In the early 70s, the insurers of the Carry Ons became concerned about Hatties health as well, and expressed reluctance to insure her for further films. Hattie Jacques didn't look like she was enjoying being on This Is Your Life. [116] Jacques later named the film as her favourite of the series, as she was allowed to drop her "battleaxe" persona and play the romantic lead opposite James. While Sykes and the Carry Ons kept her in the public eye, privately, Hatties weight was becoming a problem. She became close to Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and Joan Sims, whom she provided with a great deal of practical advice and help, and would often invite the trio to her house for Christmas dinner. Hattie Jacques didnt look like she was enjoying being on This Is Your Life. (BBC) The pinnacle of embarrassment came when the pair appeared on This Is Your Life in 1963 - Le Mesurier. In a letter to the series producer Peter Rogers, they expressed their reluctance to insure her on set in any future film. As Britt Eklands Spanish maid in The Bobo, Jacques found Peter Sellers tempestuous, to say the least. Harry Worth, encountered at the Palladium, was a martyr to piles. Save up to 50% on Women's Clothing when you shop now. [124], In 1964, as well as recording four episodes of the radio show Housewives' Choice, Jacques starred in her own television series, Miss Adventure, as the private investigator Stacey Smith. He died at Torbay Hospital on January 23, 2003, shortly after celebrating his 33rd wedding anniversary. She was wearing a pair of dark glasses. The biopic, starring Gavin & Stacey star Ruth Jones, airs on 19 January. [98][99] Although Jacques's role was still relatively small, she appeared in perhaps the best known scene of the film, in which she retrieves a daffodil from Wilfrid Hyde-White's buttocks, put there by a mischievous nurse as revenge for his constant harassment of the staff. Now, speaking for the first time, Brenda, 76, says: John was not a good dad he was never cut out to be a father but he was a charismatic personality and he broke a few hearts in those days. charity benefit, they ended up in bed and embarked on a passionate affair. May 7, 2017 - Image result for John Schofield Hattie Jacques. [126][m], Jacques went to Rome in 1966 to film The Bobo with Peter Sellers; before this she went on a strict diet and lost five stone (32kg), although she was disappointed that so few people noticed. [78][79][i] Jacques's arrival on Hancock "provided an additional boost to the series", according to television historian Richard Webber. Save up to 50% on Pets when you shop now. ', Do you think you could send a car for me? she sobs down the telephone to her film bosses at Warner Brothers, who want to know why she is not on set. James Corden is going home but does Britain want him back? Ted thought the laughs would come on the size gags but, being radio, and coupled with the fact my voice didn't have the timbre of a 'heavy', that didn't really work out A large lady with a little voice hit the spot, so 'Sophie Tuckshop' was bornthe terrible child who never stopped eating". [183] Nina Wadia of Goodness Gracious Me considers Jacques along with Joan Sims and Barbara Windsor to have "paved the way for younger comediennes in Britain today", remarking that "if it had not been for women like Hattie and Barbara, there is no way that younger actresses would have any role model, or probably the ambition to do what they do". [135] Carry On Doctor was released in December of that year, to much success. Handsome and charismatic, prompting Barbara Windsor to describe him a gorgeous bit of crumpet, it was only a matter of time before Hattie succumbed to his charms. She braved the Blitz for trysts with an American soldier who made the earth move. [88] Jacques's screen time was increased from Carry On Nurse, as the producers considered her part to be an extension of the earlier role. After Le Mesurier left the family home, Hattie settled down to a life of domestic bliss with Schofield, who would help her look after the children and take her away for romantic weekends. Robin's father, actor John Le Mesurier, and his mother, buxom Carry On star Hattie Jacques, had been married happily for 13 years before a handsome young stranger destroyed the idyll. "[192] The approach of writers differed in how they dealt with the characters they asked Jacques to portray. [10] Her biographer, Frances Gray, described the Players' as being Jacques's drama school, as she acted, directed, wrote lyrics and "developed the persona she was to use in pantomime for years, the large, bossy, but vulnerable fairy queen". Watch. (film) Hattie is a television film about the life of British comic actress Hattie Jacques, played by Ruth Jones, her marriage to John Le Mesurier ( Robert Bathurst) and her affair with their lodger John Schofield ( Aidan Turner ). This article related to a British film of the 2010s is a stub. Supported by Hattie financially she invested in many of his madcap schemes he was lured into the music world, trying his hand as a band manager. [27] In December that year, she joined the Young Vic Theatre Company and played Smeraldina in The King Stag. She couldnt get medical cover for films (her role in Carry on Abroad had to be truncated and she was reduced to 11th on the bill), so she took to the road in a stage version of Sykes, the long-running sitcom about a brother and sister and their scrapes in Sebastopol Terrace. An article in The Guardian by Mark Lawson mixed fiction with reality when he wrote that "standards of hygiene have slipped since Hattie Jacques ran NHS wards". Hattie was a buxom 40-year-old at the height of her fame in the Carry On films when she first met Schofield in 1962, after he wrote, inviting her to become patron of the Leukaemia Research Fund. Shop the best selection of deals on Cat Supplies now. Because a dressing room was arranged that avoided her needing to use stairs, Sykes accused her of receiving special treatment. [28] It received favourable reviews; the Gloucestershire Echo described the piece as "a noble play", and thought that Jacques was "very solidly in step". But he fell ill on his arrival and ended up in hospital in Gibraltar with a collapsed lung, pneumonia and jaundice after trying to make his way back home. Lewis Macleod . [106] According to the media historian Graham McCann, the show was "one of the best-natured, least pretentious and most successful British sitcoms of the 1960s". Jacques played Alice, a welder: when she was offered her fee for 17 days filming, she replied "I've done this job welding Bailey and Pontoon Bridges and I know how hard it is. I preferred her role as Eric Sykes sister because her weight was never referred to. My driver seems to have gone.. She concentrated on the script and its interpretation instead of winning easy laughs by playing 'the fattie'. [153] Jacques cried when her ex-husband won the award, and divulged to her son that she "wasn't crying out of professional resentment or even envy about Joan Le Mesurier but from an unhappiness that, through her own actions, she lost John or there was now no-one with whom to spend her life". That's not enough money!" [161] When the show moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Sykes "began to behave rather strangely and he even accused Hattie of not being able to deliver a proper feed line". Although Jacques wanted the series to be full of suspense, the programmes were more comedic and she was disappointed with the results. He used to say, Ill just check the obituaries to start to see if Im still here. He had a wicked sense of humour and I knew hed enjoy the joke. Her career was greatly helped in terms of regular employment by her weight because there she was, a great big roly-poly, and roly-polys were funny. [47] The film critic Geoff Mayer considered that Jacques had "the best scene in the film with her mock seductive dance in front of an angry [Niall] MacGinnis". . [1] As a singer she was also praised; Jonathan Cecil of The Spectator said that her "bell-tone voice with its cut-crystal dictionperfect for radiohad an edge of pain which suggested a greater depth to her talents than she was generally allowed to express". [144] Another Carry On film followed in 1971, Carry On at Your Convenience, where she played Beattie Plummer, the housebound wife of Sid Plummer, played by Sid James. Instead of sex, Jacques would have to learn to reconcile herself to a career of put-downs from Bernard Bresslaw and his ilk. [73][h] As well as recording in series five of Educating Archie, she was also cast as Mrs Leathers for 18 episodes of Mrs Dale's Diary between February and April 1955. Died: October 6th, 1980. When he visited her on location, they had a huge row, in which Schofield admitted he had fallen in love with another woman. Her biographer, Frances Gray, considers Jacques had a "talent for larger-than-life comedy which never lost its grip on humanity", while she could also display "a broader comic mode" as a result of her "extraordinary versatility". Legendary comic actors Hattie Jacques and John LeMesurier seem the perfect couple, married with two young sons. Shop our favorite Dog Supplies finds at great prices. Between April and July she was in Paradise Street, a spin-off series from Educating Archie, while in June she was in Archie in Goonland, a one-off special programme that was a collaboration between Educating Archie and The Goon Show. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. On his return home a month later, things had become even more strained. . I knew better. It is far too easy to throw mud at a dead man, the friend added. Two years later he divorced and they wed. Robin was born in 1953. Hattie Jacques : [coyly] I'd need six months' notice to squeeze my behind in there. Jacques, who had been overweight since her teenage years, suffered ill-health soon after the separation from Le Mesurier and her weight rose to nearly 20 stone (280lb; 130kg). [26] Jacques joined the cast of ITMA as the greedy schoolgirl Sophie Tuckshop,[33] where she "would regale listeners with terrifying accounts of epic binges",[1] before finishing her stories with the catchphrase "But I'm all right now". When Eamonn Andrews ambushed her in the BBC television studios in Shepherds Bush in 1963, while she was rehearsing Sykes And A, Hattie looked somewhat uncomfortable throughout the whole experience. [17] Around this time she became romantically involved with an American soldier, Major Charles Kearney. [34] Jacques started her run in ITMA in September 1947, at the beginning of series eleven, which ran for 38 episodes,[35] and was paid ten guineas per episode. She was much more than that. Visiting her in hospital to tell her their relationship was over, Schofield flung a gold medallion she had given him, inscribed with the words I love you on to her hospital bed and stormed out, neglecting to collect his possessions from Eardley Crescent or even to say goodbye to her sons. Find the best deals on More Pets Supplies from your favorite brands. Just her arms coming round the sides.. [1][167], Jacques's funeral took place at Putney Vale Crematorium, where her ashes were scattered. Touch device users can . [145] In the same year she completed another series with Sykes, Sykes and a Big, Big Show, a music and sketch programme which had six episodes, broadcast between February and April. [159][s] During the course of the different tours relations between the two stars became increasingly strained and Sykes altered the act several times to ensure he received more acclaim than Jacques. Save up to 50% on Skin Care when you shop now. [171] Peter Chapman of The Independent stated that Jacques was "blessed with remarkable grace, delicacy and warmth, giving her an almost unique comic appeal". However, in 1963, after a charity fund raiser for leukaemia, Hattie meets the young and handsome John Schofield, whose son died of the disease. [162] By the time the show appeared in Brighton in 1979 the relationship between the two "was rapidly deteriorating", and, although the pair praised each other in public, Jacques felt hurt by Sykes's treatment of her. The programme was broadcast on 16 October 1961; her full choice was, Between 1964 and 1967 Jacques continued to regularly appear on television, in a range of largely comedy programmes that included series eight and nine of, During the course of the year Jacques also appeared with Sykes in the on-off programme. When the auto-complete results are available, use the up and down arrows to review and Enter to select. [187] According to The Scotsman, the 2003 Labour Party Conference "applauded deliriously because the government has revived Hattie Jacques", in relation to a change in government policy. So her many fans would have been surprised had they known the truth about her private life. "Hattie carries on with biggest ever BBC4 audience", http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8685253.stm, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hattie_(film)&oldid=1147274450, Films about adultery in the United Kingdom, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Hattie: The Authorised Biography of Hattie Jacques, This page was last edited on 29 March 2023, at 21:51. Hattie Jacques. Save up to 50% on Women's Accessories when you shop now. In music hall, Hattie was known as the Queen of the Players, and Eric Sykes said: I was intoxicated with the way she was doing it because everyone was singing old vaudeville songs. A chain smoker, she suffered from breathing difficulties, arthritis, high blood pressure and ulcerated legs. Hattie Jacques ( / deks /; born Josephine Edwina Jaques; 7 February 1922 - 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. [77] In June 1956 Jacques appeared in an episode of The Tony Hancock Show on ITV; this led to the role of Hancock's secretary, Griselda Pugh, in the BBC radio series Hancock's Half Hour. [95] She played the small role of Captain Clark, a "battleaxe medical officer"[96] who fails to believe the fabricated ailments of the hypochondriac Private Horace Strong, played by Kenneth Connor. Worse, for 19 years Jacques was Eric Sykes's on-screen sister. On a Friday in May, 1965, John and Hattie's marriage was dissolved at the same time, and in the same courtroom, as Joan's marriage to her husband, Mark. Peter Pan & Wendy is the most beautiful, moving childrens film of the year, Kirsty Warks cringeworthy Wes Anderson TikTok skit was a new nadir for Newsnight. [190], Alan Simpson, the co-writer of Hancock, enjoyed writing for Jacques, and thought that she was "almost like a fella in terms of playing comedy; you didn't write for her thinking she's a woman so we've got to write the feminine point of view. Her son Robin Le Mesurier recalls: I was woken up at three or four in the morning by this racket from the living room, and I went in and there was Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine, all jamming and playing music!. [1] It was while appearing in a Late Joys revue in June 1946 that she made her debut on television, when the show was broadcast on the BBC. Meet the savvy buyers snapping up their dream homes before they are even listed - and find out how you can do it too, Saboteurs wreck Russian train cut power cables 37mi from Ukraine, Moment large saltwater crocodile snatches pet dog off beach in QLD, 'We're not your enemies!' Shop our favorite Women's Shoes finds at great prices. Hattie quickly became besotted with him and, being so unconfident about her own looks, couldnt believe that someone so stunningly attractive could find her equally seductive., Carry On: Ruth Jones as Hattie in the new BBC drama. This ensured that the press blamed him for the break-up, casting Jacques as the victim in the matter. (Youll never carry her over the threshold No, but a gang of us might.) Le Mesuriers legendary calculated vagueness had a lot to do with his reliance on extra-strong cigarettes i.e. Although he tried to save the marriage, it took a toll on his . Always an unlikely sex goddess, Jacques nevertheless acquired a lover called John Schofield, a cockney used-car dealer whom Barbara Windsor appraised as "a gorgeous piece of crumpet" and. We want Hattie! roared the crowd. So much was clear to me when I returned from a few weeks on location to find that Schofield was well on the way to acting the part of a surrogate father, he writes in his autobiography. Eamonn Andrews. Jacques appeared in 14 of these films over a 15-year period[86] and like many of her Carry On co-stars, she quickly became typecast. Rogers initially chose Joan Sims to play the role of the hospital matron but she declined the part, stating that Jacques's performance of the role in Carry On Nurse could not be bettered. The final straw came when Schofield moved into the master bedroom, moving Le Mesuriers belongings into a loft room. By October her weight had risen again; she had problems breathing and was again admitted to Charing Cross Hospital. Deals and discounts in Tech & Electronics you dont want to miss. Do not sell or share my personal information. Jacques sang Marie Lloyd songs and ended her act by leaping into the air and doing the splits. He married Carry On star Hattie Jacques in the same year and the pair later divorced in 1965. . Despite this she refused to interrupt the busy production schedule; when filming was completed on 5 December she underwent surgery at Charing Cross Hospital for what proved to be benign tumours on her kidneys.