Web Page No
2628
26th October
2019
1st Picture: Early
publicity photograph
4th Picture: Blue
Plague on the house in Esmond
Court, Thackeray Street, Kensington.
Joan
Sims
Joan Simms was one of many actors and actresses who
appeared on our screens in the 1950’s and 60’s.
She was born Irene Joan Marion Sims on 9th May
1930 and died on 27th June 2001 and remembered
mainly for her roles in the Carry On films.
She was the only child of John Henry Sims, station
master of Laindon railway station Gladys Marie Sims and she claimed that her 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 wanted
to pursue show business during her teens, and soon became a familiar face in a
growing number of amateur productions locally.
In 1946, she first applied to RADA, but her audition was unsuccessful. 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. She
graduated from RADA in 1950 at the age of 19. One of her first stage
performances was in the 1951 pantomime, and she appeared in a number of Brian Rix's farces. She 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."
She once said.
Her first film film was Will Any
Gentleman? with George Cole in 1953, closely followed by Trouble in
Store with Norman
Wisdom. In 1954, she appeared
in The Belles of St Trinian's, and made a cameo appearance in Doctor in the House, opposite Dirk
Bogarde as
the sexually repressed Nurse Rigor Mortis. She then became a regular in
the Doctors series.
In 1958, she received a script from Peter Rogers;
it was for Carry On
Nurse. The film Carry On
Sergeant had
been a huge success in the autumn of that year and a follow-up was planned.
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, she
missed Carry On
Cruising
however, rejoined the team for Carry On Cleo.
Her 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, appeared in 24 Carry On films in all;
she did not return for the one-off revival film, Carry On
Columbus .
However, she did appear alongside Kenneth
Williams in
the radio show Stop Messing About in 1969–70.
After the Carry On series ended in 1978, she
continued to work on television and 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 Till Death Us Do Part.
From 1979 until 1981, she played the recurring
character Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton in Worzel Gummidge. In
1986, she appeared in Doctor Who in the four episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord. She played
Mrs Wembley in On the Up, with Dennis
Waterman and
played Madge Hardcastle, drum playing wife to Rocky Hardcastle and stepmother
of Geoffrey Palmer's character Lionel in As Time Goes By. She also appeared in episodes of Only Fools and Horses, the 1987 Christmas Day special The Frog's
Legacy, and The
Goodies, in
the 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, she 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, after which she fell 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 Kensington flat, and she described herself as
"the queen of
puddings." After
assessment by a doctor, she was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre, but
declined. 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.
During 1963, she made several recordings.
"Hurry Up Gran" / "Oh Not Again Ken" was issued as a
single, followed by "Spring Song" / "Men but neither single made
an impact on the UK Singles
Chart. This did not deter her from
releasing a third and final single during 1967, "Sweet Lovely
Whatsisname" / "The Lass With the Delicate Hair". Again it
failed to chart, and as a result the singles are now quite rare.
Like her fellow Carry On star Kenneth
Williams, she never
married. However Kenneth Williams did however propose a marriage of convenience to her, which she promptly
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, condemning the
relationship. She replied, telling her parents that they had to come to terms
with Tony being an extremely important part of her life. For the next six
months she had no contact with her parents being a devoted daughter and found
the separation from her parents difficult. The partnership broke up finally
when on returning from a tour she found that he 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."
Following this came a relationship with John
Walters whom she had known for a long time. They had had an 'innocent' romance earlier
but they embarked on a more serious relationship after the break-up. However, she
never felt it would be a long-term relationship they discussed marriage and
children, but it came to nothing and the relationship ended after around two
years of living together.
The tone of
autobiography High Spirits is revealing she wrote:-
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.
She was diagnosed with diverticular disease in 1997 and she entered hospital in November
2000, and complications of a routine operation caused her to slip into a
coma. Her lifelong friend and stand-in Norah Holland spoke of the
doctors' amazement at her strength and courage throughout her final illness.
On 27th June 2001, ten minutes before she died,
Norah Holland spoke to her gently about Kenneth
Williams, Hattie
Jacques and
their time on the Carry On films. She died from liver failure and
diverticulitis, with diabetes and COPD cited as contributory factors. She was
cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium, and her ashes scattered in the grounds
there.
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You Write:
News and Views:
On this day 26th October 1960-1965
On 26th/1960 the number one single was Only the Lonely - Roy
Orbison and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show
was Take Your Pick (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's
money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions
On 26th/1961 the number one single was Walkin' Back to Happiness
- Helen Shapiro and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show -
George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One
Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were
on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of
the day was Britain grants Malta autonomy.
On 26th/1962 the number one single was Telstar -
The Tornadoes and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's
Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Cuban Missile Crisis
On 26th/1963 the number one single was Do You
Love Me? - Brian Poole & the Tremoloes 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's
Division 1 champions
On 26th/1964 the number one single was (There's)
Always Something There to Remind Me - Sandy Shaw and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night -
Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions.
On 26th/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions
