VETERAN TV and film star June Whitfield is to visit Wymondham next month.She is guest star at the Regal Experience Group's latest memory lane classic film show which takes place at the former cinema, now the Ex-Services' Club, on Sunday, April 13.
VETERAN TV and film star June Whitfield is to visit Wymondham next month.
She is guest star at the Regal Experience Group's latest memory lane classic film show which takes place at the former cinema, now the Ex-Services' Club, on Sunday, April 13.
The hugely popular actress is a fan of MGM musicals and, at her request, the main feature film will be Busby Berkeley's For Me and My Gal (1942).
The film made an international star of song and dance maestro Gene Kelly and placed Judy Garland on a new pinnacle of stardom. It is packed full of catchy songs like Oh You Beautiful
Doll, When Johnny Comes Marching Home and The Bells are Ringing.
Graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1944, June's showbusiness career has spanned 70- plus years, but her big break came in 1953 when she replaced Joy Nichols in the popular radio comedy series Take It From Here, starring Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley.
She went on to partner some of the greatest names in British comedy, among them Arthur Askey, Roy Hudd, Sid James, Frankie Howerd, Tony Hancock, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise.
June starred in TV classics such as Beggar My Neighbour and, of course, with the late Terry Scott in Happy Ever After (1974-1978) and Terry and June (1979-1987).
More recently she played Jennifer Saunders' mother in the hugely popular Absolutely Fabulous, while she is still involved in Last of the Summer Wine. She was made an OBE in 1985, which was upgraded to a CBE in 1998.
June's movie credits include
four Carry On films. She joined
Sid James and Terry Scott for
the big screen version of Bless
This House (1972), while she played a rare straight dramatic role in Thomas Hardy's Jude (1996), a film which also starred Kate Winslet.
Innumerable appearance on the stage included one at Norwich's Theatre Royal in A Bed Full of Foreigners (1975) - again opposite Terry Scott.
The Wymondham Regal programme, assisted by Hollywood Cinemas, also features Beside the Seaside, made in 1935 and taking a look at the traditional English holiday of that time.
Tickets are available from Maureen Dodman (tel 01953 605593) and Michael Armstrong (tel 01953 603246) or at the Wymondham Heritage Museum.
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