Each month I take a look at Funny Women from throughout the 20th Century – stating their case so that you may decide which to vote your favourite Vintage Funny Woman. So far we have looked at Fanny Brice, Lucille Ball, Yorkshire’s Marti Caine, Music Hall star Vesta Tilley, the great Judy Garland, Carry On star Hattie Jacques, the ‘Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat’ Carmen Miranda, the dazzling Ginger Rogers, the versatile Kay Thompson and this month is Streatham born comedy great June Whitfield CBE.
June Whitefield turns 90 this year and she is still going strong. My first experience of her was watching ‘Carry on Abroad’ at my grandparents’ house when I was very small. Luckily for Whitfield, this movie is by no means the peak of her career. I was seven years old when ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ started and I remember watching repeats of ‘Terry and June’ that were showing at the same time and thinking that it was pretty cool that she was still going (Terry and June actually only finished five years before but felt a lifetime’s difference to seven year old me!)
Name a comedy programme from between 1950 – 1990 (if not currently) and she has appeared on it. Whitfield is my only Vintage Funny Woman so far that is still alive so I hope she doesn’t feel bad to be amongst this list – but what a list to be part of!
June Whitfield was born in Streatham, London in 1925 and both her parents were keen on amateur dramatics which lead to June’s stage debut aged three. She was evacuated out of London during the war but returned to study at secretarial college in Brixton before training in acting at RADA.
Whitfield started her professional career in the mid-1940s on the radio with Wilfred Pickles, West End (‘South Pacific‘ being a major production) and regional theatre performances as well as the odd small television part. Her big break didn’t come until 1953 when she gain a role on the famous radio show ‘Take it from Here’ – a massively famous comedy show written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, the hottest writing team of the day. The impact of this show meant that Whitfield became a household name.
Throughout the fifties a slew of television guest appearances followed with Whitfield often playing the ‘straight woman’ to a comedian or comic actor in the television shows ‘The Arthur Askey Show’, ‘The Benny Hill Show’ and ‘Hancock’ (“A pint? Why, that’s very nearly an armful!”).
In 1955 she married a surveyor, Timothy Aitchison and in 1960 they had a daughter, actress Suzy Aitchison, not before her first ‘Carry On’ experience with ‘Carry On Nurse’ in 1959. Three more appearances in the series followed.
(Did you know Dapper Laughs wrote this scene? He really is that old)
The hard work and guest appearances paid off and in 1966, aged 41 she achieved her first lead television role in ‘Beggar My Neighbour’ which ran for two years before she moved on to appear with Terry Scott in ‘Scott on…’ which ran for six years. This started a long professional career partnership with Scott. ‘Happy Ever After’ and ‘Terry and June’ followed.
When I asked my mum about memories of June Whitfield she pointed out I had to include the Birdseye adverts; June if you are reading this I personally don’t believe this was the height of your career unlike some and my mother is a pleb.
This version of ‘Je t’aime’ is rather marvellous though.
June Whitfield has had such a prolific non-stop career that she has been on ‘This is Your Life’ twice – and I still haven’t got to ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. And who can forget she was on ‘Friends’?!
And so to Gran; an ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ movie is being written so let’s remember some Whitfield’s best moments – I think she is often given the killer punchline and delivered with the truth of an actress.
In an article printed last year in the Telegraph she stated she had started working with a personal trainer: “I don’t walk about an awful lot because my feet hurt. He makes me run up and down the stairs, touch my toes, those sorts of things. I feel better for it, definitely.”
Whitfield told the Radio Times: “The worst thing about age is not quite being able to do what you once did. The best thing is learning to accept what you’ve got and what you are.”
“I think the fact I’m still working is my proudest work achievement.” June Whitfield speaking to the Telegraph in August 2014
If she isn’t an inspiration I don’t know who is and I think June Whitfield thoroughly deserves her place amongst the Vintage Funny Women Awards.
