Shakespearean actor, Sydney lifeguard, Scottish newspaper journalist, American high school graduate, playwright and now number one best selling novelist, Iain Blair has packed more than most into his sixty something years. But while millions of regular fans enjoy his 29 published novels, none has ever heard of Iain. Why? Because they only know him as romantic novelist Emma Blair.

There's nothing remotely Emma-ish about six foot three inch Iain. Brought up in post war Glasgow, no-one could have predicted that Iain's greatest success would be in the realms of romance writing. In fact his tough upbringing - his father died when he was six weeks old and his mother when he was eleven - stood him in good stead for two of life's most competitive and precarious professions - acting and writing.

Neither careers crossed his mind when he moved to America to live with an aunt after his mother's death. He graduated from West Division High School in Milwaukee and returned to Glasgow where he began work at sixeen with an insurance company. Boredom set in quickly and so at the age of seventeen and alone, Iain decided to emigrate to Australia where he worked as a proof reader on the Sydney Bulletin newspaper and as a lifeguard on South Steyne Beach. But the lure of Scotland was too great and he returned a year later to become a feature writer on the Sunday Post.

A chance afternoon in the cinema was to change his life. The film - The Flame and the Arrow - the actor Burt Lancaster. After watching the movie a mere fifteen times in one week, his mind was made up to become an actor. A place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dramatic Art followed and then a job with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Spear carrying led to small parts, to commercials, to voice over work, repertory, West End plays, radio and television - an acting career spanning twenty years.

During this time, Iain discovered that he could write the lines as well as deliver them. He'd been trying his hand at playwriting when suddenly success beckoned in the form of a trilogy of plays commissioned and performed at the Kings Head Theatre Club in Islington, called The Love Songs of Martha Canary.

Iain wrote a number of plays for theatre and television and then naturally progressed to book writing. At first he tried writing thrillers without much success. Then he completed a saga Where No Man Cries and that's when Emma Blair was born. His publishers decided he'd sell far more books simply by being published as a woman.

"I was given absolutely no choice in the matter.  They'd decided on a sex change and even the name. So that was that. Emma I became and Emma I've stayed," says Iain. "Many people ask me what kind of person Emma is. Well she's probably about late forties, a bit of a tough cookie and had a certain amount of personal tragedy which is why she writes with such passion."

After eleven years of keeping his secret, Iain decided to "come out" and what better vehicle than on BBC's Wogan series Since then, he's appeared in numerous television interviews including a half hour documentary about his work entitled "Emma - a Most Determined Woman" as part of a Westcountry Television series, Men in a Women's World.

Iain has now made his home in the south west of England and many of his books reflect life in the quieter pace of Devon. But he still draws on his experiences in America, Australia, and of course his native Glasgow.

He has two grown up children from a previous marriage, and now lives with his second wife Jane Blanchard, who is head of Features and Current Affairs at ITV Westcountry and also a novelist in her own right.

Iain spends at least six months of each year writing. The rest of his time is spent on meticulous research and enjoying life ion the English Riviera where his alter ego Emma is regarded with wry amusement by the locals.

He still enjoys films and maintains that The Flame and the Arrow is absolutely his favourite movie of all time.