10:10am Thursday 9th July 2009
By David Knights
Early stage appearances in Keighley by TV actress Mollie Sugden, who died last week, have been highlighted.
Keighley Amateurs veteran Keith Marsden has spoken of his theatrical experiences with the Keighley-born star.
Mollie trod the boards in her hometown years before achieving fame in popular 1970s sitcom Are You Being Served?
As battleaxe Mrs Slocombe she became famous for the catchphrase “have you seen my pussy?”
Mollie Sugden, 86, who lived in Surrey, died at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, in Guildford, after a long illness.
Her twin sons, Robin and Simon Moore, were at her bedside.
Mollie was born in Thwaites Brow in 1922 and attended Keighley Girls’ Grammar School where, as a 15-year-old, she was successful in elocution recitals.
She performed regularly with local amateur theatre groups before training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in London. Mr Marsden, who produces and co-writes the annual Keighley Amateurs pantomime, attended the junior department of Keighley Girls’ Grammar School along with Mollie.
In a school production of Sleeping Beauty in the 1930s he played the prince while Mollie, a few years older, was in the chorus.
After turning professional and while working in repertory theatre, she returned to Keighley to produce a play for Keighley Amateurs.
In the production, a comedy entitled The Rotters, Mollie played a councillor’s wife while Mr Marsden was a young chauffeur.
Mr Marsden said: “I can hear her now saying ‘oh Charles’ in that voice she had.
“She spoke the same offstage as she spoke while playing Mrs Slocombe on TV. She never lost her Keighley persona. “John Inman said that when anyone came on the set of Are You Being Served? they wouldn’t be chatting more than a few minutes without her mentioning Keighley.
“She was a tremendous actress but her forte was playing broad situation comedy.”
During the Second World War Mollie was a “recitalist” with the Keighley concert party the Good Companions, which performed 500 shows in a three-year period.
In the late 1940s, soon after leaving the Guildhall School, Mollie was regularly playing leading parts in professional dramas and pantomimes.
She was working in the repertory theatre when, in Swansea in 1956, she met fellow actor William Moore.
The pair married two years later, when she was 35 and he was 39, and their sons were born six years later.
According to Mollie’s long-time agent, Joan Reddin, Mollie never fully recovered from her husband’s death nine years ago.
Ms Reddin began representing Mollie in the 1960s before she became famous with her role as Mrs Slocombe.
She said: “I represented her for more than 30 years and I was a very close friend as well.
“She had had a long illness and various problems but it was very quick in the end.
“She was a lovely, lovely person and I never had any trouble with her. She was a great professional.”
Best known for her comedy roles, often playing battleaxes, Mollie also appeared as the fearsome Mrs Hutchinson in The Liver Birds.
Ms Reddin said that although Are You Being Served? was her most famous show, Mollie was “too good” an actress not to do drama as well and her career spanned a variety of roles.
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