How They Came to Carry On ... Dilys Laye

 

The lovely Dilys Laye has always been one of my favourite actors. Throughout her career Dilys tackled almost every aspect of the acting profession, from Carry On comedy to soap opera, live theatre, musicals and even a one woman show. Dilys was such a talented lady and always a cheerful, upbeat presence.

Dilys was also very obviously incredibly proud of her Carry On connections. Speaking on the DVD commentaries for both Carry On Cruising and Spying in 2006, she found the films fresh and funny and clearly loved her association with these low budget, innuendo-encrusted films. She was also full of praise for her colleagues, particularly the likes of Kenneth Williams and her life-long friend, Joan Sims. During her long career, Dilys found time to appear in four Carry Ons and I know many fans agree with me that she should really have appeared in more. Dilys herself said she wished she'd been in every single one as they were so much fun to make.

 

During the 1960s, Dilys appeared as the tiggerish Flo Castle, looking for a husband in Carry On Cruising; she vamped it up as double agent Lila in Carry On Spying, famous mimicking Kenneth Williams' snide character; she played Mavis Winkle, love interest to Bernard Bresslaw in Carry On Doctor and finally, the following year, she teamed up with Sid, Bernard and Joan to form the fabulous foursome in Carry On Camping. However how did Dilys first come to Carry On? 

The original story, as told by Dilys herself, was that she was brought in to play the role of Flo in Cruising at very short notice, something like two or three days. She told the story of being whisked around the West End of London to buy various outfits for the film, which apparently she got to keep at the end. Surely an uncharacteristically generous move on the part of producer Peter Rogers?! Anyway, the role of Flo was originally written by Norman Hudis for series regular Joan Sims. Joan however was apparently struck down with an illness just before filming commenced so Dilys was drafted in. Although I'd have loved to see my favourite actor play that part in Cruising, for me it's definitely Dilys' part and she fills that film with a youthful exuberance and such jolly high spirits. 

However I wonder what made Peter Rogers think of Dilys as an ideal replacement? Apart from the fact that Joan and Dilys were great mates and had already spent years touring in revues together, Dilys had already built up an impressive range of comedy film parts which must have made her the ideal choice. Most importantly she had already worked for both Peter and his wife, Betty Box.

 

Dilys made her debut for Peter and Betty in 1957 when she played the supporting role of Jasmine Hatchett in Doctor At Large. In that film her character had to make a play for leading man and matinee idol, Dirk Bogarde as Dr Simon Sparrow. Two years later, Dilys played an Agency Girl in the Betty Box comedy Upstairs and Downstairs, a film that boasted an all star cast of Rogers and Box rep company favourites. Probably the most significant early role for Dilys, which almost guaranteed her future appearance in a Carry On was that of Millicent Jones in one of my favourites, Please Turn Over, which was released in 1959. 

Millicent Jones is a role Dilys herself seemed to really enjoy playing. Millicent was the secretary to lead character Edward Halliday, played by the wonderful Ted Ray. Millicent is in many ways a dual role as at first she is the sweet, reliable secretary but she soon turns into a double-crossing, money grabbing gold digger! It's a delightful performance and must have been huge fun to play! Watching that film again, Dilys is one of the highlights and it's easy to see why Peter Rogers would want to capitalise on that talent and make use of Dilys in future productions.

 

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Whatever Happened To ... Victor Maddern?

 

Every so often I like to look back at one of the lives and careers of a recognisable Carry On supporting actor and bring them back into the limelight. This has proved a very popular series of blogs as it moves the attention away from the regular team onto some of the less well-known, yet still vitally important supporting players.

Today I am going to look back at the life and career of another well-known British character actor, Victor Maddern. Victor had one of those instantly recognisable faces which popped up in countless television shows and films from the 1950s right through until the early 1990s. He appeared in everything from war films to light comedies, often in small or supporting roles. Another actor who was never a star but still managed a highly successful career on the stage.

As always, we'll start off with Victor's Carry On contributions. Victor made his first appearance with a cameo role in Carry On Constable, released in 1960. He played Detective Sergeant Liddell who is innocently going about his business when green police constable Stanley Benson (Kenneth Williams) attempts to arrest him for his dodgy antics! Following this eye-catching support, Maddern was back at Pinewood later in 1960 for a very brief turn as a sinister train passenger who, along with Denis Shaw, pops up during Kenneth Connor's 39 Steps sequence.

1964 saw Victor Maddern contribute two more supporting roles to the Carry On series. In Carry On Spying he played the sinister Milchmann, an agent for Doctor Crow who comes a cropper after trying to take on Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor! Watch out for Victor's hilarious death scene in that one! Later the same year he played Sid James' second in command in the classic Carry On Cleo. Victor works well with Sid and their scenes encountering Amanda Barrie's Cleopatra for the first time are superbly played. It was then over a decade before Victor Maddern associated with the Carry On team again. In 1975 he played three supporting roles in the ATV Carry On Laughing television series, reuniting him with the likes of Sid James, Joan Sims and Kenneth Connor. 

Three years after filming Carry On Laughing, Victor Maddern was one of a very few familiar faces to appear in the last film of the original run, Carry On Emmannuelle, in 1978. Victor's scene is one of the few highlights of an otherwise dire film. He shares a wordless romantic interlude in a laundrette with Joan Sims' character Mrs Dangle. So although only appearing in five original films, Victor still managed to span most of the series. 

 

So away from the Carry Ons, what else did Victor Maddern do during his acting career? 

In the early days, Victor was often cast as soldiers or sailors. He appeared in films from the early 1950s, with credits including Seven Days to Noon (1950); Pool of London (1951); Angels One Five (1952); Malta Story (1953) and The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954). As I've already mentioned, Maddern often appeared in war films during the 1950s, some of the more famous being the likes of Carve Her Name With Pride (1958); Dunkirk (also 1958); Sink the Bismarck! (1960); the star-studded The Longest Day (1962) and H.M.S Defiant (1962)

Equally adept at comedy roles, Victor Maddern also appeared in many Carry On-esque comedy films during the peak of the genre in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He worked again for Rogers and Thomas in two other films away from the Carry Ons - Please Turn Over in 1959 and Watch Your Stern the following year. He also appeared as Knowles in the classic comedy I'm All Right Jack. Other comedy films he appeared in included the Charlie Drake vehicle Petticoat Pirates in 1961 and On The Fiddle starring Sean Connery and Stanley Holloway. 

 

 

On television, Victor Maddern appeared in a wide variety of productions over four decades. Victor appeared in many of the most popular series of the day including the likes of The Avengers, The Prisoner, The Baron, The Saint and Dixon of Dock Green. In 1968 he played the role of Robson in the Doctor Who story Fury From The Deep. He also made regular appearances on The Dick Emery Show. Some of his later television roles included that of Police Constable Johnson in the BBC's adaptation of the Miss Marple story The Moving Finger with Joan Hickson in 1985. He also portrayed Sam Bentley in The Beiderbecke Tapes in 1987 and one his very last roles was as a character named Fruity Pears in an episode of The Darling Buds of May in 1992. 

One of his earliest stage roles was as Sam Weller in The Trial of Mr Pickwick in 1952. Appearing as Helicon in a production of the Camus play Caligula in 1964, Maddern was singled out for critical praise. It was also rumoured that he bought some of the sets from this production and sold them on to Peter Rogers for Carry On Cleo! He also did two stints in the highly successful Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap - the longest-running production in London's West End. 

 

Victor Maddern was born Ilford, Essex on 16 March 1928. Victor joined the Merchant Navy at the age of 15 and served during the Second World War. Following the end of the hostilities, he was discharged from the Navy and enrolled to train to become an actor at RADA in London. Always an enterprising man, away from the acting profession he set up and ran a very successful script printing business. He even started a further business, a public speaking school in 1991. 

 

Victor acted less frequently in later years, devoting more of his time to charity work. Married to Joan, the couple had four daughters. Sadly Victor died from a brain tumour in Hackney, London, on the 22nd June 1993. He was just 65 years old. 

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