Babs: Her 100 lovers
HOT TV SPECIAL
A NEW BBC drama about Dame Barbara Windsor cheekily claims she had more than 100 lovers.
The Carry On and EastEnders star’s life is the subject of a new 90-minute biopic called Babs.
It has been penned by EastEnders creator Tony Jordan.
The show is set in 1993 just before she landed the role as Peggy Mitchell and she is seen as a down-on-her-luck star playing end-of-the-pier shows.
In the drama, two actresses – Jaime Winstone and Samantha Spiro – play Babs at different stages of her life.
It opens with her just about to go on stage and looking back at her life while chatting to the ghost of her dead father John. But Jaime and Sam aren’t the only “Babs” in the drama. Tony could not resist getting the real one – whose showbiz career spans more than 60 years – popping up along the way, too.
The story does not shy away from her tangled love life, including hints about abortions, flings and details about her troubled marriage to smalltime crook Ronnie Knight.
At one point Dame Barbara, now 79, appears and jokes about her bad choice in men: “Story of my bleeding life...”
In another scene, Samantha claims there “weren’t that many” lovers before the camera cuts to a theatre completely packed with men, suggesting that there were in fact lots.
The real Babs pipes up from the wings to protest: “Oi. That’s not funny.”
However it’s no secret she had flings with Reggie Kray, Sid James, Maurice Gibb and George Best among others. She is currently on her third marriage.
The BBC drama will show Babs is much more than “a sexy little blonde with big boobs” from Carry On films – having enjoyed an early stage musical career before becoming a hit in London’s West End and also on Broadway. Tony admits he was nervous when he pitched the idea to Dame Barbara, saying: “I wanted to get behind the giggle and the wiggle and find out the person that is really there. She said: ‘Let’s do it.’” And she says of the show: “It was very emotional to watch.” ¬Ê Babs is on BBC One, Sunday, May 7, at 8pm.