I hate being the size I am with all my heart and soul, she once confessed. Jacques went to Godolphin and Latymer (later to produce Nigella Lawson and Davina McCall), and because her puppy fat failed to melt, she was teased for her bulk just as in later life shed regularly receive obscene phone calls from men who liked large ladies. Though she allowed herself to be cast as the battleaxe trumpeting down the hospital ward or running a girls boarding school called Chayste Place Hattie Jacques was actually a sensuous and vivacious actress, whose face resembled that of Ava Gardner. After 1944, she was never out of work. She developed heart problems, and died of a heart attack on October 6 1980. Died: October 6th, 1980. It turned out that, unbeknownst to the TV audience, her marriage to John Le Mesurier was in crisis. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Carry On Matron: Hattie Jacques playing her most famous character alongside Joan Sims in the 1972 film. In 1962, unbeknown to John, Hattie began a relationship with chauffeur John Schofield. The first series ran for 29 weeks until 19 December. When he visited her on location, they had a huge row, in which Schofield admitted he had fallen in love with another woman. Hattie Jacques didnt look like she was enjoying being on This Is Your Life. 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. [Hattie meets John Schofield for the first time when he drives up in a red E-Type Jaguar sports car] John Schofield : Are you all right here, or do you need to sit in the back like the Queen? Her confidence knocked, Jacques raided the fridge and her weight ballooned to 20st. Ever the gentleman, he had admitted adultery with Joan to save Hatties reputation. [14] After a reorganisation in the VAD,[b] Jacques sought new work and, in the summer of 1943, she became a welder in a factory in north London,[16] a job that lasted until the end of the year. [46] Chance of a Lifetime is a social and industrial relations drama based in a plough factory whose manager cedes control to the workforce. Hattie Jacques ( / deks /; born Josephine Edwina Jaques; 7 February 1922 - 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. 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. [23] Almost immediately she became a regular performer with the company, appearing in music hall revues and playing the Fairy Queen in their Victorian-style pantomimes. Jacques's former grandmother in law was Georgina Le Mesurier Hattie Jacques's former sister in law was Michelle Halliley Hattie Jacques's former husband John Le Mesurier's uncle in law was William Goodenough . In order to protect her sons from further press intrusion she declined the honour. Hattie meets the young and handsome John Schofield, whose son died of the disease. 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". [182] Sunday Life said that for decades she was "Britain's favourite silly, sexually frustrated, fat woman". He tells her that she is lovely and boosts her confidence about her plumpness. They became man and wife in 1949. [173] In November 1995 a blue plaque was unveiled by Eric Sykes and Clive Dunna colleague from her Players' Theatre daysat her former house: 67 Eardley Crescent, Earls Court, London. Off-screen, too, she was warm and nurturing. [174] In 2002 plaques were unveiled for Jacques, Sid James and Tony Hancock at BBC Broadcasting House in London. On his return home a month later, things had become even more strained. One of the most shocking revelations was about star John Le Mesurier and his wives Joan Malin and Hattie Jacques. She was always a great asset to us and, as everyone can imagine, was always cheerful.. These are the best Videogames deals youll find online. All Rights Reserved. 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. Although he tried to save the marriage, it took a toll on his . At Christmas 1964, more than a year after Schofield had moved in, Le Mesurier packed his bags. Find out about John Schofield & Hattie Jacques Affair, joint family tree & history, ancestors and ancestry. 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. [26] Later that year Le Mesurier divorced his wife; shortly after the divorce came through, Jacques proposed to him, asking, "don't you think it's about time we got married? [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. I knew that only a miracle could save my marriage but I also knew Hattie would not throw me out of the house. Two years later he divorced and they wed. Robin was born in 1953. 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. Morwenna Banks and Amanda Swift consider Jacques to have been "unimaginatively cast as the 'fat person'" in ITMA,[193] while in Sykes, her weight was rarely referred toand Jacques said that Sykes "hardly ever made jokes about my size which was a refreshing change". [186], Gray observes that "Jacques is enduringly associated with the role of hospital matron"[1] and her portrayal of the character in five films had a lasting impact on both her legacy and on the role and view of Matrons in the National Health Service. 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. Even then he thought the affair would blow over, hoping against the odds that he could save his marriage. She could be kindly, it is true, and occasionally romantic. marijuana. He sabotaged her performance by stepping on her lines, reducing her to tears. . May 7, 2017 - Image result for John Schofield Hattie Jacques. [78][79][i] Jacques's arrival on Hancock "provided an additional boost to the series", according to television historian Richard Webber. Married comic actors Hattie Jacques and John LeMesurier seem the perfect couple, with their two young sons and the legendary Christmas dinners they host for their friends. [109] In September 1960 she starred in her second television series, Our House, alongside Charles Hawtrey, Bernard Bresslaw and Joan Sims; Jacques played the librarian Georgina Ruddy, who was forced to keep quiet at work and so made up for it by being extremely noisy at home. Hattie was born Josephine Jaques she added the c when she went into showbiz on February 7 1922 in Kent. [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. [49] In the show Jacques appeared alongside Max Bygraves, Julie Andrews, Beryl Reid andin the second seriesTony Hancock. [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. [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. Williams is wrestled upside down as Jacquess long-suppressed desires break forth. [84] She appeared in the sketches "Concerto for Three Buffoons" with Secombe and Sykes, "The Good Old Days", and the two full company numbers that closed each of the two halves of the show. Joan herself says: I know for a fact that John would never have gone for me if there had been any hope of keeping his marriage intact. The biopic, starring Gavin & Stacey star Ruth Jones, airs on 19 January. 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. But her physique shed begun to put on weight in her teens counted against her. 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. [10], In the summer of 1967 the Carry On producer Peter Rogers assembled the cast for the 15th film of the series, Carry On Doctor. [32] She became so nervous during the audition that Tommy Handley, the show's star, held her hand, which she found made her more nervous. . [97] The following year she played "Matron" for the first time[87] in Carry On Nurse, a film which broke that year's box office records, selling more than 10million tickets in British cinemas. [186] Her friend Bob Monkhouse thought that her career was overshadowed by her size: "She was such a great comedienne everyone wanted her but the movers and shakers of entertainment didn't perceive her as anything other than a fat lady". She moved him into the family home, with "Le Mes" moving . James Corden is going home but does Britain want him back? [177] Jones was thrilled at playing Jacques whom she considered to be her comedy heroine, describing her as an "incredibly talented and fascinating woman both on and off screen".[178][179]. Hattie Jacques (1922-1980) Birth name: Josephine Edwina Jaques. . He married Carry On star Hattie Jacques in the same year and the pair later divorced in 1965. . But by the time Hattie died of a heart attack in 1980, aged 58, Schofield, by then 51, appears to have become a reformed man. [139] She also appeared on television alongside Harry Secombe and Roy Castle in Pickwick, which was based on the musical of the same name,[140] and in Carry On Christmas, broadcast on Christmas Eve. As . That's not enough money!" However, in 1963, after a charity fund raiser for leukaemia, Hattie meets the young and handsome John Schofield, whose son died of the disease. [38] Later that year she appeared as a singer at the Three Cripples tavern in the David Lean film Oliver Twist. I think she hated being overweight.. [j] Jacques's characterHattie (Hat) Sykeswas "a middle-class, slightly pretentious lady struggling to keep her dignity as the men made fools of themselves". She said that she had bumped into something and given herself a black eye. 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. [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. Her rendition of Mammys Little Coal Black Rose was hugely popular. Find out more, The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes, Hattie Jacques practicing the American craze of 'jumpology' in 1959, Hattie Jacques and John Le Mesurier in 1961, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques in Carry On Camping, 1969, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. [30] While engaged at the Players' in June 1947, Jacques was introduced to the actor John Le Mesurier and the two began a relationship. [111], In October 1961 Jacques appeared on Desert Island Discs, and said that she would be too lonely on such a quiet island for someone of her temperament. [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. (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 ). Tragedy struck when her former RAF officer dad was killed in a flying accident when she was just one and a half. Playing a never-ending roster of headmistresses, matrons and disappointed virgins, the outsize actress became a national symbol of shocked propriety. . [2] She was the youngest child of Robin Rochester Jaques (18971923), a serviceman in the British Army and later the Royal Air Force, and Mary Jaques (ne Thorn), a nurse who served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD). In the end, I just realised that he was not there when I wanted him to be, so we separated. Her next love was John Le Mesurier, who was drawn to her ebullience. Shop our favorite Women's Shoes finds at great prices. 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On the day of the divorce, they all celebrated together and Hattie, John and Joan remained lifelong friends. Jacques on her role in It's That Man Again[26], Jacques made her big-screen debut, briefly and uncredited, in the 1946 film Green for Danger, directed by Sidney Gilliat. Shop the best selection of deals on Cameras now. [1] First broadcast in January 2011, it became the most watched programme on BBC Four ever and defeated . [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. It was only after she declared openly her love for his rival, that Le Mesurier realised he had lost his wife to her younger boyfriend. This series would go on to employ the same group of actors who would collectively become known as the "Carry On team". [1], Jacques was born Josephine Edwina Jaques on 7 February 1922 at 125 Sandgate High Street, Sandgate, Kent. Schofield began to try to seduce a number of Hatties friends even trying to woo the newlywed Joan Le Mesurier. Married comic actors Hattie Jacques and John LeMesurier seem the perfect couple, with their two young sons and the legendary Christmas dinners they host for their friends. "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. [138] She continued her busy schedule with appearances in six films for 1969,[n] including another with Sellers, The Magic Christian. Her mother instilled in her a love of the theatre, and the young Josephine would become principal ballet dancer at a dance school before the outbreak of the Second World War. We just gradually grew apart. It is a lifetime away. [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. I could have walked out but whatever my failings, I loved Hattie and the children and I was certain I had to be certain that we could repair the damage. [135] Carry On Doctor was released in December of that year, to much success. Large, flirtatious and, in her way, rather beautiful, Hattie Jacques seemed to sail through an ocean of liaisons and relationships. [191] Neville Phillips thought she was a "complete revelation", adding "although she was a large lady (very large, in fact), her movements were dainty, light and graceful, and she had a way of playing comedy that put me in mind of the great Beatrice Lillie a subtle, sophisticated actress". When she performed in a minstrel show, a member of the backstage staff compared the blacked-up Josephine to Hattie McDaniels role in Gone With The Wind, and the new moniker stuck. [52] At the end of the series Jacques returned to the Players' to appear in the Christmas pantomime, Ali Baba and the Thirty-nine Thieves, which she and Joan Sterndale-Bennett had adapted after they had copied it out long-hand at the British Museum. 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. He later wrote that she "moved about the stage with an elegance and grace as if she owned it. She liked to surround herself with company, her big house in Earls Court (sold after her death to Gloria Hunniford) crammed with out-of-work actors, window dressers, homosexuals wanted by the police, and the alcoholic and incapable Joan Sims. She enjoyed the filming experience, calling it "one of the loveliest things I've worked on". No, no, matron, I was once a weak man, implores the weedy Williams, recoiling from her elephantine yearnings. In Sykes her performance had to be a foil for the main character; in the Carry Ons she blossomed". [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". From the moment of my reappearance, John Schofield made clear his opinion that I should do the decent thing and quietly disappear.. 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. [83] She spent much of 1958 at the London Palladium, undertaking 380 performances of the revue Large as Life, alongside Terry-Thomas, Eric Sykes and Harry Secombe. [166] Her health remained poor, and insurance companies refused to insure her for film work. Save up to 50% on Hair when you shop now. Her grandfather managed a billiards hall, and her father, an RAF officer, was killed on a solo flight over Grantham when she was 18 months old. Although Jacques wanted the series to be full of suspense, the programmes were more comedic and she was disappointed with the results. He was seven years her junior and on the verge of separating from his wife Brenda. [58] She again appeared inand co-adapteda Christmas pantomime at the Players' Theatre, Riquet with the Tuft, a French fairy tale by Charles Perrault. She later described this as her favourite film. While Sykes and the Carry Ons kept her in the public eye, privately, Hatties weight was becoming a problem. Hatties weight ballooned to more than 20st and with that came arthritis and ulcerated legs, while she also had a couple of cancer scares and surgery for non-malignant tumours on her kidneys. and the offer was raised accordingly. 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. These are the best Home Audio deals youll find online. [172], A memorial plaque to Jacques is situated in St Paul's, Covent Garden. 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. Find the best deals on Home Gym from your favorite brands. She said that she had bumped into something and given herself a black eye. Eleven times Wonderful! 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. May 7, 2017 - Image result for John Schofield Hattie Jacques. Yet a new BBC film has revealed that, for all her apparent confidence and charm, there was one man who broke Hatties heart a toyboy who callously rejected her, throwing her into despair. Shop the best selection of deals on Cat Supplies now. [101] Other characterisations followed, including the formidable maths mistress Grace Short in Carry On Teacher (1959)[102] and the friendly Police Sergeant Laura Moon in Carry On Constable (1960). [194] Gray considers that "although often cast in broad comedy, she never played it broadly, but with an elegance of voice and body that belied all the clichs about women and weight". As it took him 10 years to get around to organising a honeymoon, even Jacques grew impatient with his sloth, his disinclination to put himself out. Jeany Spark . The truth was that she had been in a fight with Schofield he was jealous of Hatties visits to me and felt threatened.. John had gone to visit the Players' Theatre in London with fellow actor Geoffrey Hibbert - and Hattie was one of the performers. You just felt that you could be so comfortable there; it was cosy, it was tasteful, there was an abundance.. [75][76], A second pregnancy led to the birth of a son, Kim, "who came rollicking and laughing into the world in October 1956, a trifle before his allotted time", according to Le Mesurier. . 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. [154], In 1974 Jacques's sons were arrested for possession of cannabis, and her house was searched by police. Deals and discounts in Cookware you dont want to miss. Deals and discounts in Tablets you dont want to miss. A chain smoker, she suffered from breathing difficulties, arthritis, high blood pressure and ulcerated legs. Family friend Bruce Copp introduced Le Mesurier to Joan Mallin, a 33-year-old clerk at Marylebone Labour Exchange, who worked in the evenings behind the bar at the Queens Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue and encouraged by Hattie, who invited Joan to a party at Eardley Crescent, they began dating. 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. In Up to His Neck (1954), she played the grass-skirted Tahitian girlfriend of Brian Rix. [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. So her many fans would have been surprised had they known the truth about her private life. Deals and discounts in Tech & Electronics you dont want to miss. John Le Mesurier and Hattie Jacques present a united front on This Is Your Life. The couple last saw each other in March 1945, and last corresponded with each other in May of the same year. In a letter to the series producer Peter Rogers, they expressed their reluctance to insure her on set in any future film. I knew better. [17] Around this time she became romantically involved with an American soldier, Major Charles Kearney. [24] While appearing at the Players' in 1946 she acquired the nickname "Hattie" after performing in the minstrel show Coal Black Mammies for Dixie. He suffered a stroke, after having been struck down by a rare virus, which damaged his heart and lungs. And no wonder. 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. By Claudia Joseph for MailOnline Updated: 19:36 EDT, 8 January 2014. But it was not to last. [72], In 1954 Jacques continued to work on radio. 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. Eric Sykes resented it when Jacques got bigger rounds of applause or if she had a nicer dressing room. The flop that ruined James Corden in Britain: was Lesbian Vampire Killers really so bad? Hattie had pathos. [65] Le Mesurier reported that he was "faintly relieved" when the revue came to an end because of her exertions,[66] added to which she appeared in the 27 episodes of the third series of Educating Archie between September 1952 and June 1953.

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