Josephine Edwina Jaques (7 February 1922 – 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress, known as Hattie Jacques.
Starting her career in the 1940s, Jacques first gained attention through her radio appearances with Tommy Handley on ITMA and later with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in fourteen Carry On films, playing roles such as a hospital matron. She had a long professional partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in his long running television series Sykes. She also starred in two Norman Wisdom films, The Square Peg and Follow a Star.
Jacques was married to John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965.
Her final appearance on television was in an advertisement for Asda in 1980. She died later that year from a heart attack.
Hattie Jacques was born Josephine Edwina Jaques in Sandgate, Kent, in 1922, the daughter of Robin and Mary Jaques. Her father was an RAF pilot and footballer for Clapton Orient and Fulham who was killed in an aeroplane crash 18 months after her birth. Her mother was an amateur actress. Her brother was the artist and illustrator Robin Jacques.
Plot
Married comic actors Hattie Jacques and John LeMesurier seem the perfect couple,with their two young sons and the legendary Christmas dinners they host for their friends. However,in 1963,after a charity fund raiser for leukaemia, Hattie meets the young and handsome John Schofield,whose son died of the disease. He tells her that she is lovely and boosts her confidence about her plumpness. When he splits with his wife John LeMesurier suggests he becomes the family's lodger but he becomes Hattie's lover,jealously so,angry that he cannot be part of her 'This Is Your Life' TV tribute.The gentlemanly LeMesurier moves into the spare room,the while remaining good friends with Hattie,who encourages him to date family friend Joan Malin,whom he will eventually marry. To preserve Hattie's public reputation,her husband accepts blame in the divorce court and will remain on good terms with her for the rest of her life. Two years later Schofield deserts Hattie for an Italian heiress. She will never remarry,seeking the company of younger men and succumbing to illness propounded by her size,leading to her death from a heart attack at the early age of fifty-eight.
[during filming of Carry on Cabby]::Gerald Thomas: Let's go again. Close up on the bust.::Hattie Jacques: Hers or mine?
[after a blazing row, John, who is Hattie's driver as well as her lover, has just ended the relationship and stormed out of the hotel. Hattie phones the location where she is due on set to start filming]::Hattie Jacques: [tearfully] Do you think you could send a car. My driver seems to have... gone.
[Hattie meets John Schofield for the first time when he drives up in a red E-Type Jaguar sports car]::John Schofield: Are you all right here, or do you need to sit in the back like the Queen?::Hattie Jacques: [coyly] I'd need six months' notice to squeeze my behind in there.