Yootha Joyce
| Yootha Joyce | |
|---|---|
Sleeve of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others by The Smiths
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| Born |
Yootha Joyce Needham 20 August 1927 Wandsworth, London, England, UK |
| Died | 24 August 1980 (aged 53) London, England, UK |
| Cause of death | Liver failure |
| Years active | 1945–1980 |
| Spouse(s) | Glynn Edwards (1956-1968) (divorced) |
Yootha Joyce Needham (20 August 1927 – 24 August 1980), credited as Yootha Joyce, was a British actress best known for playing Mildred Roper in sitcom Man About the House and its spin-off George and Mildred.
Joyce was born in Wandsworth, London, the only child of musical parents Hurst Needham, a well-known singer, and Jessica Revitt, a concert pianist. She was named "Yootha", an Aboriginal name, after a New Zealand dancer in her father's touring company. Joyce was evacuated to Hampshire during the Second World War. She left school at fifteen, then trained at RADA where Roger Moore was a fellow student, and after that toured with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).
In 1956 she married the actor Glynn Edwards, best known for playing Dave, landlord of the Winchester Club in Minder. It was through Edwards that she first came to prominence in the renowned Joan Littlewood Theatre Workshop, appearing at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be and going on to make her film debut in Sparrows Can't Sing (1963). Joyce and Edwards divorced in 1968 but remained close friends, to the extent that she used to console him after his subsequent relationships broke down.
In the 1960s and 1970s she became a familiar face in many one-off sitcom roles and supporting parts in films, with her first main recurring role being Miss Argyll, frustrated girlfriend of the title star Milo O'Shea in three series of Me Mammy (1968–71); the tapes of that series are now lost. Prior to that, she played a cameo role in Jack Clayton's The Pumpkin Eater (1964) as a psychotic young woman opposite Anne Bancroft, delivering a performance that has been called one of the "best screen acting miniatures one could hope to see." She also had a featured role (as brassy housekeeper Mrs Quayle) in Clayton's next film Our Mother's House (1967), a dark drama starring Dirk Bogarde, which dealt with a group of young children who conceal the death of their single mother to prevent being split up.
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