Biography

Best known for playing Matron--as in "Ooh, Matron!"--in four films: Carry on Nurse (1959), Carry on Doctor (1967), Carry on Again Doctor (1969) and, of course Carry on Matron (1972). Key roles included: Grace Short in Carry on Teacher (1959), Sophie Bliss in Carry on Loving (1970) and Peggy Hawkins in Carry on Cabby (1963). She was married to John Le Mesurier (Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army (1968)), but left him for another man. They divorced but remained friends. An unexpectedly attractive woman in her time, she played parts which depended upon and mocked her weight. Only in Carry on Cabby (1963) was she allowed to escape her dragon persona and play the romantic lead opposite Sidney James. She died prematurely at the age of 58 from a heart attack.
- IMDb mini biography by: Joolz

Prior to entering show business, she trained as a hairdresser. During the war, she worked first as a Red Cross nurse and then as an arc welder at a North London factory. It was there that she discovered her talent for making people laugh,. When her brother got a job at London's Little Players Theatre in 1944 she went along, did an audition on a Friday, and the following Monday she was a professional entertainer singing Victorian songs in their late night reviews. There, she also developed her famous Christmas Fairy persona, appearing annually in their pantomimes as an outsized fairy. On Christmas 1949, she played Marrygolda, one of Beauty's sisters in 'Beauty and the Beast' at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Throughout her career she remained faithful to the Players Theatre, returning to it whenever she could as a performer, producer and occasionally as a writer. In that guise she adapted 'Riquet with the Tuft', in which she played her favourite character - the immortal Fairy Queen.She got the name Hattie while at the Players, when as part of her act she sang a negro song. This was just after the film Gone with the Wind (1939), which featured the well-built black actress Hattie McDaniel, had been released. She performed regularly at the Players until 1962. She first gained fame on radio as Sophie Tuckshop, a greedy schoolgirl addicted to mammoth meals in Tommy Handley's 'It's That Man Again' aka 'ITMA', which ran from 1947 to 49. In 1956, she then had a spell as Agatha Danglebody in 'Educating Archie', supporting Max Bygraves and Tony Hancock, joining the latter's regular 'Hancock's Half Hour' series in 1956. While doing 'Educating Archie', she met Eric Sykes, who'd contributed to some of the scripts. This was the beginning of a 30 year partnership with Eric as his long suffering sister in the long-running TV series, 'Sykes', which ran from 1960 to 1965, then from 1972 to 1979.(with Richard Wattis and Deryck Guyler in the latter series). She was philosophical about her size, but sometimes expressed a yearning to look more normal once shedding four stone, but when she arrived at a TV studio nobody noticed the difference, so she abandoned all ideas of dieting. She considered the three big points in her career as: being taken on by the Players Theatre; joining the programme ITMA and working with Tommy Handley; and doing the radio series Educating Archie, where she met Eric Sykes who wrote the scripts.
- IMDb mini biography by: tonyman 5