Barbara Windsor (1937-2020)

The Watchers were very saddened to hear of the passing of Dame Barbara Windsor, who passed away on December 10th at the age of 83. 

Whilst she will be indelibly linked to the Carry On... franchise and EastEnders, there was much more to her than just the buxom blonde with the filthy laugh or the brassy battleaxe telling people to get out of her pub.

Born Barbara Ann Deeks in Shoreditch, London, she took the stage name "Windsor" in 1953 after being inspired by the recent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. She made her film debut with an uncredited role as a schoolgirl in The Belles Of St. Trinian's (1954). In the late 1950s, Windsor auditioned for Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and was immediately cast by Littlewood in the Lionel Bart musical Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be as a Soho sex worker. She also appeared in the play Sparrers Can't Sing (1960) which was adapted for film in 1963 (renamed Sparrows Can't Sing), in which Windsor reprised her role as an abandoned wife, and received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress in 1964 for her powerful performance.

Littlewood asked Windsor to join the Broadway cast of her satirical musical Oh, What A Lovely War! in 1964. The following year, Windsor received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance (although lost to Maria Karnilova for Fiddler On The Roof). Stage work remained important to Windsor throughout the rest of her career, with highlights including playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in a 1972 production of The Threepenny Opera, playing music-hall legend Marie Lloyd in Sing A Rude Song, appearing in Twelfth Night at the 1976 Chichester Festival and two separate stints playing the voracious Kath in Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane (with the 1981 revival directed by her Carry On colleague Kenneth Williams). 

There seems a certain irony that Carry On producers Gerald Thomas and Peter Rogers offered Windsor a role in one of the films after seeing her in Sparrows Can't Sing, as the world of the Carry On films- with their smutty seaside postcard humour and risqué double-entendre (barely scraping to single-entendre by the end)- were a world away from the kitchen-sink drama of Littlewood's film. However, Windsor joined the cast of Carry On Spying (1964), a pastiche of the early James Bond films, as Agent Daphne Honeybutt. 

This would be the first of nine Carry On films in which Windsor would appear, usually as some variation of the curvy dolly-bird with the heart of gold. She played Nurse Sandra May in Carry On Doctor (1967), Goldie Locks in Carry On Again Doctor (1969), Bettina in Carry On Henry (1971), Nurse Susan Ball in Carry On Matron (1972), Sadie Tomkins in Carry On Abroad (1972), Hope Springs in Carry On Girls (1973) and Harriet in Carry On Dick (1974), which would be her last of the films as she felt the series was becoming too coarse (it's difficult to disagree). 

However, the moment that she will be forever remembered for is the infamous sequence in Carry On Camping (1969) where her character Babs loses her bra after a particularly vigorous exercise routine. She regretfully accepted that this scene would inevitably feature in her obituaries. Windsor would also appear as host of the compilation film That's Carry On! (1977) opposite Kenneth Williams, and also appeared in several Carry On stage revues and eight episodes of the Carry On Laughing television series. 

Whilst she was heavily involved with the Carry On films, Windsor wasn't able to do much other work, although appeared as Annie Chapman (one of the victims of Jack The Ripper) in A Study In Terror (1965), had a bit-part in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), played Hortense in Ken Russell's adaptation of The Boy Friend (1971) and appeared in the Ray Cooney farce Not Now Darling (1973). Finding herself somewhat typecast after her Carry On stint, roles were sparse throughout the 1980s although she appeared in Worzel Gummidge (1980) for four episodes as the Saucy Nancy, a ship's figurehead. She also appeared in Comrades (1986)- a film about the Tolpuddle Martyrs- and It Couldn't Happen Here (1987), as a seaside landlady and Neil Tennant's mother. 

In 1994, Windsor was cast in British soap EastEnders as Peggy Mitchell, mother to Walford hard men Grant and Phil (Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden). Windsor had been interested in being cast when the show began in 1985 but the initial producers had not wanted to cast anyone who was well-known. Windsor was an immediate hit, becoming landlady of the Queen Vic and known for telling errant customers "get out of my pub!" (She even appeared in an episode of Doctor Who as Peggy doing exactly that to a ghost!). She was on the show from 1994 to 2016, appearing in over 1500 episodes, and won the Best Actress award at the British Soap Awards in 1999. The character was killed off- at Windsor's insistence- in 2016 after a storyline where Peggy was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. She was on record as saying that as long as Peggy was alive, she would always be drawn back to play her.  

During her time in EastEnders, Windsor also provided the voice of the Dormouse for Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland (2010) and reprised the role for the 2016 sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass. Windsor was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2014, but her condition was not made public until 2018. She was made a Dame Commander of Order of the British Empire in 2016 for her services to charity and entertainment, and spent the last couple of years advocating for better treatment and care for Alzheimer's patients.

It seems a shame that Windsor will be remembered for just one particular scene in one particular film in a career that spanned six decades. She was so much more than a Carry On girl. Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this time.