On what would have been her 90th birthday, let's stop and take a moment to appreciate the glory that was that most roguish of British character ladies, the incomparable Mollie Sugden. A peerless mistress of the double take, double entendre, and double-high (alarmingly shaded) bouffant, Sugden was a shining light of UK television for several decades, achieving a kind of immortality, of course, as the doughty Mrs. Slocombe on Are You Being Served?
She left us a couple of years ago, and now presides, I think, in spirit at least, at a celestial Ladies' Intimates counter in some higher plane (joined, with luck, by her plucky companion Miss Brahms, the lovely Wendy Richard, alas also gone too soon).
I am endeavoring to maintain some measure of her attitude to trying times. Tough customers, cheeky co-workers - even her tryingly flirty neighbor, Mr. Akbar - nothing daunted Mrs. S. With a tot of gin and a quick check in (as seen above) on her beloved pussy, she was game for anything. Especially if it meant a chance to one-up those annoying customers, always trying to distract one from the really important things in life...like that gin.
It was indeed a sad day when Mollie Sugden left us. A national treasure, indeed! Jx
ReplyDeleteI believe this photo is from Season 1/"Dear Sexy Knickers." Mollie actually dyed/colored her hair for those first few episodes until the hair-damage (and her young sons' imploring her not to pick them up from school with rainbow-colored hair) prompted her to don the green and blue wigs. So sad to think that only Captain Peacock and Mr Rumbold are the last survivors, and how odd that "young" Mister Lucas was in reality only a few years younger than Mr Rumbold.
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