For a while he lived with Therese before moving out into his own place as she realised he needed his own space.
He and Therese clicked and Porter became a frequent visitor.
Porter, whose first name means little flower in Maori, grew up in Napier, New Zealand, the daughter of a butcher.
The foremost woman in his life for 40 years until his death was a glamorous bohemian twicemarried Dutch widow 22 years his senior, Therese Megaw.
The drama, which followed the ups and downs in the lives of a well-connected Victorian family through to the 1920s, had a worldwide audience of 160 million in 26 countries.
His emotionally distant, working-class parents did not want him to act and sent him, unwillingly, to train as a radio engineer.