Hattie jacques biography
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Hattie Jacques
English actress (–)
Hattie Jacques (; born Josephine Edwina Jaques; 7 February – 6 October ) was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. She is best known as a regular of the Carry On films, where she typically played strict, no-nonsense characters, but was also a prolific television and radio performer.
Jacques started her career in with an appearance at the Players' Theatre in London, but came to national prominence through her appearances on three highly popular radio series on the BBC: with Tommy Handley on It's That Man Again; with ventriloquist Peter Brough on Educating Archie; and then with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour. After the Second World War Jacques made her cinematic debut in Green for Danger (), in which she had a brief, uncredited role. From to she appeared in 14 Carry On films, playing various roles including the formidable hospital matron. On television she had a long professional partnership with Eric Syke
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Andy Merriman recalls This Is Your Life in his book, Hattie
It was ironically during this turbulent time in the couple’s life that Hattie was selected as the subject of This Is Your Life. The show was recorded on 12 February at the BBC television studios in Shepherds Bush where Hattie had been rehearsing Sykes An A
Eamonn Andrews was hiding behind a newspaper in the darkened studio and then approached Hattie and Eric Sykes. The lights went up and Hattie’s response was, ‘You’re kidding!’ She really seemed visibly shaken and she remained rather uncomfortable throughout.
Eric Sykes was interviewed first and told the audience that he had been hospitalised recently and couldn’t work out why, for the first few days of his admission, Hattie hadn’t been to see him. When Hattie did visit and he asked why she hadn’t been before, he discovered that she had been in hospital herself, but didn’t tell Eric as she didn’t want to worry him. ‘That’s the sort of person that she is.’ Sykes at
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Monumental star of the Carry On series, usually cast as formidable hospital matrons (at least four) or man-devouring predators whose affections were apt to strike terror in weak-kneed men, and she strikes an engagingly exotic note as Floella in Carry On Abroad (d. Gerald Thomas, ).
She was on stage since , often in pantomimes and revues, and on radio in ITMA () and Educating Archie (), she was on screen for over a decade before she began to 'carry on'. She can be spotted singing in the thieves' pub in Oliver Twist (d. David Lean, ), does a music ingång turn with Bill Owen and Jean Kent in Trottie True (d. Brian Desmond Hurst, ), but, as with the rest of the 'Carry On' team, once she established her persona in the series it was hard to think of her as anything else.
She also had a notable TV career, especially as twin sister of the eponymous Sykes (, ). She married and divorced () actor John Le Mesurier.
Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Cinema