Mollie Sugden: 1922-2009

Mollie Sugden (1922-2009), Mrs. Slocombe of Are You Being Served Fame

Mollie Sugden, the actress who died on July 1 aged 86, endeared herself to television viewers as Mrs Slocombe of the Ladies Separates and Underwear department in Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft's long-running sitcom Are You Being Served?

Like all the best sitcoms, Are You Being Served?, first broadcast on BBC One between 1972 and 1985 and set in Grace Bros department store, drew on the venerable music hall traditions of familiar social stereotypes, heavy double entendre and jokes that could be seen advancing over the horizon from several miles away. The show benefited from strong portrayals by all its main characters, but it was Mrs Slocombe and her counterpart in menswear, the outrageously camp Mr Humphries (John Inman), who made it unmissable.

Mollie Sugden's Mrs Slocombe was a recognisable working type – the shopworn divorcee trying to keep up appearances, defying the years with ever more lurid rinses, and returning home alone each night to her "little pussy", to which there was always at least one reference in every show.

End of the blue rinseMrs Slocombe had an arch, Ortonesque way with the unfortunate phrase: "Captain Peacock, I do not respond to any man's finger!", she says in response to a summons from the boss. "Before we go any further, Mr Rumbold, Miss Brahms and I would like to complain about the state of our drawers. They're a positive disgrace."

Mrs Slocombe had no children, which must have been a personal relief to Mollie Sugden, who was more usually cast as the interfering mother figure. As for similarities between the character and her own, she conceded that, like Mrs Slocombe, she could be "a bit bossy", but "unlike me, Mrs Slocombe could never find a fella".

Mary Isobel Sugden was born in Keighley in Yorkshire on July 21 1922. Her father ran an iron and steel company. When she was four years old, she heard a woman reading a comic poem at a village concert. The following Christmas, after being asked if she could "do anything", she read the same poem. It made her realise "how wonderful it was to make people laugh". Her first public performance came a year later in a Sunday School play in which she played a "bold,
bad cat".

Mollie Sugden was educated at the local Grammar School, then worked during the war in a munitions factory in Keighley making shells for the Royal Navy. When she was later made redundant, she enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

After graduation she spent eight years in rep with a company that included Eric Sykes and Roy Dotrice, then took small roles on radio and television. Before Are You Being Served? she appeared with Benny Hill, Just Jimmy (as Jimmy Clitheroe's mother), Z-Cars, Up Pompeii!, The Goodies, Steptoe and Son and, in 1968, five episodes of Jackanory.

In 1973 she had a 23 week stint on That's Life! and also appeared as Terry Scott's mother in Son of the Bride.

Her first regular sitcom role, from 1962 to 1966, was as Mrs Crispin in Hugh and I. The series was written by John Chapman and when he got involved with The Liver Birds, he suggested Mollie Sugden for the role of Mrs Hutchinson, mother of Sandra (Nerys Hughes). Sugden portrayed Mrs Hutchinson from 1971 to 1979, and reprised the role when the series was revived in 1996. She also played Robin Nedwell's mother in Doctor in Charge (1972) and John Alderton's mother in My Wife Next Door (1972)

The first episode of Are You Being Served? was a one-off Comedy Playhouse, ignored until terrorists struck at the 1972 Munich Olympics, leaving the BBC with free airspace. The pilot was watched by 19 million viewers and the response was so huge that five more episodes were filmed. In total, 74 were shown between 1973 and 1985. In early episodes, Mollie Sugden had her hair dyed, bleached and re-dyed every time Mrs Slocombe changed her hair colour. It had been her own idea, but it meant that she sometimes had to turn up at her sons' school with her hair a multi-coloured mess. Later, she saved her roots and her dignity by wearing wigs.

In 1978, when it was thought that the series was about to be pensioned off, she appeared in the title role of Come Back Mrs Noah, about a housewife accidentally blasted into orbit on a space rocket, a sitcom which, despite the fact that it had the same writers as Are You Being Served?, is widely regarded as one of the worst ever made. From 1965 to 1976 she made occasional appearances as Nellie Harvey, the landlady of The Laughing Donkey, in Coronation Street.

Mollie Sugden also had roles in other sitcoms, including That's My Boy (1981-86), in which she played housekeeper to Dr Robert Price (Christopher Blake) and his wife Angie (Jennifer Lonsdale), and My Husband and I (1987-8) in which she played opposite her real husband, William Moore, whom she had married in 1958 after meeting him at Swansea rep.

Seven years after the end of Are You Being Served?, five of the original cast – including Mollie Sugden – came together to appear in Grace & Favour, in which the staff are left a manor house in the country by young Mr Grace, head of Grace Bros, who has died while scuba-diving on holiday in the Caribbean with his personal secretary, Miss Jessica Lovelock. This lasted for two series until 1993. Other television appearances included Just William, Oliver's Travels and, inevitably, The Bill.

In the early 1990s Mollie Sugden found herself acquiring "cult" status across the Atlantic – particularly on the San Francisco gay scene – after American television started running repeats of Are You Being Served?. In 1993 she appeared on the San Francisco operatic stage as the Duchess of Krakenthorp, a speaking role ("I'm no Pavarotti") in Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment. In 2002 a tribute programme called Celebrating Mollie Sugden: An Are
You Being Served? Special was aired on American PBS stations, featuring many of the original cast.

Away from showbusiness, Mollie Sugden enjoyed gardening, cooking and driving fast cars. "I used to speed about in a Porsche," she told an interviewer in 1995. "But seven or eight years ago I was done for doing 92mph on the motorway, so now I drive a Mercedes."

Mollie Sugden and her husband had identical twin sons, born when she was 41.She confessed that when they were very young she had to keep them labelled so that she could tell them apart and that "more than once I bathed the same one twice".

Her husband died in 2000.

Obituary: Wendy Richard, Star of "Are You Being Served?"

Actress Wendy Richard dies at 65
Former EastEnders actress Wendy Richard has died aged 65, her agent has confirmed.

The star, who played Pauline Fowler in the BBC One soap opera, had been suffering from cancer.

Her agent Kevin Francis said: "She was incredibly brave and retained her sense of humour right to the end."

Last October, Richard revealed she had an aggressive, terminal form of cancer. Soon after that she married her long-term partner John Burns.

Francis said the star passed away in the Harley Street Clinic in London with her husband by her side.

In an interview with the Sunday Express last year, Richard revealed she had already planned her funeral and written her will.

She discovered the disease had returned after her usual annual check-up, which revealed cancerous cells in her left armpit.

THE CAREER OF WENDY RICHARD

•1965 Aged 22, joins the cast of soap The Newcomers
•1970-73 Stars in four episodes of Dad's Army as Private Walker's girlfriend, Shirley
•1972 Plays Miss Willing in Carry On Matron
•1972-85 Stars as Miss Brahms in the series Are You Being Served? (pictured)
•1985-2006 Appears in more than 1,400 episodes of EastEnders as Pauline Fowler
•2008 Films her last TV role as Mrs Crump in Marple: A Pocket Full Of Rye

She told the paper: "Now I have a cancerous growth on my right kidney and the cancer has spread to my bones.

"It's more aggressive this time, unfortunately, and has spread to the top of my spine and left ribs."

Minder star Shane Ritchie, who played EastEnders' character Alfie Moon alongside Richard until 2005, said he was, "absolutely devastated" by news of her death.

"I send all my love to John and her immediate family," he added.

Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, said: "Wendy Richard is going to be incredibly missed by the BBC and by our audiences."

Veteran actress, June Whitfield, added: "She was always delightful.

"I'm very, very sorry. I did not work with Wendy. We met at dos. It's very sad."

Presenter Dale Winton had known Richard for years.

"I'm very saddened to hear the news, she was a real fighter and actually a very kind and funny lady in her own right," he said.

"My thoughts are with her family, she will be missed."

In 2000, Richard was awarded the MBE for services to television and in 2007 she was given a British Soap Award for Lifetime Achievement for her role in EastEnders.

As well as her 21 years on Albert Square, Richard starred in sitcoms Are You Being Served?, Dad's Army and Grace and Favour.

She joined EastEnders when the programme began in 1985 and remained in it until 2006, when her character died.

The reason she gave for her departure was because she objected to a storyline that saw her character remarry.
"I left because I wasn't happy," she revealed in 2008. "Also, I couldn't believe in what they wanted me to do and unless I can find some truth in what I am doing, I cannot play it.

"Pauline remarrying was wrong. Some women never remarry. My mother never remarried after Daddy died. I always had it in my heart that Arthur was Pauline's husband and that was that."

"When We Mix with Dwarfs..."

"Brothers, it is a very healthy thing for us who are ministers to read a biography like that of M’Cheyne. Read that through, if you are a minister, and it will burst many of your windbags. You will find yourselves collapse most terribly. Take the life of Brainerd among the Indians, or of Baxter in our own land. Think of the holiness of George Herbert, the devoutness of Fletcher, or the zeal of Whitfield. Where do you find yourself after reading their lives? Might you not peep about to find a hiding place for your insignificance? When we mix with dwarfs we think ourselves giants. But in the presence of giants we become dwarfs. When we think of the saints departed and remember their patience in suffering,their diligence in labor, their ardor, their self-denial, their humility, their tears, their prayers, their midnight cries, their intercession for the souls of others, their pouring out their hearts before God for the glory of Christ—why, we shrink into less than nothing and find no word of boasting on our tongue! "

Charles Spurgeon, from a sermon entitled Onward! [Philippians 3:13-14]

Thomas Sowell: Of Ants, Elephants, and FDR

Of Ants, Elephants, and FDR
Scattershot observations on a world gone mad.

By Thomas Sowell


Random thoughts on the passing scene:

One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.

The adage “follow the money” will be hard to apply in the current administration, when there is so much money going in all directions that it is doubtful whether anybody can follow it.

I hate to hear about “partnerships” between government and business, or between government and other organizations. When there is a partnership between an ant and an elephant, who do you suppose makes the decisions?

There are too many people, especially among the intelligentsia, who will never appreciate the things that have made this country great until after those things have been destroyed—with their help. Then, of course, it will be too late.

How can a president of the United States be reelected in a landslide after four years when unemployment never fell below 15 percent for even one month during his first term? Franklin D. Roosevelt did it by blaming it all on the previous administration. Barack Obama may be able to achieve the same result the same way.

Can you name the only baseball player to bat .382 in his last year in the major leagues? The first five readers who can will receive a free copy of my new book, Applied Economics.

Do you want to have to jump through bureaucratic hoops when you are sick? If not, why would you be in favor of government-run medical care?

The Wall Street Journal Report is one of the few things on television worth watching. It is worth it just to see the sardonic smile of Kimberly Strassel whenever she discusses politics.

Democrats could sell refrigerators to Eskimos before Republicans could sell them blankets.

Anyone who wants to understand the housing crisis without getting a headache from reading economic jargon should read the new book Financial Shock by Mark Zandi.

Human beings are going to make mistakes, whether in the market or in the government. The difference is that survival in the market requires recognizing mistakes and changing course before you go bankrupt. But survival in politics requires denying mistakes and sticking with the policies you advocated while blaming others for the bad results.

I know that there are still voices of sanity around because I have counted them—on one hand.

More frightening to me than any policy or politician is the ease with which the public is played for fools with words. The latest example is the “Employee Freedom of Choice Act,” a bill that will do away with secret-ballot elections among workers voting on whether to be represented by a union. It is an open invitation to intimidation—which is to say, loss of freedom of choice.

Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.

One of the wonders of our times is how much more attention is paid to the living conditions of a bunch of cutthroats locked up in Guantanamo than to the leading international sponsor of terrorism getting nuclear weapons.

The great sense of urgency of the Obama administration to get legislation to authorize slow-moving spending projects may seem inconsistent. But the urgency is real, even if the reasons given are not. The worse-case scenario for the administration would be to have the economy begin to recover on its own before this massive spending bill is passed, reducing their chances of creating the kind of politically directed economy they want.

I realized how far behind the times I am when I saw a TV commercial for some weight-loss product, showing Marie Osmond “before” and “after.” I thought she looked great “before.”

War should of course be “a last resort”—but last in terms of preference, not last in the sense of hoping against hope while dangers grow and wishful thinking or illusory agreements substitute for serious military preparedness—or, if necessary, military action. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “If you wait until you see the whites of their eyes, you will never know what hit you.”

James Whitmore, 1921-2009

Note: I loved the way he played the role of Brooks Hatlen in The Shawshank Redemption.



James Whitmore dies at 87; veteran award-winning actor was familiar to many as pitchman for Miracle-Gro

By Dennis McLellan

February 7, 2009

James Whitmore, the veteran Tony- and Emmy-winning actor who brought American icons Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt to life in one-man shows, died today. He was 87.

Whitmore died of lung cancer at his home in Malibu, said his son, Steve. He was diagnosed with the disease a week before Thanksgiving.

"He cared about acting; his whole life was dedicated to the theater and to movies," said actor David Huddleston, a longtime friend who appeared in Whitmore's 1964 movie "Black Like Me" and did a couple of plays with him. "I asked James Cagney one time to tell me the best thing you can about acting. He said never to get caught at it. That's kind of how I'd sum up Jim Whitmore."

James Arness, who appeared with Whitmore in the movies "Battleground" and "Them!," said Whitmore was "an actor's actor," adding that " it was always a treat to work with him."

Arness also remembered the "great intensity" Whitmore could bring to a role.

"When we wanted to get an actor to play a character who had that quality, Jimmy was the guy you'd think of," said Arness, who starred in "Gunsmoke," a TV series that Whitmore appeared on a number of times.

A stocky World War II Marine Corps veteran who bore a resemblance to actor Spencer Tracy and shared Tracy's down-to-earth quality, Whitmore earned early acclaim as an actor.

In 1948, he won a Tony Award for outstanding performance by a newcomer in the role of an amusingly cynical Army Air Forces sergeant in the Broadway production of "Command Decision."

Whitmore's Broadway success brought him to Hollywood, where he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in his second movie, the hit 1949 World War II drama "Battleground," in which he played a tobacco-chewing, battle-weary Army sergeant.

Supporting roles and occasional leads in some 50 movies followed over the next 50-plus years, including "The Asphalt Jungle," "Them!," "Kiss Me Kate," "Battle Cry," "Oklahoma!," "Planet of the Apes," "Tora! Tora! Tora!," "The Serpent's Egg," "Nuts," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Majestic."

A frequent guest actor on television, Whitmore also starred in three series: the 1960-62 legal drama "The Law and Mr. Jones," the 1969 detective drama "My Friend Tony" and the 1972-74 hospital sit-com "Temperatures Rising" (although he left after a year, he later said, "because it was just a series of jokes").

In 2000, Whitmore won an Emmy Award as outstanding guest actor in a drama series for "The Practice," and he received a 2003 Emmy nomination in the same category for "Mister Sterling."

An avid flower and vegetable gardener, Whitmore also was known to TV viewers as the longtime commercial pitchman for Miracle-Gro garden products.

Whitmore often said he found acting in films and television boring because of the long waits between scenes; his passion was for the theater, and he continued to act on stage throughout his long career.

"I've been very, very lucky," he said in a 2003 interview with the Nashville Tennessean. "The stage is human beings sharing something together -- flesh and blood together -- and the others are mechanical and shadows on the screen."

Although he starred in productions of plays such as "Our Town," "Inherit the Wind" and "Death of a Salesman," Whitmore was best known for his three one-man shows: as Truman in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," as Roosevelt in "Bully" and as Rogers in "Will Rogers' U.S.A."

The 1975 film of his performance in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" earned Whitmore a best actor Oscar nomination.

But the one-man-show character he said he "always felt most comfortable with" was Rogers.

"He was wise with a sense of humor, and that's an unbeatable combination," Whitmore told the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader in 2003.

He was initially resistant to the idea of playing the gum-chewing, lariat-twirling humorist -- his first one-man show -- when adapter-director Paul Shyre brought "Will Rogers' U.S.A." to him in 1969.

"I didn't think I could conceivably carry an evening by myself. I had difficulty holding the attention of my family," Whitmore recalled in a 1995 interview with The Times.

But any qualms he had disappeared when the show premiered in a small theater in Webster Groves, Mo., in January 1970.

"I realized immediately that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man," Whitmore told The Times. "I didn't realize that until I heard the response of other human beings to him."

Whitmore ultimately had about eight hours of Rogers' various comments about the topics of the day memorized, changing the show each time he did it.

"I tried to use whatever seemed to be of interest to the folks in the audience that day," he told the Tulsa World in 2001. "I took the news from today's newspaper but didn't change what Will Rogers said. It's amazing how little things have changed since Will was about."

Whitmore completed 30 years of on-and-off touring as Rogers at Ford's Theatre in Washington in 2000, and his costume is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution.

Born in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 1, 1921, Whitmore later moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he attended public schools until his senior year of high school, when he attended the Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., on a football scholarship.

He was a pre-law major on an athletic scholarship at Yale University, but he had to quit playing football after suffering two knee injuries.

While at Yale, Whitmore helped launch the campus radio station.

"I was able to stay in school with a nightly sports show, 'Jim Whitmore Speaks,' with interviews and sports news. I made 40 bucks a week," he told the Tennessean in 2003.

With World War II underway, Whitmore joined the Marines during his senior year in 1942 and served in the South Pacific. After his discharge, he eventually moved to New York City and used the GI Bill to study acting at the American Theatre Wing.

In 1947, he married his first wife, Nancy Mygatt, with whom he had three children. They were divorced after 24 years. After Whitmore's second marriage in the 1970s, to actress Audra Lindley, he and his first wife were remarried but divorced after two years

Whitmore, who was an early student at the Actors Studio in New York in the late '40s, taught an acting workshop after moving to Hollywood. Among his students in the early '50s was young James Dean, whom Whitmore advised to go to New York.

"I owe a lot to Whitmore," Dean told Seventeen magazine in 1955. "One thing he said helped more than anything. He told me I didn't know the difference between acting as a soft job and acting as a difficult art."

For his part, Whitmore remained modest about his own acting talent.

"I never thought I was good," he told the Palm Beach Post in 2002. "I've touched the hem of the garment a few times but never grabbed it full-hand."

When he died Friday, Whitmore "was surrounded by what he considered to be the most important thing in his life, which was his family," his son Steve said.

In addition to his son, Whitmore is survived by his wife, Noreen; his sons James Jr. and Dan; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Services are pending.

Inflation Explained to a 10 Year-Old

The following letter was written by Beth Hoffman, the managing editor of The Freeman, which is the flagship publication of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Ms. Hoffman passed away on December 1 at the age of 58.

I think the following explanation of inflation, written in response to a letter from a 10 year-old, should be sent to the members of Congress for their education.

**********************************

A ten-year-old student's query to FEE about inflation drew this response from Beth Hoffman in 1981. It captures what so many people saw in her: her dedication to freedom and her eagerness to help others to understand.

Thank you for your letter, asking for information about inflation. The members of the staff here at The Foundation for Economic Education have been studying inflation for many years. We have published books and many articles about the subject. I will share with you some of the things I have learned.

Government causes inflation by printing lots of paper dollars. Many people believe that inflation is high prices. But actually inflation is the increase in the quantity of money. How does this increase lead to high prices?

Well, let's pretend that you're not happy with the allowance that your parents give you. You don't have enough money to buy all the bubble-gum, hamburgers, comics or toys that you want. Let's also suppose that you had a Magic Machine that could print all the dollars you wanted. (This is called counterfeiting and people go to jail for doing this. But just pretend that you could print as much money as you'd like.) Since you would have all the dollars from this Magic Machine you could spend as much as you like and would not have to worry about asking your family for a bigger allowance. When you're on a limited allowance you have to watch your pennies pretty carefully. But if you had a Magic Machine, you could be less careful with your dollars. You wouldn't have to choose between a new book and a pad of drawing paper. You could buy both and even more! This would be fine and dandy for a time.

But suppose your friends all had these Magic Machines or that you had so many dollars that you gave a lot of them to your friends. Well, if enough of you had loads of money to spend at the local candy store pretty soon something interesting would happen. The candy store owner has only a certain amount of bubblegum to sell. But suddenly, with you and other rich kids, there's a big demand for bubblegum! If he had only 5 packages of gum for sale and there were ten of you who wanted to buy it, any one of you might be willing to pay $10.00 or more for one package of gum. (Remember that back when you had only your allowance, you'd never pay that much for a little pack of gum!) Because of the bigger demand, the owner of the candy store might decide to ask a higher price for the gum -- and you will pay it because each of your dollars has lost some of its value. You may seem rich but your money has lost a lot of its buying power because there are others who also have lots of money and are rich.

In very simple terms, this is what our government has done. Through many decisions made by the officials in the government, there has been an increase in the number of dollars printed. There are just many more dollars -- paper dollars -- that don't buy as much as the old dollars did. (You've probably heard adults say, Gee, the dollar doesn't go as far as it used to.)

The people in this country give the government its "allowance' by paying taxes. But taxes are not popular. So, rather than asking for a bigger allowance, that is, for higher taxes, the government tries something else. It prints money with a printing machine. And when the government does it, it's legal! Because it can legally print almost as many dollars as it wants, the government doesn't have to go to the people and say, "We need more money to pay soldiers and policemen and to buy all the things we want to give people." The officials can print more money to pay all their debts. And they can print more money to pay for lots of benefits for their friends. And if they can't print enough, they can ask for an "advance" on next year's "allowance." This way, people don't have to pay more taxes, the government can hand out goodies and everyone seems happy. But eventually everyone begins to realize that the dollars are not worth what they once were. And, just as with your Magic Money Machine, the government's money machine doesn't make everyone rich. Some people seem rich for a while. But when some of the people get some of the newly printed dollars, they bid prices up. Then many other people can't buy the things they want. And so on.

I'm enclosing some articles you might want to read, particularly one by Mr. Henry Hazlitt, “Inflation in One Page.” In different language, he says the same thing I've told you. When you are a bit older, you may also want to read Mr. Hazlitt's book called Economics in One Lesson. If you have any questions or would like some more information, please write to me. I will try my best to help.

Cordially,
Beth Hoffman

From David Wells, "The Courage to be Protestant" [2008]

Note: If you haven't picked up this book, you need to put it on your reading list. [PI]

"A serious engagement with culture, though, is not what most evangelicals are about. What they want to know about the culture is simple and easy to understand. They want to know what the trends and fashions are that are ruffling the surface of contemporary life. They have no interest at all in what lies beneath the trends, none on how our modernized culture in the West shapes personal horizons, produces appetites, and provides us ways of processing the meaning of life. All of that seems like pretty complex and useless stuff. Pragmatists to the last drop of blood, these evangelicals are now in the cultural waters, not to understand what is there, but to get some movement. They are there with their surfboards trying to get a little forward motion as each tiny ripple makes its way toward the shore. This quest for success, which passes under the language of 'relevance,' is what is partitioning the evangelical world into its three segments [classical evangelicalism, marketers, emergents--PI]." [pp. 3, 4]

"The truth is that without a biblical understanding of why God instituted it, the church easily becomes a liability in a market where it competes only with the greatest of difficulty against religious fare available in the convenience of one's living room and in a culture bent on distraction and entertainment. Few demands are made by television preachers, or on borrowed DVDs, and every pitch for a financial contribution is subject to death by the mute button. That cannot be said of the preacher in a church! This conquest by the market, accomplished silently and without any fanfare, has not only greatly diminished the church but, one has to say, has also greatly diminished what it means to be a Christian believer." [p. 11]