Event to honour 50s siren Sabrina
FOR those who like their retro a little spiced up, visit Vintage Village in Stockport Covered Market Hall this Sunday, September 10, where they are hosting a Sabrina Fair!
I know at least one elderly clergyman whose eyes glint at the very mention of her name.
Norma Ann Sykes was just an ordinary Stockport schoolgirl who won the breaststroke championship at St George’s School, Heaviley, aged 13.
She was born at Stepping Hill and brought up in Buckingham Street, became a waitress, then a nude model at 18 and ended with the world at her feet, or at least some other part of her anatomy! Her big break was in 1955, when comedian Arthur Askey wanted a ‘dumb’ blonde for his TV series and her 41 inch bust, 19 inch waist and 36 inch hips seemed to fit the script.
Norma became Sabrina and was an instant hit, courted and feted by celebrities including Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.
Her parents, Walter and Annie Sykes, were ordinary working class people. Annie was a seamstress at a mill and Walter a local engineer with no pretensions.
Their daughter was suddenly in the limelight, with film roles concentrated on her ‘assets,’ rumoured to be insured for £100,000 in the 1950s!
Now Stephen Page, a close friend, will reveal celebrity secrets at the Stockport Sabrina Fair.
There will be previously unseen film footage, clothes and artefacts, plus 70 stalls with vintage goods.
The classic 1932 Plaza Supercinema in Mersey Square is also screening Pathe newsreels featuring Sabrina for free.
Sabrina went to Hollywood and married a wealthy gynaecologist, but the marriage didn’t last and her final film role was in 1969 in place of Jayne Mansfield, another busty blonde, who had been killed in a car crash.
Last year, aged 80, she passed away quietly in a Los Angeles hospital, a fate unknown to her many local fans - mainly naughty schoolboys of the 1950s »»We are still selling the current issue of Stockport Heritage Magazine, with many local stories and photos, in newsagents and bookshops plus you can get back copies and binders by ordering online from me direct, or from St Mary’s Church Heritage Centre, Market Place, Stockport, please go to www. stockportheritage magazine.co.uk to see all our back copies also available on disc.