)
Boht who grew up in far less salubrious surroundings on the Wirral in Merseyside revealed in an interview in 2012 that she and her husband ‘had no money at all until the 80s’ until his career as a composer and conductor took off. She said: ‘Carl composed the score for the documentary series The World At War in the 70s, but he only got a monthly salary, and I earned just £18 a week until I starred in Bread in the 80s. It got 20 million viewers and changed my life.’.
![[The couple's home was briefly put on the market for £3.25million in 2015, which boasted six bathrooms and four ‘generously proportioned’ reception rooms over five floors]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/19/93971933-0-image-a-18_1736536970650.jpg)
MailOnline revealed exclusively this week how Boht left a net estate of £2,621,271 after she died aged 91 from Alzheimer’s complications in September 2023. Her will left everything to her two daughters as her BAFTA-winning husband died aged 86 just six weeks before her.
![[The life that Jean enjoyed with her hugely successful composer husband Carl who wrote the music for film classic The French Lieutenant's Woman in 1981 is a world away from the character she played a Mo Boswell - the head of the hard-up Boswell clan from Liverpool]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/11/08/93986745-14272113-image-m-3_1736585200677.jpg)
