Early and forgotten British celebs

[LucyEyelesbarrow]

He was very backward as well,very low mental age poor soul.

No doubt that suited Christie, who (correctly) gauged that Evans would be the main suspect and was unlikely to be believed.

 

[House of Tea]

Thread for celebs of the past.

A new discovery for me, Yvonne Buckingham who played Christine Keeler.

View attachment 1319732

Thank you for doing this.

I don’t remember her, not quite that old, but remember reading a few articles about her.

The sad last picture of Sabrina, British Marilyn Monroe

This is the sad last picture of Sabrina, the women who became famous as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. DailyMail.com can reveal she- died in agony in North Hollywood, drug addicted and in pain.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Not sure why, but the Mail link does not open. So trying this Express one.

Norma Ann Sykes: The sad decline of Britain’s Marilyn Monroe

SHE FOUND fame on hit 1950s comedy show Before Your Very Eyes and her breasts were insured for £100,000 but blonde bombshell Sabrina died a recluse.

www.express.co.uk

 

[Eirawen]

Anybody a fan of the Ealing Comedies?

Personal favourites are Lavender Hill Mob and The LadyKillers.

Alec Guinness was quite the actor.

Loved the Ealing comedies I watch them over and over, Alec Guinness was a fine actor especially in Kind Hearts and Coronets when he played about 5 or 6 different roles.

 

[House of Tea]

Dora Bryan, she was a little power house. Still doing the splits into old age!

 

[Messychaotic - one word]

You are probably better off posting this one on the Celeb Secret gossip thread to get traffic. LLB can’t really be described as early or forgotten!

Secret Celebrity Gossip #79

Continuation of #78 ... Last discussing Rebel Wilson coming out as gay and a sexual predator being mentioned by Katherine Ryan and Sarah Pascoe. Also forgot Shepherdess Amanda splitting from her husband. On the previous thread someone asked if Katherine Ryan and Sara Pascoe were talking about...

tattle.life

OMG - so sorry, I thought I was in that thread!

I agree - definitely not forgotten.

Thanks @House of Tea !

 

[House of Tea]

Yes I remember that @Dollylovesshoes He said that dust just kept arriving so what’s the point, something like that. I agree with him and try and ignore dust, but I hate it and then I cave and dust.

An Englishman in New York by Sting was about him I believe.

 

[dorydaryl]

Ahhh, Beryl Reid. Did she once play or do the voice for the Queen Mum? Loved her voice.

I also loved Mollie Sugden. I know she was in many other productions but her Mrs. Slocombe was legendary (perhaps not quite yet 'forgotten', though, for anyone over 35).

 

[LucyEyelesbarrow]

A million light years from where it is now. I stopped watching it when Pat Phelan had some guy chained up in a basement. And Eastenders way before that. We need light relief not shouty angst and misery. Remember Corrie’s Blanche? Fab writing.

Completely agree. And for years Corrie was unfairly compared with EastEnders as being behind the times. In fact, it often delivered steel in a velvet glove when dealing with darker emotional issues, rather than all the stupid sign posting that goes on now. Audiences are treated like idiots.

Alongside that, Corrie had great light-hearted humour with smaller storylines (remember Jack Duckworth's video dating escapade as Vince St Clair? Hilarious stuff that was then referred to here and there later on). Everything seems to have to be one-shot immediacy now, and then instantly forgotten. That's not how real communities work, even now.

 

[wibble]

This a gem of a film...



By the two strikes of the gong it is Bomabadier Billy Wells, rather than Carl Dane, doing the honours...

And with a box of Fruit Gums in hand, it is onto the main feature....

Alec Guiness, Glynis Johns (who rather steals the show with as Ruth Earp), Valerie Hobson, Joan Hickson, and .... Petula Clark as Nellie Cotterill.

Interestingly Valerie Hobson gave up acting when she married John Profumo ("well he would say that, wouldn't he")
and made one of her first film appearances with Boris Karloff, in The Bride of Frankenstein...



I'll use Hobson's later role as Estella in Great Expectations as an excuse to mention the story of Mary Shelley losing her virginity to Percy Bysshe Shelley on, her mother, Mary Wollstencraft's grave... which for some reason people argue about.... (and given the title of the thread, it's only fitting that the Shelley's and Byron get a mention) (no matter how tenuous my linking Mary Shelley and Estella is).

And it wouldn't fair to talk about Valerie Hobson without mentioning her portrayal of Lady Edith D'Ascoyne in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Which you could argue is similar to the part she plays in The Card, though it has more deliciously observed wilful blindness... something that would later come in handy being married to John Profumo

 

[Eirawen]

John Le Mesurier was seemingly such a lovely guy but seemed to get walked over by the women in his life. He had to put up with Hattie flaunting it in front of him and when the divorce came, he fell on the sword and said he was the one who split the marriage up so no one would think badly of Hattie. Even when the younger guy ended up dumping her for a younger woman, rather than say what most would, he was still so warm and friendly to her.

His next wife Joan ended up cheating on him too. He was friends with the comic Tony Hancock who by then was a mess with alcoholism and his career was sliding. John took him into his home to help him recover, and he and Joan ended up starting an affair behind John's back. She left him for a while to be with Tony but went running back to John when he saw how bad Tony was. When Tony died, she left John again and it was Hattie of all people who told her what an idiot she was for leaving and she did go back, staying with him until he died in 1983. The final kick in the teeth was when she wrote a book about it a few years later, declaring her love for Hancock which caused a big fuss at the time.
Maybe he was too much of a doormat for his own good, a lot of wom

I remember that he was a very heavy drinker and cannabis smoker.
Maybe the women in his life needed more.

I had a lovely uncle who was such fun to be around, sadly not for his wife I remember his wife as being called a slut who he was way too good for and she took a lot of stick. But the man she went off with was my dad ( her husband's brother) they lived a very happy life until his death.

My uncle was still the lovely guy who was best mates with everyone, he was like a kid, life and soul of any get-together but trying to get him to do anything practical was a nightmare he was so chilled, a great uncle and friend but a nightmare partner and dad They all lived together ( her and my dad upstairs, him downstairs) for many years until she finally made him leave and then once again she was the bad guy and he was the saint. I think he actually liked that he always came out of it as the good guy

Took me a long time to see the truth of the relationship.

I think alot of these "lovely " men have split personalities, I recall a woman I knew leaving her husband who was perceived as being too good for her and an absolutely wonderful person, kind and very generous and so funny. But years later after she had remarried she said he used to beat her black and blue at home and Mr Nice-guy was a mask he put on for the outside world.

 

[thegirlscout]

Yootha Joyce - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yootha Joyce. I think she was highly underrated.

They have George and Mildred on in the early afternoon, can’t remember what channel, but it’s really enjoyable! Some of the jokes or comments I give a bit of an eye roll to, but I go into it knowing that it’s from a totally different era so of course it’s going to be a different type of comedy!

May I add to the selection: Kay Kendall. I’ve only seen her in one film but it’s a great if you want a gentile Sunday afternoon viewing - it’s called Genevieve. Stars Kendall and Kenneth More.

In 1955 she started an affair with Rex Harrison when he was married to Lili Palmer. However, when he learned from Kendall's doctor that she had been diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia, he and Palmer agreed to divorce so that he could marry Kendall and provide for her care. Kendall was never told she was ill and eventually, dying. She died in 1959 at the age of just 32.

@Pipsy - what a great thread! Thank you for creating it

 

[LucyEyelesbarrow]

My favourite one of his Talking Heads series was Patricia Routledge in A Woman of Letters.

That one was excellent, I do love Patricia Routledge.

Anybody remember her in Housewife 49 ? Think it was 49 anyway.

Yes, there's a drama that really bears repetition. A very poignant tale of a woman who is largely unlistened-to, apart from her reports. The relationship with her son is beautifully portrayed, even though it is difficult. She has no idea how to even grasp the concept of his relationship and loss (and there was no particular reason for her to do so). Just beautifully written and handled.

 

[MrsBsDayOff]

I have an autobiography to read about Rex Harrison. Apparently he was a bastard. Nobody liked him.

I liked the Stanley Holloway quote on this - I thought Noel C was supposed to have said it rather than SH.

Rex Harrison - Trivia - IMDb

Rex Harrison. Actor: My Fair Lady. Rex Harrison was born Reginald Carey Harrison in Huyton, Lancashire, England, to Edith Mary (Carey) and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker. He changed his name to Rex as a young boy, knowing it was the Latin word for "King". Starting out on his theater...

m.imdb.com

Yes I have never read anything good about Rex Harrison, he seems to have been a thoroughly unpleasant man.

I was reading about Chili Bouchier lately. I'm always intrigued by 1930s cinema stars, she was a British actress back then. She had a bit of a renaissance in the 1990s appearing on tv as one of the "last silent stars" although I believe she exaggerated her own fame somewhat.

I also liked Margaret Lockwood in "The Vanishing Lady", which I watched recently. Another one from the time is Google Withers.

 

[Cosmo69]

He had a routine he used on lots of chat shows in the 1970s, where he'd cook a salmon in a dishwasher and then serve it. This got him so much attention that he ended up hosting his own cooking show, and published several cook books. He was a great lover of art as well, and acquired one of the best private collections in the world.

 

[Pipsy]

Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey are suing Paramount over Romeo and Juliet nude scene, accusing them of sexually exploiting and distributing images of children. (They were 15 and 16 at the time). According to W+H , Zeffirelli assured them there would be no nudity in the film and showed them how the camera was positioned in a way as not to capture it. They allege he lied and they were filmed without their knowledge. They are seeking damages of $500 million.

 

[House of Tea]

Ah, for the 'pre-woke' days in which people didn't read subtext into everything gender based and the 'jokes' were on the men as much as the women.

Yes, it must be hard to be any type of performer these days, particularly those who improvise. You would be second guessing yourselves all the time. Colleen Nolan said, in an interview about Loose Women, it’s a different show these days. Before speaking they have to factor in the abuse they will get on social media, and how different that is from days of yore. Obviously she isn’t the subject matter of this thread but it shows the self censorship going on. (I am obviously not in favour of any racism/misogyny etc in case you cancel me!)

 

[Donnavanessa]

I’m just watching the 1945 spooky film ‘Dead of Night’ all the actors are so good, including the marvellous Googie Withers. Her costumes are uber-glamorous too

 

[Dollylovesshoes]

We were talking about Thora Hird the other day,remember the plays on Tv by Alan Bennet I believe,usually the actress was solitary,she played a fantastic part.

 

[Mrs Moon]

My parents enjoyed the Old Mother Riley films with Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane, which were repeated at cinemas in the 50s/60s. Not much on Youtube other than a few short clips. I believe Talking Pictures shows them periodically. It may have partly inspired Mrs Brown (which I hate)

I heard a story from an old actor about Arthur and Kitty. In an effort to stop him drinking during shows she locked him in the dressing room. But unbeknown to her he got a stagehand to pass him a straw under the door and stuck it through the keyhole into a bottle of whiskey provided by the stagehand! Genius and a true story.

 

[HowlOwl]

Watching Diana now on channel 81 in a film called The Last Page made in 1952. She is marvellous.

I found a great YouTube documentary on Diana, it looks like it’s at least 20 years old, but still very interesting, and also This Is Your Life, which was fascinating! - I recognise so many of the guests. It’s sad though as only a few years later she died, followed by Alan - their poor son was only 15, and he died in 2017 after problems with alcohol, at only age 50.