Carry on Babs... the secret House of Windsor
1 WHO IS A CLASS ACT?
BBC 1’s new Sunday night drama Babs (8pm) looks at the ups and downs of the life of acting favourite Dame Barbara Windsor. It delves into the darker corners of the personal life of the former EastEnders and Carry On regular including her turbulent relationship with her parents and her rocky marriage to first husband Ronnie Knight.
2 IS A STAR BORN?
THE Londoner was evacuated to Blackpool for a year during the Second World War and first dazzled stage directors at the age of six. Barbara says: “I got my first job when I was 13, and there were all these rules – know your lines, be on time, do not talk to the leads of the show until they talk to you. It was very old school.”
3 HOW WAS THE SWINGING SIXTIES?
SHE appeared in the 1960s in movies and TV shows like Sparrows Can’t Sing and The Rag Trade. Barbara also popped up in 1968 film musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
4 IS LIFE A CARRY ON?
THE success of the Carry On movies made Barbara a household name. She made her first in 1964 playing Daphne Honeybutt in Carry On Spying and appeared in nine of the comedy favourites playing characters like Nymphia, Hope Springs and Goldie Locks a.k.a Maud Boggins. She once said of the films: “We didn’t get a lot of money and we did always seem to be doing outside shots in winter but it paid the mortgage and I loved it.”
5 AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER?
SHE talked candidly about her affair with her Carry On co-star Sid James in her autobiography All Of Me. The relationship was dramatised in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and in the TV adaptation Cor, Blimey! in 2000.
6 WHO RAISED THE BAR?
BARBARA enjoyed a 22-year stint on BBC soap EastEnders as memorable Queen Vic pub landlady Peggy Mitchell. The character’s doomed wedding to Archie in 2009 was voted number one of the 50 Greatest EastEnders weddings of all time.
7 HOW WAS THE MEETING OF THE WINDSORS?
THE Queen of soaps turns 80 in August and received her damehood from Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace last year. The Queen met Barbara and the rest of the EastEnders cast when she visited the Albert Square set in 2001.
8 CAN YOU SPOT THE STAR?
SHE makes a brief cameo appearance in BBC drama Babs and says she had a “a good cry” after a preview screening of the film about her life story. She says she could also hear her husband Scott sitting besides her crying at times as well as laughing out loud. “I managed to get through it without completely breaking down, but at the end I stood up and walked out of the room and had a good cry. It was a lot to take in and relive,” she said.
9 IS THE TIMING WRITE?
BARBARA says she had a lot of imput into the script for Babs and regularly met writer Tony Jordan to talk about her life. She says: “He said something that stuck a chord with me – ‘I want to get behind the giggle and the wiggle’ – and that sold it to me and I knew I would not trust anyone apart from Tony to write it.”
10 WHO IS DAME FOR A LAUGH?
THE acting star says she has now reached a happy place in her life. “I’ve got a great husband (Scott Mitchell), I am still working and the fact that I can do all my charities is good. It’s a bit difficult now I am a Dame and I have to watch how I behave ... God was that a shock.”