Who is Joan Sims?

Who is Joan Sims?

Joan Sims AKA Irene Joan Marion Sims (9 May 1930 – 27 June 2001), best known as Joan Sims, was an English actress, best remembered for her roles in the Carry On films, for playing Madge Hardcastle in As Time Goes By and Mrs Wembley, the cook with a liking for sherry, in On the Up.

Sims was born in 1930, the daughter of the station master of Laindon railway station in Laindon, Essex. Sims' early interest in being an actress came from living at the railway station.

In 1946, Sims first applied to RADA, but her audition was unsuccessful. Her first audition included a rendition of Winnie the Pooh. She did succeed in being admitted to PARADA, the academy's preparatory school, and finally, on her fourth attempt, she graduated and was trained at RADA. She graduated from RADA in 1950 at the age of 19. One of her first stage performances was in the 1951 pantomime, The Happy Ha'penny, opposite Stanley Baxter at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Sims made her first film appearance in Will Any Gentleman? with George Cole in 1953.

In 1954, she made a cameo appearance in Doctor in the House, opposite Dirk Bogarde as the sexually repressed Nurse Rigor Mortis. Sims became a regular in the Doctors series, which was produced by Betty E. Box, and was hence spotted by Box's husband Peter Rogers.

She had a small part in the 1957 film Carry on Admiral, unrelated to the later Carry On series and with no other cast members in common with the series.

In 1958, Sims received a script from Peter Rogers; it was for Carry On Nurse. The film Carry On Sergeant had been a huge success at the box office and in the autumn of that year, Rogers and director Gerald Thomas began planning a follow-up.

She first starred in Carry On Nurse, then Carry On Teacher, followed by Carry On Constable and Carry On Regardless, and this sealed her future as a regular Carry On performer. Following a bout of ill health, Dilys Laye had to be brought in to take her place in Carry On Cruising at very short notice; however, Sims rejoined the team with Carry On Cleo. Her role in this was to set the tone for the rest of the Carry On films.

Sims' characters evolved from objects of desire in the early films to frumpy, nagging wives in the later ones, epitomised by the Emily Bung role in Carry On Screaming. Following the success of Carry On Cleo, she stayed with the films all the way though to the final one in the original series, Carry On Emmannuelle. Sims appeared in 24 Carry On films in all; she did not return for the one-off revival film, Carry On Columbus (1992).

After the Carry On series ended in 1978, Sims continued to work on television. She appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier in the award-winning 1975 television film Love Among the Ruins and had a recurring role as Gran in the BBC comedy series Till Death Us Do Part. From 1979 until 1981, she played the recurring character Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton in Worzel Gummidge for Southern Television. Also in 1986, Sims appeared in the long-running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who in the four episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet as Katryca.

In 1987 she joined the cast on And There's More and was paired up with Nicholas Smith for a number of sketches for each episode as an old couple.

In 1989, she appeared as a medium in the video for Morrissey's "Ouija Board, Ouija Board".

In her later years, Sims fought a long battle against depression. This was worsened by the deaths of her agent Peter Eade, her best friend Hattie Jacques and her mother, all within a two-year period, after which she fell into alcoholism. Sims suffered from Bell's palsy in 1999 and fractured her hip in 2000, but recovered well. However, her alcoholism was beginning to dominate life in her rented Kensington flat, and she described herself as "the queen of puddings." After assessment by a doctor, she was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre, but declined. Offered the opportunity to write her autobiography, she took a role in the BBC television film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, alongside Dame Judi Dench and Olympia Dukakis.

Sims, like her fellow Carry On star Kenneth Williams, never married. Williams, who was homosexual, did however propose a marriage of convenience to her, which she promptly declined.

Sims entered hospital in November 2000, and complications of a routine operation caused her to slip into a coma. Her lifelong friend and stand-in Norah Holland spoke of the doctors' amazement at her strength and courage throughout her final illness.

On 27 June 2001, ten minutes before she died, Norah Holland spoke to her gently about Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and their time on the Carry On films. She died with Holland holding her hand. She was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium, and her ashes scattered in the grounds there.

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