The 65-year-old actress, who starred in two Bond films, had been suffering from bowel cancer.
Police were called to her home in Maida Vale, north-west London, at 1.50pm on Monday after she apparently downed a significant quantity of a toxic liquid.
Tragic: Leslie Phillips with Miss Scoular. She was 21 years his junior
The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into her death which was being treated as unexplained last night.
Depressed: Angela Scoular had been suffering from bowel cancer
Speaking from his home, he described Monday as ‘the worst day of my life’.
He said: ‘I didn’t know she was going to take her own life.
‘I suspected that it was a possibility because she had gone under, into this deep sadness. She had had a ghastly time.
‘She never got free of the illness. I felt very sorry for her. Other illnesses had started to creep in. After three years of cancer, she was always getting something else.
‘She did her best but it got her down. Cancer takes you to the lowest places. It’s a very tough thing to live with.
'She was weakened by the cancer and then depressed, deeply depressed. She was all over the place.’
TV presenter Lynn Faulds Wood, who set up Lynn’s Bowel Cancer Campaign after surviving the disease, said: 'There is very sporadic support for people with cancer and the importance is under-recognised by the government.
'It tends to be left to charities - like ourselves and Macmillan - and whether you are lucky enough to be treated at a hospital with good cancer support. Sadly this is patchy across the UK.
‘The case is also tragic because bowel cancer is a preventable disease. Thankfully we now have screening programmes for over-55s coming in - 50 in Scotland - and we are leading the world in how we are organising preventing this common cancer.'
Carry On star Phillips married Miss Scoular, who was 21 years his junior, in 1982. He met the actress, then a pregnant single mother, in 1976 when they were in the same play.
They lived together for five years and married only after Phillips’s first wife Penny died.
Penny had been crippled by a stroke and Phillips and Miss Scoular looked after her until her death in a house fire in 1981.
The couple did not have any children together, but Phillips, who had four children from his previous marriage, brought up Miss Scoular’s son, Daniel.
The couple pictured in 2005. They had first met in 1976 when they appeared on stage together
Celebrating: Leslie Phillips and his second wife Angela Scoular on their wedding day in 1982
Starlet: Angela Scoular as Ruby in a scene from On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), with George Lazenby as James Bond
She appeared in two Bond films – as Buttercup in Casino Royale in 1966 and as Ruby Bartlett in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969.
Film roles also included A Countess From Hong Kong (1967), featuring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968), and the British comedy Doctor In Trouble, in which Phillips also starred, in 1970.
In March 2009, Phillips gave an interview about his family, telling a reporter: ‘Life has been incredibly kind for 75 years, but not at the moment.
‘My lovely wife of 30-odd years, Angela Scoular, is being treated for bowel cancer.
‘You just have to deal with it, but it's not the best way to welcome spring.’
A police spokesman said: ‘The death is currently being treated as unexplained and officers from Westminster are investigating. An inquest will be held in due course.’
‘Her death is currently being treated as unexplained and officers from Westminster are investigating.
‘An inquest will be held in due course.’
For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details
Bond girl: Angela Scoular appeared in two fillms about the famous spy - Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Here, she appears as Buttercup with David Niven in Casino Royale
TV career: Angela Scoular in Doctor In The House
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