Barbara Windsor

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Barbara Windsor on November 4, 2010
Barbara Windsor's voice (English)

Dame Barbara "Babs" Windsor , DBE (* 6. August 1937 in Shoreditch , London as Barbara Ann Deeks ; † 10. December 2020 in London) was a British actress .

Life

Windsor was the only child of the fruit and vegetable seller John Henry James Deeks (1914-2004) and his wife Rose Alexandra (née Ellis; 1912-1981), a seamstress, who had married in 1936 in Shoreditch , northeast London . The parents later divorced and both remarried. Windsor had her first film role in the school comedy The Beauties of St. Trinians (1954).

Windsor became known to the general public in German-speaking countries through participation in nine carry-on films between 1964 and 1974. Her first film in the series was It's Crazy - Agents on the Powder Keg and her last one, Go on, Dick! . She also starred on Broadway in the play Oh! What a Lovely Was a starring role and received a 1968 Tony Award nomination for best actress in a musical. In the 1960s and 1970s, the platinum blonde, curvy actress with the high voice and the proletarian cockney was considered-Accent as one of Britain's greatest sex symbols. The image of naive blondes in comedies drowned out something that could convince them even in serious roles. She received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her appearance as a single mother in Joan Littlewood's Kitchen Sink drama Sparrows Can't Sing (1963).

In 1994 Windsor was offered the role of Peggy Mitchell in the popular BBC series EastEnders , which she then played for a total of 22 years and made the character one of the most famous characters in the soap opera. After a case of exhaustion, she was out of screen for two years from 2003 to 2005, but then returned and filled the role regularly until 2010. As of 2010, she played the character more times at irregular intervals until the Peggy Mitchell in 2016 the Serientod died.

In 1999, Windsor was named a member of the Order of the British Empire by the British government . She was married to Ronnie Knight from 1964 to 1985 and to Stephen Hollings from 1986 to 1995. During her first marriage, she had an affair with Sidney James . Since 2000 she was married to Scott Mitchell. She was also dating Reggie Kray in the 1960s . In her autobiography, All of Me , Windsor spoke openly about her five abortions (the first at age 21, the last at age 42). Her affair with her carry-on colleague Sidney James became the TV movie Cor Blimey! dedicated in which they ofSamantha Spiro was embodied. In the TV movie Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! , the biography of Kenneth Williams , she is played by Rachel Clarke .

In 2018 it became public that Windsor had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in April 2014 . Windsor died in a London nursing home in December 2020 at the age of 83.

Filmography (selection)

Barbara Windsor as a wax figure (2018)

Web links

Commons : Barbara Windsor  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gwilym Mumford: Barbara Windsor, star of Carry On films and EastEnders, dies at 83. In: The Guardian . December 11, 2020, accessed December 11, 2020 .
  2. ^ Julia Carpenter: Barbara Windsor: How I beat the age snobs. In: Daily Express . July 11, 2007, accessed December 11, 2020 .
  3. Peter Bradshaw: Before Carry On typecast her, Barbara Windsor was a brilliant kitchen sink star. In: The Guardian. December 11, 2020, accessed December 11, 2020 .
  4. ^ Windsor plans EastEnders break. In: BBC.com . October 23, 2002, accessed December 11, 2020 .
  5. ^ EastEnders star Barbara Windsor diagnosed with Alzheimer's. In: BBC.com. May 10, 2018, accessed December 11, 2020 .