See also Biography Index (M) :: Filmography Index (M) :: Discography Index (M)

Mary Isobel `Mollie` Sugden (21 July 1922 – 1 July 2009) was an English comedy actress best known for portraying the saleswoman Mrs. Slocombe in the popular British sitcom Are You Being Served? from 1972 to 1985. She later reprised this role in Grace & Favour, which ran from 1992 to 1993. Sugden also appeared in The Liver Birds and Coronation Street. Mary Isobel Sugden was born in Keighley in Yorkshire in 1922. When she was four years old, she heard a woman reading a poem at a village concert making people laugh. The following Christmas, after being asked if she could "do anything", Sugden read this poem and everyone fell about laughing. She later remarked that their response made her "realise how wonderful it was to make people laugh".[1] Shortly after she left school, the Second World War broke out, and Sugden worked in a munitions factory in Keighley making shells for the Royal Navy. However, she was later made redundant so she attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. When Sugden graduated from the Guildhall School of Drama, she worked in rep for eight years with a company that included Eric Sykes and Roy Dotrice. She also had work in radio and made her television debut in a live half-hour comedy show. Sugden`s other appearances before Are You Being Served? included parts in Benny Hill, Just Jimmy, Z-Cars, Up Pompeii!, The Goodies, Steptoe and Son and five episodes of Jackanory in 1968.

Sugden`s big break that gave her nationwide fame was the role of Mrs Slocombe—a department-store saleswoman with a socially superior attitude, a repertoire of double entendres, and a penchant for bouffant, pastel-colored coiffures—in the popular and long-running Are You Being Served?, which ran from 1972 to 1985. In 1978, when it was thought that Are You Being Served? was over, she was the lead star in Come Back Mrs Noah, a sitcom that is regarded by some as one of the worst ever made. From 1965 to 1976, she intermittently played Nellie Harvey, the land-lady of The Laughing Donkey pub, in Coronation Street. In this she often appeared opposite Annie Walker, landlady of the Rovers Return. Later in 1986, she had a 23-week stint on That`s Life! and also appeared in Son of the Bride.

In 2002 a tribute programme called Celebrating Mollie Sugden: An Are You Being Served? Special aired on American PBS stations featuring several members of the cast of Are You Being Served? Sugden died at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford on 1 July 2009 after a prolonged battle with cancer.

Post a Comment | View All Comments (2)