Web Page No 2572

13th April 2019

 1st Picture. Sid James

 2nd Picture. Sid and Barbara Windsor

3rd Picture. Blue Plaque to Sid James

4^th Picture. Audrey Jeans

Sid James

It comes as a shock to many people that Sid James was not a cockney but was born on May 8^th  1913 in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, South Africa and his real name was  Solomon Joel Cohen.

As a small boy he performed with his parents in a music hall act but didn't take it seriously until much later. Growing up he had a variety of jobs, hairdresser, dance instructor, stevedore, coal heaver, and diamond polisher and in later life he would regale friends with tales of being a middleweight boxer pointing to his craggy features as evidence but there's no proof of this.

During the war he served as a lieutenant in the South African Army in an anti-tank regiment in the Middle East and also in an entertainment unit which fired his enthusiasm to go into show business. After the war he spent his service gratuity on travelling to England to try his luck in show business . arriving in England in 1946, with his second wife in tow. After the usual round of working in repertory companies his Cockney voice and breezy personality got him his first screen role as an East End band leader in 'It Always Rains on Sunday made in 1947. Other films then followed while at the same time he was appearing in stage musicals such as Kiss Me Kate and Guys and Dolls, in which he played the lead in the West End.

He achieved nationwide fame in the radio programme 'Hancock's Half Hour', as foil to Tony Hancock, which ran for 5 years, from 1956, on the radio before being transferred to television for a further three before the partnership broke up. Sid then went on to his own tv series 'Citizen James' and 'Bless This House'. He used to say that the best things in his career were Tony Hancock and the 'Carry on's'.

His hard working and hard drinking lifestyle took it's toll with a massive heart attack in the mid-sixties. He still hadn't fully recovered when he was in Carry on Doctor so played all his part lying in bed. In the 70's he took part in a highly successful tour of 'The Mating Game' in Australia where it broke all box office records and he was voted 'Best Actor' by the critics. Back in England he started a British tour of the production but on the first night, April 26^th 1976 at the Sunderland Empire, he collapsed on stage and died on his way to the hospital of a heart attack.

Known in the trade as "one take James", he became a very talented and professional actor, constantly in demand for small parts in British post-war cinema. In 1960 James debuted in the fourth of the Carry On films, taking the lead role in Carry On Constable (1960) and went on to appear in a further 18 Carry On films as well as various stage and television spin-offs. Reputed not to have got on with Carry On co-star Kenneth Williams, the two often played adversaries on-screen, notably in the historical parodies Carry On Up the Khyber (1968) and Don't Lose Your Head (1967). James however was respected and revered by almost everyone he worked with and contrary to popular myth, a true gentleman. An addiction to gambling played a large part in James' workaholic schedule and subsequent heart attack in 1967. He was soon back in action however, playing a hospital patient in Carry on Doctor (1967), able to spend most of the film in bed. He suffered a second and fatal heart attack on stage in Sunderland, England on April 26 1976, leaving behind 3 children and his third wife Valerie who had stuck by him despite his affair with Carry On co-star Barbara Windsor, saying, "He always came home to me".

Sid James suffered a severe heart attack in 1967, prompting him to give up cigarettes, lose weight, eat more sensibly and cut down on his drinking, but on 26^th April 1976, while touring in The Mating Season, Sid James suffered a heart attack while performing on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre; During the show he suddenly stopped acting, although most of the audience didn’t realise. Co-star Audrey Jeans, the star from Portsmouth started fluffing her lines and ad-libbing. Sid collapsed on to a couch and Audrey shouted into the wings for the curtains to be closed. She held him but it was too late and he was pronounced dead in hospital an hour later.

Audrey Jeans’s own life was cruelly cut short when the hugely popular variety entertainer from Portsmouth died aged 48 in a hit-and-run incident with a car in France while she was on her second honeymoon in 1980.

Peter

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