[41] Jacques later remarked that Handley was "one of the greatest radio performers we have ever known. She started an affair with a younger man, John Schofield, and for a while all three lived in the same house. Joan Le Mesurier said: Hattie was wonderful and uninhibited on stage but in her private life, it was as if she was holding something back all the time. [11] She left Godolphin and Latymer in the summer of 1939 with unremarkable grades. It is a lifetime away. The play ran at the Lyric Theatre for a month before going on a five-month tour of the UK. The role endeared her to the public and the two became staples of British television. 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. [150] In February 1972 Jacques was at home with her son Robin to watch Le Mesurier win the British Academy of Film and Television Arts "Best Television Actor" award for his portrayal of a "boozy British aristocrat who became a spy for the Soviets"[151][152] in Dennis Potter's television play Traitor. [122] In 1964 Le Mesurier moved out of the marital home,[123] made a decision to protect Jacques from any negative publicity, and allowed her to bring a divorce suit on grounds of his own infidelity. [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". Shop the best selection of deals on Food Storage now. Carry On star Hattie Jacques' turbulent affair with 'East Ender' She was wearing a pair of dark glasses. Wattis's role, Charles Brown, was originally offered to Le Mesurier, but he turned down the role as he wanted "to make it on [his] own" without his wife's help. The first series ran until December 1960; a second series ran from September 1961 to April 1962. Hattie will be screened on BBC4 in January. [1], Private turmoil; new acting ventures: 19631967, Robin was born into relative affluence in, The VAD mobile units, based in communal air raid shelters and. Though, in the words of the producer Ernest Maxin, a wonderfully sexy comedienne, in matters of the heart Jacquess life was not plain sailing. Until she complained, scriptwriters expected her to endure cruel jokes about her weight: Look at her plate piled up there, said Tony Hancock in his radio show. Bruce Copp, who ran the Chelsea restaurant The Hungry Horse, remembered Hattie going to visit him, in dark glasses and a headscarf, with a cut below her eye. Our national embarrassment and frustration about sex are on full and painful display. Hattie Jacques? Phwoar! | Books | The Guardian Hattie arrived one morning with some mail and magazines. [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. [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. During the return ferry crossing she told her friend Bruce Copp that "You know I'm not going to live long". 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". In Up to His Neck (1954), she played the grass-skirted Tahitian girlfriend of Brian Rix. [184], Jacques's biographer, Frances Gray, highlighted two aspects of the actress's abilities; in her appearances in the sequence of post-war Dickens adaptations (Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, Scrooge and Pickwick) Jacques "reflected her talent for larger-than-life comedy which never lost its grip on humanity", while in other films, such as Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, she displayed "a broader comic mode". [74] She both produced and directed Twenty Minutes South, first at the Players' Theatre, and then for 105 performances at the St Martin's Theatre and finished the year by appearing in seven episodes of The Granville Melodramas on ITV between October and December. He tells her that . She developed heart problems, and died of a heart attack on October 6 1980. They became man and wife in 1949. Once a weeks enough for any man, she responds reasonably. [6] Robin Rochester Jaques, who attained the rank of flight lieutenant with the RAF, was a keen sportsman and became a semi-professional footballer. [2] Jacques' son Robin Le Mesurier later described Jones' performance as "(having) captured my mother perfectly".[3]. Jealousy is not in my character and I held firmly to the belief that Hattie was in control of her emotions.. It turned out that, unbeknownst to the TV audience, her marriage to John Le Mesurier was in crisis. In order to protect her sons from further press intrusion she declined the honour. Carry On Loving: John Le Mesurier with Hattie Jacques before their divorce in 1965. [10][c], In 1944, after being auditioned by Leonard Sachs,[20] Jacques made her professional theatrical debut as Josephine Jacques[21]adding a "c" to her birth name as she did so[22][d]at the Players' Theatre, London in a revue called Late Joys. Worse, for 19 years Jacques was Eric Sykes's on-screen sister. [160] While appearing in Blackpool in 1977 Jacques's health became problematic as she suffered from arthritis and ulcerated legs, which required daily dressing. [110][k] Later that year she played minor roles in two films: Watch Your Stern, with many of the Carry On regulars, and School for Scoundrels, opposite Ian Carmichael. She told Andrews: After shed done her training in the wards of Hammersmith Hospital, she became a mobile VAD and continued her work in the hospital and in the air-raid shelters and around the area. 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. Eric Sykes. The BBC Four show, Hattie, focuses on Jacques' affair with car dealer John Schofield while she was married to Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier. At Christmas 1964, more than a year after Schofield had moved in, Le Mesurier packed his bags. John Schofield & Hattie Jacques Affair, Joint Family Tree & History I knew better. She was married to the actor John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965, a separation caused by her five-year affair with another man. She enjoyed the filming experience, calling it "one of the loveliest things I've worked on". [85], When the first Carry On film was made in 1958, Jacques formed part of the cast. "[192] The approach of writers differed in how they dealt with the characters they asked Jacques to portray. [158] From 1976 onwards Sykes and Jacques appeared together in the stage play A Hatful of Sykes, both in the UK and internationally. 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. Tragedy struck when her former RAF officer dad was killed in a flying accident when she was just one and a half. Deals and discounts in Bakeware you dont want to miss. She slimmed down and placed a lonely hearts advertisement in a magazine, but she was destined to remain alone. In July 1930 Jacques started her secondary schooling at the Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith,[10][11] and also attended a local dance school, the Dean Sisters Academy, where she was a principal dancer in the academy's shows. [12] She continued intermittently with amateur theatricals, and in May 1939 appeared with the Curtain Club in Barnes in productions of Fumed Oak and Borgia. Hattie Jacques: How we filmed her bittersweet tale - Logo of the BBC When the war did break out, she became a nurse with the Voluntary Aid Detachment eerily echoing a role with which shed later become synonymous and one of the guests on This Is Your Life was her British Red Cross Society Divisional Director Vivienne Catlock. Please review our, You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. Find the best deals on Women's Jewelry from your favorite brands. Her sons refused to allow Sykes entry to the funeral because they resented the way he had treated her during the stage show;[160] Sykes was upset by the exclusion and failed to understand why he had been banned. [174] In 2002 plaques were unveiled for Jacques, Sid James and Tony Hancock at BBC Broadcasting House in London. She moved him into the family home, with Le Mes moving into a spare room as he loved the couples two sons and hoped for a reconciliation. [93][92] Jacques would frequently invite Sims, Williams and Hawtrey to her house for Christmas dinner. The acting was good, but taking a snippet of Hattie Jacques and John Le Mesurier's life like . [182] Sunday Life said that for decades she was "Britain's favourite silly, sexually frustrated, fat woman". BBC - Sandgate's Hattie Jacques story [138] She continued her busy schedule with appearances in six films for 1969,[n] including another with Sellers, The Magic Christian. She later described this as her favourite film. Hattie tried to make light of the latest change in our domestic routine. You just felt that you could be so comfortable there; it was cosy, it was tasteful, there was an abundance.. When the auto-complete results are available, use the up and down arrows to review and Enter to select. Hattie had married the Dads Army star in 1949 but after 14 years, she fell in love with someone new, Cockney car dealer John Schofield. In March 1953 Jacques gave birth to her first son, Robin, and returned to work after a few days to film Up to His Neck. [7][8] Upon his death, Mary, Jacques and her elder brother Robin moved from Newton in Lincolnshire to London,[9] where Jacques was sent to the Lady Margaret primary school in Chelsea. [1] First broadcast in January 2011, it became the most watched programme on BBC Four ever and defeated biopic The Curse of Steptoe, which had held the record since 2008. Hattie would often be found in front of the cooker in a long, rather tatty evening dress she wore as a housecoat, at nine oclock in the morning after a raucous party. Hattie Jacques had a talent for larger-than-life comedy, but her weight may have contributed to numerous ailments. Save up to 50% on Swimwear when you shop now. Shop the best selection of deals on Cameras now. 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!.