Web Page  No 2178

20^th July 2015

Top Picture: Andrée Melly

Middle Picture: Betty Marden with the Round the Horne Team

Bottom Picture: Heather Chasen

Forgotten Ladies!

During the 1950’s and 60’s, especially on radio, there were a number of bit part actresses which seem to have been forgotten so I will try to correct this a little bit.

Firstly Andrée Melly . She was born on 15^th  September 1932 in Liverpool and appeared in many British films, including The Belles of St Trinian's (1954) and the Hammer Horror film The Brides of Dracula (1960). In 1958 she appeared with the Jamaican actor Lloyd Reckord in the Ted Willis play Hot Summer Night, a production which was later adapted for the Armchair Theatre series in 1959. She continued to appear on British television until 1990. She played Tony Hancock's French girlfriend in two series of Hancock's Half Hour (1955–56) radio series.

In the early years of the long-running BBC radio comedy, Just a Minute she was a regular panellist. Along with Sheila Hancock, she was one of the most regular female contestants, appearing in fifty-four episodes between 1967 and 1976. In 1972, she chaired an episode. She was the first panellist to win points for talking for the prescribed 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation. During her career she also appeared in several episodes of the Benny Hill Show. One thing that is very rarely noted is that she is the sister of the late jazz musician George Melly. She now lives in Ibiza with her husband Oscar Quitak.

Remarkable, unique, unforgettable Betty Marsden was one of Britain's most talented comedy actresses, best known for her multiple roles in the Kenneth Horne shows on BBC radio in the 1960s.

Betty Marsden was born in Liverpool on 24th February 1919, and appeared at Bath Pavilion aged 11 as the First Fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream. She made her London debut later that year in a fairy play with music.

Gaining a scholarship for six years to the Italia Conti Stage School, she first acted in the West End in 1935. And other pre-war West End work came in up until 1939. During the Second World War she entertained the troops with ENSA. In 1947 she won critical praise as the amorous Mrs Corcoran to Alastair Sim's murderous Dr Angelus and in Don't Listen, Ladies! In 1948.

Then came 12 years in revue. But it was in the 1960s she was at the peak of her career, appearing on BBC radio's Round the Horne with Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Horne. She delighted millions of listeners who never knew what she looked like, with her radio characters, such as Daphne Whitethigh, the cookery expert, whose delivery owed something to Fanny Craddock. And there was a regular double-act with Hugh Paddick in the Brief Encounter genre.

Her most famous film role was the guffawing character of Harriet Potter, alongside Terry Scott and Charles Hawtrey in Carry on Camping. In her later years, she appeared in French and Saunders and Casualty.

For many years she, her family and dogs lived on the Thames on an 80 foot converted coal barge "just like Noah's Ark". It was a stylish houseboat; the eight rooms were centrally heated and there was room at table for 14. She particularly loved the Turneresque sunsets over the water. She was married to Dr James Wilson Muggoch, a consultant anaesthetist, who predeceased her; they had a son and a daughter.

In July 1998, 24 hours after moving into a residential home for old actors, she had been chatting to friends in the home's bar when she collapsed and died. She was 79 and had been recovering from a bout of heart problems and pneumonia.

Heather Chasen was born on 20^th  July 1927, in Singapore where her father was an English ornithologist, who left England in 1921, to work at the Raffles Library and Museum in Singapore, He married, Agnes H McCullock, in 1926 but after the birth of Heather and her sister Christine Elizabeth her parents split in 1938, and both remarried.  Heather and her mother left Singapore on the last boat away from Singapore before the Japanese occupation

The family moved to E

ngland and Heather started training at RADA after which she went on tour with the likes of Frankie Howerd, Sybil Thorndike and Douglas Fairbanks Jnr.  In 1949, she married John Webster and has one son with him, Rupert, born in 1955.

Her acting career progressed through the stage and radio where she became best known as WRN Chasen, Mrs Ramona Povey, Rita Murray, Morpeth Goldstein, Natasha Snogitoff, Lady Quirk, Miss Simpkins, Lady Todhunter-Brown, Lucy Doll, Queen Jaratova in the long running radio series The Navy Lark. She has appeared in many programmes on radio and also in early episodes of Crossroads and latterly in Surgical Spirit and Eastenders.

She seems to be one of those actresses who always seem to be working somewhere.

Keep in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

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News and Views:

On this day 20^th July 1960-1965

On 20/07/1960 the number one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 20/07/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 20/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 20/07/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 20/07/1964 the number one single was House of the Rising Sun - Animals and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 20/07/1965 the number one single was Crying in the Chapel - Elvis Presley and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the week was First Mariner 4 photos of Mars received.