A GREAT-GRANDMOTHER has become an overnight internet sensation after securing her first acting job at the age of 82.
Jean Jones has been watched on video clip site YouTube more than 500,000 times after starring in budget supermarket Aldis tea advert.
The tongue-in-cheek advert shows Mrs Jones sitting behind a table with a packet of PG Tips and a packet of Aldi tea.
Indicating to the PG Tips then to the Aldi tea, she tells the camera: "I buy this tea for my husband. He likes tea. He also likes this one. I dont like tea. I like gin."
She then takes a glass of gin and tonic from behind the tea and drinks it.
Mrs Jones, from Middleton One Row, near Darlington, was chosen for the 23-second advert from dozens of hopefuls after responding to an advert looking for women aged 60 to 80 for the role.
She decided to audition on the suggestion of a friend to cheer herself up after two of her close friends died in the same month.
"I was asked to attend an audition at the Forum, in Darlington," said Mrs Jones. "I told them I had only come for fun because I had never done anything this that before."
Producers liked Mrs Jones audition so much, they contacted her and asked to shoot some more photographs.
She was then selected as one of four women to film the advert in Carperby, North Yorkshire.
"When they told me they were using mine, I couldn't believe it," she said. "I couldn't believe I had been chosen."
She said making the advert had been fun.
"I giggled all the way through it," she said. "I just thought it was really funny. They told me to go for it and have fun."
Mrs Jones, who has eight children, six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, said her family also enjoyed the advert.
"They all think its great," she said.
Mrs Jones, who is a widow, also got the red carpet treatment from friends at her weekly craft club, in Middlesbrough, when the advert came out and was even asked for her autograph in the local post office.
"When I went to open the door at the craft club, I could hear my friend saying, Can you wait a minute please Jean? I just thought the door was stuck or something.
"When I went in, there was a red tablecloth laid out like a red carpet.
"When I was in the post office in Middleton One Row, the girl behind the counter asked me for my autograph. I said, You are joking, and she said, No, you're famous. It's great fun."
And ironically, gin is not Mrs Jones favourite tipple.
"I actually don't like gin that much - I don't drink much, but when I do, I like a nice glass of wine," she said.
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