Widowed actress puts on brave face at premiere

Film star Natascha McElhone put on a brave smile as she appeared in public with the son her husband did not live to see.

Cuddling baby Rex, the 37-year-old seemed in good spirits, wearing a scarlet ankle-length velvet coat at the UK premiere of her new film.

McElhone, who starred with George Clooney in 'Solaris' and Robert De Niro in 'Ronin', also took her other sons, Theo, eight, and Otis, five, to the screening of 'The Secret Of Moonacre at Vue' in London’s Leicester Square.

McElhone, whose plastic surgeon husband Martin Kelly died of heart problems at their west London home in May last year, previously revealed that her husband’s last message to her was that he was looking forward to visiting her in Los Angeles, where she was filming the TV show 'Californication'.

Mr Kelly, 43, was found slumped in the doorway of his home in Fulham, west London, by a friend, another doctor.

Paramedics tried to revive him but he was pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

After the death last year, the actress told reporters: “I haven’t been able to go off into a corner and be self-indulgent.

“I had this irrational fear at first that by moving on I would be leaving him behind. But that’s obviously what you must do, as a parent.

“I have grabbed life by the throat and I am packing in as much as I can and trying to keep things fun for the boys, actually.”

'The Secret Of Moonacre' is a fantasy-based tale about a 13-year-old orphan, set in the 1840s.