 Had Thora Hird retired at sixty, she would have had a solid career behind her as a versatile stage and screen actress equally at home in comedy (talent-spotted by George Formby, she made her screen debut opposite Will Hay in The Black Sheep of Whitehall, d. Basil Dearden, 1941) and drama (The Entertainer, d. Tony Richardson, 1960), gritty realism (the waspish mother-in-law in A Kind of Loving, d. John Schlesinger, 1962), airy fantasy (Anna Neagle musical comedies The Courtneys of Curzon Street and Maytime in Mayfair, d. Herbert Wilcox, 1947/49) and even sci-fi and horror (The Quatermass Xperiment, d. Val Guest, 1955; The Nightcomers, d. Michael Winner, 1971). Although rarely cast in lead roles and often given little material to work with, she nonetheless made an indelible impression whenever she was on screen despite, as she herself put it, not being at the front of the queue when looks were given out. But from the 1960s onwards, she metamorphosed from respected character actress into an authentic British national treasure. This was largely thanks to television: in the sitcom Meet The Wife (BBC, 1963-66) in which she played opposite Freddie Frinton as bickering couple Fred and Thora Blacklock, and the drama series The First Lady (BBC, 1968-69), where she played a crusading local councillor, she defined her popular image as a strong-willed, no-nonsense Northerner, good-humoured but sharp-tongued, essentially kindly but not afraid to speak her mind when it suited her. When she finally took on a regular role in Last of the Summer Wine (BBC, 1973-) in 1986, it seemed as though she was already part of the scenery - and in many ways she was, since Roy Clarke's long-running sitcom was drawn from popular images of Northern women that Hird had played a major role in establishing in the public's collective imagination thanks to these and similar roles. Her other TV series included In Loving Memory (ITV, 1979-86), Flesh and Blood (BBC, 1980) and Hallelujah (ITV, 1983), and she was also a regular presenter of the BBC's main religious programmes Songs of Praise (1961-) and Praise Be! (1979-), which provided her public outlets for exploring clearly heartfelt beliefs. But all this cosy familiarity should never detract from her talent: her three BAFTAs for Best Actress certainly weren't given for sentimental reasons, even though she was nearly eighty when she received the first. Two were for A Cream Cracker Under the Settee (BBC, tx. 24/5/1988) and Waiting for the Telegram (BBC, tx. 11/11/1998), monologues written especially for her by Alan Bennett, the culmination of a six-play collaboration in which writer and actress were perfectly matched; the third was for Lost for Words (BBC, tx. 3/1/1999), Deric Longden's autobiographical piece about his mother's declining health. Other outstanding single dramas included Memento Mori (BBC, tx. 19/4/1992), Wide-Eyed and Legless (BBC, tx. 5/9/1993) and the Victoria Wood-scripted Pat and Margaret (BBC, tx. 11/9/1994). Born in Morecambe on 28 May 1911, she made her stage debut at the age of two months, but was never star-struck: despite frequent hob-nobbing with royalty in later years, she would always bring herself down to earth by recalling mental images of her childhood and adolescence: seeing wounded men returning from the First World War, scrubbing the steps of her parents' house or spending ten years behind the counter at Morecambe Co-op, an experience that gave her a veritable encylopaedia of character references to draw on in her later work. She married musician James Scott in 1937, their daughter is the actress Janette Scott, whose second marriage (1966-77) made Hird, incongruously but strangely appropriately, the mother-in-law of American crooner Mel Tormé. But even when visiting the family in Beverly Hills she remained a Lancastrian at heart, appreciating the place's attractions but bemoaning the absence of corner shops. Michael Brooke
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FILM & TV CREDITS
