She had the more successful career of the two and her husbands vagueness and sloth gradually got her down. Best known for playing Matron--as in "Ooh, Matron!"--in four films: Carry on Nurse (1959), Carry on Doctor (1967), Carry on Again Doctor (1969) and, of course Carry on Matron (1972). - the theme of the episode completed the title. Eric had served in the RAF as a wireless operator during World War II, and it was during his stint as a sergeant, huddled over a radio on the Normandy battleground in 1944, that he incurred a handicap unsuspected by millions. While he was there, he met and ran off with an Italian heiress. "When she was well over 40 she'd jump up and do the splits.". Jacques and Sykes played siblings in the latter's 1970s sitcom Sykes, Jones is best known for playing Nessa in Gavin & Stacey. (modern), Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques in a 1962 episode of Sykes and A Photograph: Allstar/BBC, Tributes pour in for Oldham's funniest son, Eric Sykes. Back in civilian life, he began supplying material to the friends he had made during the war, for radio shows such as Stars in Battledress and Variety Bandbox. I've got one of the most miserable faces in the world. It still mattered to him not primarily for his own benefit, but rather for that of his broad and loyal audience. While the prurient appeal of such an approach is obvious (Look: Hattie Jacques is doing it! in which they starred was a huge hit not once but twice, first in the Sixties and then again in theSeventies. "I was trying to create the act that didn't have one word in it, the complete mime act, and I'm still trying," he said in 1971. (1960-1965) and Sykes and a Big, Big Show (1971). Graham Mccann for MailOnline. [2] He also played another relative bus Inspector Norman Burnside in Bus.[3]. "She trained as a ballet dancer and was incredibly agile. 2023 BBC. Whether coping with their snooty next-door neighbour Mr Brown, struggling together navigating a bus, transporting a piece of wood from a timber yard or trying to extricate Eric from the bath, they were always vulnerable, endearing and somehow, strangely believable. This page is not available in other languages. And yet his comedy career began inauspiciously. You couldnt say we had a lot in common, but she was a very great lady.. In private, Jacques led a turbulent life. By Hattie Jacques and Eric Sykes in Sykes (1972) Close. Take him anywhere, to the most lavish gourmet restaurant, and he would order egg and chips, his scriptwriter friend Johnny Speight would say. Hattie was devastated and her confidence was terminally knocked. An untidy, uncoordinated, lugubrious man with a mildly irritated air and areedy, doleful voice, Sykes did not look or sound at all like a comedian. See full summary Stars: Eric Sykes, Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Richard Wattis. The atmosphere was heavy to say the least. , updated A brief featurette explains some of the restoration techniques employed. Hattie Jacques 13 of 14. Would anyone have made Hattie if she hadn't been famous? And to the very end, he was busy writing. Following the death of Richard Wattis in 1975, a new neighbour, Melody Rumbelow, moves in. "Bus" (17 September 1973); Deryck Guyler also played the bus inspector Burnside who Corky says is his cousin. His scripts were amazing. He switched from comedy to drama with deftness. If I'm not working, I get screwed up because mytime is going, my life is slipping by.". Her admirers were divided between those who agreed with her Hancocks Half Hour co-star Bill Kerr that Never mind the figure, the face looks like Ava Gardner, and all-out chubby-chasers for whom her super-Rubens curves made her a goddess. I like being alone. Howerd had asked Eric if he could produce a script within eight days, and within hours he had completed the first of a multitude. By chance, he encountered his old RAF concert party officer, Bill Fraser, in the middle of a thick fog on Londons Embankment. He was trying his luck as an actor with Oldham Rep when Howerd, another friend from the services, contacted him and in 1949 he joined Howerd as full-time writer while also doing scripts for the top radio shows of the day. By the Sixties, he was profoundly deaf. There were slots for his rounds of golf and his regular meals of egg and chips. Although he first came to fame as a writer for radio, the comic actor Eric Sykes, who has died aged 89, was fascinated - almost to the point of obsession - with . Someone thought she looked like Hattie McDaniel, who played the hefty maid in Gone With The Wind, and the name stuck. Photograph: BBC/Angel Eye Media Ltd. But she grew up in London after her RAF officer father was killed in a flying accident and her mother moved to live with her parents in Chelsea. The comic world he created was enclosed. She would later say he had been killed in action in the Ardennes but her biographer Andy Merriman discovered that he actually survived the war and lived in Massachusetts until 1984. When youre my size youre conditioned from childhood to people making jokes against you, she once said. Each episode was titled Sykes And A. ", AI chatbots 'may soon be more intelligent than us', Russia troop deaths hit 20,000 in five months - US, France May Day protests leave dozens of police injured, 'My wife and six children joined Kenya starvation cult', On board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry. Last name was pronounced as "Jakes" rather than the French "Jacques" They had met when he was in theaudience at a vaudeville showat the Players Theatre in the late Forties. When, eventually, his sight had all but gone, he felt where the page was, positioned his pen at the appropriate point and carried onwriting. "She trained as a ballet dancer and was incredibly agile. In 2001 he attracted much favourable attention when Nicole Kidman specially asked for him to be cast as her ghostly servant in The Others. In all the time we worked together, I only went to her house three times and she came to mine maybe twice, said Sykes. (1963), One Way Pendulum (1964), Theatre of Blood (1973) and Absolute Beginners (1986). Eric Sykes seems to be corpsing all the way through and there are even shots of Hattie Jacques doing the same. Hattie helps. Perhaps Hattie's most revealing aspect, however, lies in its choice of ending. Television series which Sykes created and starred in: Sykes and a (1960-65 series) Sykes and a Big Big Show (1971 series) Sykes (1972-79 series). It doesn't follow that because you are a good comedy writer, you're ahappy fellow. Eric Sykes & Hattie Jacques - Royal Variety Performance (1963) SeriousComedy101 64 subscribers Subscribe 28K views 10 years ago Eric tries to perform two songs. Strangely for such a talented man, Sykes seemed to dislike writing and saw it mostly as a means of achieving his true ambition, which was to be a principal comedian. When her brother got a job at London's Little Players Theatre in 1944 she went along, did an audition on a Friday, and the following Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? She received regular anonymous phone calls from men who liked larger ladies. Jacques, who appeared with Eric in his hit TV show Sykes, died in 1980 at the age of 58. When she eventually decided she wanted a divorce, it was agreed that Le Mesurier should do the gentlemanly thing and allow himself to be cited in the proceedings, to preserve Hatties reputation. When I corrected him, his retort was typically dry: I was very young at the time.. Sykes was one of the most endearing and popular comic actors of his generation and could still be seen on the West End stage into his 80s. Her family resented it so much that Sykes would be banned from her funeral. On screen she made appearances in 14 of the 24 Carry On films including chasing the weedy Williams in Carry On Doctor and being chased by him in Carry On Matron. The place was in uproar as a buxom, extremely attractive young lady came on stage, he laterrecalled. She survives him, along with three daughters andason. A new comedy partnership had begun, and it proved to be a near-perfect union. His achievement was all the more remarkable for being made against the odds, for he soared to stardom while keeping his deafness a secret until he revealed it in 1963. She was born Josephine Jaques (there was no c at first) in Kent in 1922. RMG5913B-Comedian Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques during a scene for his new six-part BBC television series 'Sykes Big Big Show'. 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. Is the plot interesting enough to stand on its own merits? Plonked amid the bustle of a busy panto rehearsal, Eric Sykes (played, somewhat disconcertingly, by Graham Fellows) winces in sympathy as co-star Hattie Jacques (Ruth "Nessa" Jones), squeezes her fairy princess-costumed frame into some manner of hoist. She had to sing it again and this time the audience joined in. In his heyday, he. VideoOn board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry, I didnt think make-up was made for black girls, Why there is serious money in kitchen fumes. This was just after the film, She worked as an arc-welder during World War II. He had also learned to lipread. The drama, she said, would go "behind the scenes of the public face of Hattie Jacques to reveal her unconventional but very modern relationships. the mechanism fizzles to a halt. Erics death yesterday aged 89 is a tragic loss to British comedy and to the 17 million viewers who tuned in every week to watch his ludicrous antics with Hat. . As . At Christmas 1949 she played Marrygolda, one of Beauty's sisters in 'Beauty and the Beast' at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Jacques, who appeared with Eric in his hit TV show Sykes, died in 1980 at the age of 58. The biopic, starring Gavin & Stacey star Ruth Jones, airs on 19 January. T hat was not enough. Remarkably graceful for her size, she was a star pupil. As with all great on-screen sitcom relationships, they seemed destined to stay together for eternity. Sykes married Edith Milbrandt in 1952. Hattie Jacques. The role endeared her to the public and the two became staples of British television. Her former co-star remembers her as a "wonderful" colleague with an almost "telepathic" capacity for line-reading. Although he first came to fame as a writer for radio, the comic actor Eric Sykes, who has died aged 89, wasfascinated almost to the point of obsession with silence. Week after week, the exploits of Eric and Hat delighted the nation with their improbable, but beautifully acted and very, very funny exploits.