British actor Bill Nighy contemplated selling his body to achieve his dreams of becoming a famous novelist. Nighy fled England for Paris as a youngster to carve out his dream career and follow in the footsteps of writing heroes Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But the 57-year-old was without cash and considered trading sex for money in a seedy establishment called Madame Cuckoo's - but was too shy to go through with it.

He says, "The problem for me, was at that stage, I had never actually made love to a woman. When I was a teenager I was so paralyzed with shyness and self-consciousness that I used to get pains in my legs because I found it so difficult to talk to girls.

"That's the sort of boy I was. But if I had ever got to Madame Cuckoo's I wouldn't have even known what to do to earn my 250 francs ($50), so I figured it was better all round if I just didn't turn up there at all."

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)