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Sid James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 1913 – 26 April 1976) was a British-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona. Bruce Forsyth described him as "a natural at being natural."^[1]

Early life[link]

James was born Solomon Joel Cohen on 8 May 1913 to Jewish parents in South Africa, later changing his name to Sidney Joel Cohen, and then Sidney James.^[2] His family lived on Hancock Street in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Upon moving to England later in life, he claimed various previous occupations, including diamond cutter, dance tutor and boxer. In reality, he had trained and worked as a hairdresser.

It was at a hairdressing salon in Kroonstad, Orange Free State that he met his first wife. He married Berthe Sadie Delmont, known as Toots, on 12 August 1936, and her father Joseph Delmont, a wealthy Johannesburg businessman, bought a salon for James. Within a year James announced that he wanted to become an actor and joined Johannesburg Repertory Players. Through this he got work with the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

During the Second World War, he became a lieutenant in the South African Army in an entertainment unit, and subsequently took up acting as a career. He came to Britain in 1946, financed by his service gratuity. Initially he worked in repertory before being spotted by the nascent British post-war film industry.

Early films and radio[link]

James made his first appearances in Night Beat and Black Memory (1947), both crime dramas. In 1949 he played the alcoholic hero's barman in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Small Back Room.

His first major comedy role was in The Lavender Hill Mob (1951): with Alfie Bass he made up the bullion robbery gang headed by Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. In the same year he also appeared in Lady Godiva Rides Again and The Galloping Major; in 1956 he had a non-comic supporting role as a journalist in the science-fiction film Quatermass 2. He also had a supporting part as a TV advertisement producer in Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York (1957) and played Master Henry in Outlaw Money an episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood. He also played in Hell Drivers.

Meanwhile, in 1954, he began working with Tony Hancock in BBC radio's Hancock's Half Hour, playing a character with his own name (but having the invented middle name Balmoral), who was a petty criminal who would usually manage to con Hancock. When this was turned into a television series his part was greatly increased to the extent that some viewers considered it to be a double act. Sid James was soon getting as many laughs as his partner. In the final series, the show was renamed simply Hancock and James was not included in the cast. The show was one of the most popular comedy series in Britain on both television and radio.

[edit] The Carry On years

James became a leading member of the Carry On films team, originally to replace Ted Ray who had appeared in Carry On Teacher in 1959. It was intended that Ray would become a recurring Carry On star, but he had been dropped after just one film because of contract problems (he was contracted to ABC films who had never used him). James ultimately made 19 Carry On films, receiving top-billing in 17, making him one of the most featured performers of the regular cast.

The characters he portrayed in the films were usually very similar to the wise-cracking, sly, lecherous Cockney he was famed for playing on television, and in six cases bore the name Sid or Sidney: Sidney Fiddler, Sid Carter, Sid Plummer, Sidney Bliss, Sidney Boggle and Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond.

James also played characters named Sid in appearances outside of the Carry On films, Sid Abbot in Bless This House on television and its spin-off film, as well as Sid Jones, Sid Turner, Sid Marks, Sid Stone, and Sid Gibson in addition to four characters called just 'Sid'. His Sidney Balmoral James from Hancock's Half Hour also appeared in his own Citizen James series. His trademark "dirty laugh" was often used and became, along with a world-weary "Cor, blimey!", his catchphrase. His laugh can be heard here.

There were Carry On films in which James played characters who were not called Sid or Sidney, namely, Carry On Henry (a parody of Henry VIII) and Carry On Dick (a spoof of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin), in both of which he played the title roles, and Carry On Cleo, in which he played Mark Antony. Most notably, in Carry On Cowboy, he adopted an American accent for his part as The Rumpo Kid:

The cast make valiant attempts to maintain American accents, with the most convincing belonging to—surprisingly—Sid James, who made no attempt to disguise his accent in any other film, either before or after this one.

—Adrian Rigelsford, Carry On Laughing — a celebration^[3]

Heart attacks and death[link]

In 1967, James was intending to play Sergeant Nocker in Follow That Camel, but suffered a massive heart attack and was replaced by the American comic actor Phil Silvers. In the same year in Carry On Doctor James was shown mainly lying in a hospital bed, owing to his real-life health scare.

Meanwhile his success in TV situation comedies continued, now heading the cast, notably in Citizen James, Taxi!, George and the Dragon, Two in Clover, and Bless This House. On 26 April 1976, while on a revival tour of The Mating Game, a 1969 farce by the Irish playwright Sam Cree, James suffered a heart attack on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre. The technical manager (Melvyn James) called for the curtain to close and requested a doctor, whilst the audience (unaware of what was happening) laughed, believing the events to be part of the show. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, but died about an hour later. James, aged 62, was cremated and his ashes scattered at Golders Green Crematorium.

Later it was rumoured that James' ghost haunted the dressing room he occupied on the night of his death. After one experience during an engagement there, comedian Les Dawson refused to play the venue again. He never revealed why and would not talk on the subject.^[4][5]

Personal life[link]

Sid James married three times. James and his first wife divorced in 1940 mainly as a result of James's many relationships with other women; it was a pattern that continued throughout his life. In 1943, he married a dancer, Meg Sergei, née Williams (born 1913). Five years later they had a daughter, Reina, before getting divorced on 17 August 1952.

On 21 August 1952 James wed Valerie Elizabeth Patsy Assan (born 1928), an actress who used Ashton as her stage name. During the later part of their marriage they lived in a house partly designed by James himself called Delaford Park situated in Iver, Buckinghamshire, a location close enough to Pinewood Studios to allow him to return home for lunch whilst filming. During his marriage to Valerie he had a well publicised affair with his Carry On co-star, Barbara Windsor, which was documented in the 1998 stage-play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and its 2000 television adaptation Cor, Blimey!. James's obsession with Barbara Windsor was such that it led to his returning home one day to find that all of the furniture had been rearranged, and on another that her husband of the time, Ronnie Knight, had put an axe in his floor.^[6]

James was an inveterate gambler, and a largely unsuccessful one, losing tens of thousands of pounds over his lifetime. His gambling addiction was such that he had an agreement with his agent, Michael Sullivan, whereby his wife did not know how much he was being paid, with a portion set aside for gambling.^[6]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Dictionary of National Biography
• Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot (2007)

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Sid James at the Internet Movie Database
• Sid James at Aveleyman

Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE (6 March 1917, York – 19 April 1992)^[1] was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks",^[2] spanned six decades.

Early career[link]

Howerd was born the son of a soldier, Francis Alfred William^[3] (1887–1935)^[4] and Edith Florence Howard^[5] (née Morrison, 1888–1962)^[3][4] at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed). He was educated at Shooters Hill Grammar School in Woolwich, London.^[6] His first stage appearance was at age 13 but his early hopes of becoming a serious actor were dashed when he failed an audition for RADA. He began to entertain during World War II service in the British Army. It was at this time that he adapted his surname to Howerd "to be different".^[1] Despite suffering from stage fright, he continued to work after the war, beginning his professional career in the summer of 1946 in a touring show called For the Fun of It.

His act was soon heard on radio, making his debut in early December 1946 on the BBC's Variety Bandbox programme with a number of other ex-servicemen. His profile rose in the immediate postwar period (aided by material written by Eric Sykes, Galton and Simpson and Johnny Speight). In 1954, he made his screen début opposite Petula Clark in The Runaway Bus, which had been written for his specific comic talents, but he never became a major film presence. The film was so low-budget that they could not afford scenery; instead they used a fog generator so that little was visible behind the action. Even so, the film was an immediate hit.

Career revival[link]

Howerd was a regular feature in the 1950s version of the comic Film Fun but when he began experimenting with different formats and contexts, including stage farces, Shakespearean comedy roles, and television sitcoms, he began to fall out of fashion. After suffering a nervous breakdown at the start of the 1960s, he began to recover his old popularity, initially with a season at Peter Cook's satirical Establishment Club in Soho in London. He was boosted further by success on That Was The Week That Was (TW3) in 1963 and on stage with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1963–1965), which led into regular television work. In 1966 and 1967, he co-hosted a 90-minute Christmas show called The Frankie and Bruce Christmas Show with Bruce Forsyth, featuring many top acts of the day.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, he was involved in shows for the BBC and Thames Television (as well as Frankie Howerd Reveals All for Yorkshire Television in 1980). Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote for him from 1964 to 1966 when he worked for the BBC and also for a one-off show for Thames, Frankie Howerd meets The Bee Gees, shown on 20 August 1968. He was famous for his seemingly off-the-cuff remarks to the audience, especially in the show Up Pompeii!, which was a direct follow-up from Forum. His television work was characterised by addressing himself directly to the camera and littering his monologues with verbal tics: "Oooh, no missus", "Titter ye not", and so on, but a later sale of his scripts showed that the seemingly off-the-cuff remarks were all planned. Barry Cryer said of his technique: "What he could do with a script was amazing, like all the great performers. He transformed something you'd just written - what you hoped was in a Frankie Howerd idiom - but when you heard him do it, my God, it was something else; - it was gossiping over the garden wall, the apparent waffle - he was like a tightrope walker, you thought he's going to fall off in a minute, you thought , 'Come on, Frank' , we're waiting for a laugh, and then, suddenly, Bang. He knew exactly what he was doing." ^[7] Another feature of his humour was to feign innocence about his obvious and risqué double entendres while mockingly censuring the audience for finding them funny.

In 1971 Howerd recorded, with June Whitfield, a comedy version of the song "Je t'aime", made famous by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, in which she featured as "Mavis" alongside Howerd's "Frank", and a third unexplained sleeping partner named "Arthur". The song was included in the 2004 CD re-issue of Oh! What a Carry On!.

He was awarded an OBE in 1977.

Later career[link]

Portrait by Allan Warren

In 1976, Howerd appeared in The Frankie Howerd Show on CBC Television. It received good ratings but was not renewed^[8]

In 1978, Howerd appeared in the big-budget Hollywood musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band playing Mean Mr Mustard, acting alongside musical and film talent such as Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees, George Burns, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and Steve Martin. He was cast by producer Robert Stigwood as he was on Stigwood's record label at the time. The film was a critical and commercial flop. Since Howerd was not well known to American audiences, this may have been his biggest exposure in the U.S.

After six years without a regular television show in the United Kingdom (though he had hosted a one-off UK version of The Gong Show for Channel 4, which was critically panned and was not commissioned for a full series), Howerd returned to TV screens in 1987 in the Channel 4 show Superfrank!, scripted by Miles Tredinnick and Vince Powell. In the last years of his career, Howerd developed a following with student audiences and performed a one-man show at universities and in small theatrical venues. He was also a regular and popular guest on the late night BBC Radio 1 programme Into the Night, hosted by Nicky Campbell.

Howerd often worked with Sunny Rogers who was his accompanying pianist from 1960 onwards. She appeared in his TV and live theatre shows including his last major West End appearance—his one-man show—at the Garrick Theatre in 1990. In 1982, Howerd appeared in the televised versions of Trial by Jury (as the Learned Judge) and H.M.S. Pinafore (as Sir Joseph Porter, KCB).

Personal life[link]

Throughout his career, Howerd hid his potentially career-destroying homosexuality (acts between consenting males being illegal in England and Wales until 1967 and illegal in Scotland until 1981) from both his audience and his mother, Edith. In 1955, he met waiter Dennis Heymer, who later became his manager. Heymer was with Howerd for more than thirty years as lighting operator, manager and lover, until Howerd died.

Backstage, Howerd was notoriously bold in his advances, and was known for his promiscuity. One of Howerd's former boyfriends was comic actor Lee Young who created the TV sitcom Whoops Baghdad (1973) for him. Howerd's uncomfortable relationship with his sexuality – he once said to Cilla Black, "I wish to God I wasn't gay" – as well as his depressive mental state, led him to seek resolution through a series of different methods. Heymer would often drop Howerd off on Friday at his psychiatrist, who would ply him with LSD over the weekend.^[9]

Howerd lived for the last twenty or so years of his life in Wavering Down, a house in the village of Cross, Somerset by the Mendip Hills.^[10]

Death[link]

Having contracted a virus during a Christmas trip up the River Amazon in 1991, Howerd suffered respiratory problems at the beginning of April 1992 and was rushed to London's Harley Street clinic, but was released at Easter to enjoy his last few days at home. He collapsed and died of heart failure two weeks afterwards, on the morning of 19 April 1992. He was 75 years old.^[11] Two hours before he died, he was speaking on the telephone to his TV producer about new ideas for his next show.^[12]

Howerd died one day before fellow comedian Benny Hill. News of the two deaths broke almost simultaneously and some newspapers ran an obituary of Howerd in which Hill was quoted as regretting Howerd's passing, saying "We were great, great friends". The quote was released by Hill's agent, who was not aware that his client had died.

Legacy[link]

A BBC TV biography about Frankie Howerd — Rather You Than Me — was broadcast by BBC Four on 9 April 2008. The script was written by Peter Harness, after extensive interviews with Howerd's last boyfriend, Dennis Heymer. The comedian David Walliams was cast as Howerd.^[13]

On 15 May 2009, Dennis Heymer, Howerd's boyfriend, died in the home that he and Howerd had shared near Axbridge, Somerset. He was 80.^[14]

Howerd's home, Wavering Down, is a tourist attraction and, in the summer, hosts concerts and opens regularly as a museum of Howerd's collection of memorabilia and personal effects such as his false teeth and ill-fitting toupee to raise funds for charities.^[10] Howerd's grave is at St. Gregory's Church in Weare, Somerset.

Howerd also lived at 27 Edwardes Square, Kensington, London W8 6HH. The house bears a blue plaque erected by the Dead Comics' Society.

The Church Hall of St Barnabas Church, Eltham is called The Frankie Howerd Centre.^[15]

Works[link]

Recordings[link]

78s and singles[link]

• Nymphs and Shepherds (1940s, with Margaret Rutherford)
• Three Little Fishes (first issued as a 78 in 1940s, re-issued as a single in 1980s)
• I'm The Man Who's Deputising For The Bull (1952, Columbia Records) written by Eric Sykes, acc. by Billy Turnent and His Orchestra)
• English As She Is Spoken (1952, Columbia Records))
• Je t'aime (1971, with June Whitfield)

Albums[link]

• At The Establishment and At The BBC (1963, DECCA, scripted by Barry Took and Marty Feldman)

Television[link]

• That Was The Week That Was (1962)
• East of Howerd (1966)
• Howerd's Hour (1968)
• Carry on Christmas (1969)
• The Frankie Howerd Show (1969)
• Up Pompeii! (1969–75)
• Whoops Baghdad
• The Frankie Howerd Show (1976)
• Howerd Confessions (1976)
• Up the Convicts (1976)
• Frankie Howerd Strikes Again (1981)
• Then Churchill Said to Me (1982)
• Superfrank! (1987)
• All Change (1989)
• Frankie Howerd on Campus (1990)
• Frankie's On... (1992)

Selected filmography[link]

• The Runaway Bus (1954)
• The Ladykillers (1955)
• An Alligator Named Daisy (1955)
• Jumping for Joy (1956)
• A Touch of the Sun (1956)
• Further Up the Creek (1958)
• The Cool Mikado (1962)
• The Fast Lady (1962)
• The Mouse on the Moon (1963)
• The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966)
• Carry On Doctor (1967)
• Carry On Up the Jungle (1969)
• Up Pompeii (1971)
• Up the Chastity Belt (1971)
• Up the Front (1972)
• The House in Nightmare Park (1972)
• Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

Selected bibliography[link]

• On the Way I Lost It by Frankie Howerd (1976). ISBN 0-491-01807-X.
• The Complete Frankie Howerd by Robert Ross (2001). ISBN 1-903111-08-0.
• Frankie Howerd: Stand-Up Comic by Graham McCann (2004). ISBN 1-84115-310-9.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Frankie Howerd

• Frankie Howerd at the Internet Movie Database
• Frankie Howerd at the Open Directory Project
• Frankie Howerd: Gay Great From Fyne Times Magazine
• Frankie Howerd Week from British Classic Comedy

Irene Joan Marion Sims (9 May 1930 – 27^[1] June 2001) was an English actress, best remembered for her roles in the Carry On films, and latterly for playing Madge Hardcastle in As Time Goes By.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Sims was born in 1930, the daughter of the station master of Laindon railway station in Laindon, Essex.^[2] Sims' early interest in being an actress came from living at the railway station. She would often put on performances for waiting passengers. She decided that she was certainly interested in pursuing show business, and soon became a familiar face in a growing number of amateur productions locally, during her teens.

In 1946, Sims first applied to RADA, but her audition was unsuccessful. Her first audition included a rendition of Winnie the Pooh. She did succeed in being admitted to PARADA, the academy's preparatory school, and finally, on her fourth attempt, she graduated and was trained at RADA.^[2] She graduated from RADA in 1950 at the age of 19.^[3]

Sims appeared in a number of Brian Rix's Aldwych Theatre farces, but revue was Sims' greatest medium, especially in the works of Peter Myers.^[2] In 1958 she got a part in Peter Coke's play Breath of Spring, which opened at the Cambridge Theatre in March, transferring to the Duke of York's Theatre in August 1958, and running until April 1959. Sims preferred film to stage work. "It was, of course, lovely to be in a successful play, to have the excitement of performing a hit to packed houses (and, not least, the assurance of a regular income for the foreseeable future). But, on the other hand, I found it extremely difficult to keep a performance fresh, and I'd soon get bored."^[4]

Acting career[link]

Sims made her first film appearance in Will Any Gentleman? with George Cole in 1953, closely followed by Trouble in Store with Norman Wisdom. In 1954 she made a cameo appearance in Doctor in the House, opposite Dirk Bogarde as the sexually repressed Nurse Rigor Mortis. Sims became a regular in the Doctors series, which was produced by Betty E. Box, and was hence spotted by Box's husband Peter Rogers.^[3]

In 1958, Sims received a script from Peter Rogers: it was for Carry On Nurse. The film Carry On Sergeant had been a huge success at the box office and in the autumn of that year and Rogers and director Gerald Thomas began planning a follow-up.

She first starred in Carry On Nurse, then Carry On Teacher, followed by Carry On Constable and Carry On Regardless, and this sealed her future as a regular Carry On performer. Following a bout of ill health, Dilys Laye had to be brought in to take her place in Carry On Cruising at very short notice; however, Sims rejoined the team with Carry On Cleo. Her role in this was to set the tone for the rest of the Carry On films. "...[F]or once the costumes were made for me, rather than my having to resort to some old dress that had been used before and had to have a new panel sewn in the back to accommodate my girth - which by now was unvaryingly plump."^{[cite this quote]}

Sims' characters evolved from objects of desire in the early films to frumpy, nagging wives in the later ones, epitomised by the Emily Bung role in Carry on Screaming. Following the success of Carry On Cleo she stayed with the films all the way though to the final one in the original series, Carry On Emmannuelle, appearing in 24 Carry On films in all; she did not return for the one-off revival film, Carry On Columbus. She also appeared alongside Kenneth Williams in the radio show Stop Messing About in 1969-70.

After the Carry On series ended in 1978, Sims continued to work on television. She appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier in the award-winning 1975 television film Love Among the Ruins and had a recurring role as Gran in the BBC comedy series Till Death Us Do Part. From 1979 until 1981 she played the recurring character Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton in Worzel Gummidge for Southern Television. During 1986 and 1987, Sims starred as Annie Begley alongside Angela Thorne in the Yorkshire Television sitcom Farrington of the F.O.. Also in 1986, Sims appeared in the long-running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who in the four episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet as Katryca. She also played Miss Murgatroyd in the Miss Marple adaptation, A Murder is Announced, Betsy Prig in a star-studded adaptation of Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit and Lady Fox-Custard in Simon and the Witch.

In 1989, she appeared as a medium in the video for Morrisey's "Ouija Board, Ouija Board".

She played Mrs Wembley in the BBC comedy series On the Up, which starred Dennis Waterman and ran from 1990 to 1992. From 1994, she played Madge Hardcastle, stepmother of Geoffrey Palmer's character Lionel in As Time Goes By. Sims also appeared in episodes of the hit television comedy series Only Fools and Horses and The Goodies, in One Foot in the Grave special One Foot in the Algarve, and made a guest appearance in a sketch show with Victoria Wood.

In her later years, Sims fought a long battle against depression. This was worsened by the deaths of her agent Peter Eade, her best friend Hattie Jacques and her mother, all within a two year period, which resulted in her falling into alcoholism. Sims suffered from Bell's palsy in 1999 and fractured her hip in 2000 but recovered well. However, her alcoholism was beginning to dominate life in her rented Kensington flat, and she described herself as "the queen of puddings."^[2][5] After assessment by a doctor, she was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre, but she decided to take control of her life. Offered the opportunity to write her autobiography, she took a role in the BBC television film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, alongside Dame Judi Dench and Olympia Dukakis.

Music career[link]

During 1963 Sims made several recordings. Hurry Up Gran/ Oh Not Again Ken was issued as a single followed by Spring Song/ Men. Neither single made an impact on the charts. This didn't deter her from releasing a third and final single during 1967 Sweet Lovely Whatsisname/ The Lass With the Delicate Hair. Though again it failed to chart and as a result the singles are now quite rare. As of 2009 both Spring Song & Men are available for the first time through iTunes and other download services as well as on CD as part of re-issues of the comedy compilation albums Oh! What a Carry On! and Laugh A Minute, bringing the almost forgotten recordings to a new audience. Sims also features on an original cast recording of The Lord Chamberlain Regrets in 1961 as well as The Water Gypsies.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Sims, like her fellow Carry On star Kenneth Williams, never married. Williams, who was homosexual, did however propose a marriage of convenience to her, which she abruptly declined. From 1958, she lived for three years with fellow actor Tony Baird but, every time her parents visited, she asked Baird to remove all of his belongings from their London flat. After she told her mother on a visit that she was living with Baird, her father wrote her a stern letter to which Sims replied saying they had to come to terms with Tony being an extremely important part of her life. A devoted daughter, Sims found the subsequent six months, in which she had no contact with her parents, a difficult time. The relationship had never been perfect anyway, Sims was in her late twenties and Baird in his early forties. Sims writes "Had househusbands been in vogue in those days we'd have made an excellent couple, since Tony was not very successful as an actor and I soon became the main breadwinner. If we had been able to accept that I would go out and earn the money and he would concentrate on running the home, things might have turned out better.... For three years I was besotted with this loveable reprobate, but then the icing on the cake began to chip off and the love started to wear thin. I was virtually keeping him and the friction of the situation was getting harder to bear." Of the break-up, which was finally triggered by Sims returning from a tour to find Baird had not done any washing or housework, she wrote "I could tell that he was genuinely heartbroken, and so was I, but I had to do it for my own survival."^{[citation needed]}

After the break-up from Baird, Sims followed a relationship with John Walters, whom she had known for a long time, as he had been assistant stage manager for the play High Spirits in which she appeared. They had had an 'innocent' romance at the time and embarked on a more serious relationship after Baird. However, Sims never felt it would be a long-term relationship: John had been brought up in a children's home and was a much moodier character than Tony. During what she described as the 'one broody phase of my life', they discussed marriage and children, but it came to nothing and the relationship, the last serious one of Sims's life, ended after around two years of living together.

"I never married because the right person never came along... I leave others to seek for darker explanations. For me it's extremely simple!"

High Spirits[link]

The tone of Sims's autobiography High Spirits is revealing (though not sensationalist), frank and sometimes mordant:

"In Doctor at Sea I was cast again as the Plain Jane character ... my rival in love was played by ... Brigitte Bardot. Joan Sims versus Brigitte Bardot. I'll leave you to guess which of us got her man."