One of
Britain's most popular
actresses, Barbara Windsor was born as
Barbara-Ann Deeks in
Shoreditch in the
East End of
London in
1936. After her
school refused her permission to have
time off to
take part in a local
pantomime she persuaded her mother to let her
attend the famous
Ada Foster acting school.
Her working class background is what gained her her first acting job,
in a play set in east London called Fings Ain't What They Used To Be.
In 1954 she made her screen debut in
The Belles of St. Trinians and she managed to appear in
roughly one film a year following that. These were the golden days of
British cinema, especially in comedy, and in 1963 she was given
a part in one of the early Carry On films, Carry On Spying.
She was not ashamed of the fact that she was blonde, giggly and endowed
with large breasts, and as the years progressed and the Carry On films
became ever more smutty "Babs" found herself becoming something of a
national institution. Living the 60s glamour lifestyle to the full
she was often seen in the company of other celebrities, both the
famous and the infamous, being frequently photographed accompanying
gangsters such as Charlie Kray and Ronnie Knight (both of whom she
had affairs with).
Partly due to this her private life has been very closely followed by
the tabloid press, and speculation of an affair with her Carry On
co-star Sid James continued right up until his death in 1976. To this
day she remains coy about whether or not anything happened.
After a comparatively quiet period in the late 80s, Barbara returned to the
attention of the British public in 1994 when she took up the part of
Peggy Mitchell in the top-rated BBC soap opera EastEnders. Six
years on she is still going strong, having made the role her own, and
in 1998 she was awarded an MBE for her services to acting.
Hard-working and immensely popular, she is often to be found doing various
work for charities around her native east London.
Sources: assorted web sites, trivia from the depths of my
brain, and bits and pieces gleaned from skimming through her biography
"All of Me" in the book shop yesterday.