Yootha Joyce

Yootha Joyce
Joyce on the sleeve of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" by the Smiths, 1986
Born	Yootha Joyce Needham (1927-08-20)20 August 1927 Wandsworth, London, England
Died	24 August 1980(1980-08-24) (aged 53) Marylebone, London, England
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1944–1980
Spouse	Glynn Edwards ​ ​ (m. 1956; div. 1969)​

Yootha Joyce Needham (20 August 1927 – 24 August 1980), known as Yootha Joyce, was a British actress best known for playing Mildred Roper opposite Brian Murphy in the sitcom Man About the House (1973–1976) and its spin-off George and Mildred (1976–1979).¹² She had a large number of film and television credits to her name, and also made many appearances on stage.

Yootha Joyce Needham was born in Wandsworth, London, the only child of musical parents Percival "Hurst" Needham, a singer, and Jessie Maud (née Revitt), a concert pianist.³⁴ She was named "Yootha" after a New Zealand dancer in her father's touring company, a name she would later say she "loathed and detested".⁵ Joyce's biography states that her heavily pregnant mother went for a walk on Wandsworth Common during an interval of one of her husband's performances and began feeling contractions; searching for a house to call an ambulance, she came across a nursing home, where she gave birth.³

The family lived in a basement flat at Bennerley Road, Wandsworth, although Joyce spent much time living with her maternal grandmother, Jessie Rebecca Revitt, while her parents were touring.³ Initially educated at the Battersea Central Co-educational School, Joyce was evacuated at the start of the Second World War to Petersfield, Hampshire, where she attended Petersfield County High School for Girls. Although Joyce later said that she "hated" her time in Petersfield, she and the other female evacuees from Battersea would use the local church hall there for acting, dancing and singing.³ By the time Joyce returned to London in 1941 her parents resided in Gladstone Road in Croydon, joined by her grandmother. She completed her education at Croydon High School.

Joyce's family were not encouraging of her career. She could not sing or play the piano like her parents, who stated she "wasn't much good at anything"; however, inspired by her performances at Petersfield, Joyce became determined to "break family tradition [...] and become a straight dramatic actress".³ Despite her parents' disdain,³ Joyce successfully auditioned for a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), beginning in September 1944, alongside Roger Moore. Her first performance was playing Lydia Bennet in a production of Pride and Prejudice.

Undeterred by her director saying that she "had nothing to offer the profession", Joyce began working as an assistant stage manager at The Grand in Croydon during the summer holidays, and joined a repertory company where she starred in productions including Escape Me Never and Autumn Crocus.³ Starting back at RADA in September 1945, Joyce dropped the "Needham" from her name and began using the stage name "Yootha Joyce" saying "it seemed less of a mouthful... being stuck with Yootha is enough".³ Joyce left RADA in early 1946, finding it unduly strict and unencouraging.⁶

Following her departure from RADA, Joyce toured with ENSA from 1946 to 1948. She then toured the UK in many repertory theatre groups, including the Harry Kendall Players, the Reginald Salberg Players, the Jack Rose Players and the Harry Hanson Players, and received many positive reviews of her performances.³ In 1955, Joyce applied for work at a further repertory group based at the King's Theatre in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire in a production entitled The Call of the Flesh. The producer, Glynn Edwards accepted her audition and the two became good friends, and later lovers.³ Touring the UK in The Call of the Flesh the play was billed as "daring", "naked", "raw" and "gripping" and was a huge success. The theatre director Joan Littlewood was in the audience at one of the performances and was impressed to the extent that she asked Edwards to join her Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.³

By 1956, Joyce and Edwards had moved in together and rented a flat in Hampstead. During one of Littlewood's productions, Littlewood began looking for more female parts and Edwards suggested Joyce. She joined the production and became a member of the Theatre Workshop alongside other contemporaries including Barbara Windsor, Murray Melvin, Victor Spinetti, Bob Grant, Stephen Lewis, and Brian Murphy at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.³ Joyce married Edwards on 8 December 1956. Joyce took part in a large number of Littlewood's productions, as a performer but also occasionally as producer or director. Her roles at the Theatre Workshop included The Duchess of Malfi, Celestina, The Respectful Prostitute, The Dutch Courtesan and The Hostage.

Joyce came to prominence in Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be in which she played three roles. The production began at the Theatre Royal before transferring to the Garrick Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 886 performances.^7 8 Joyce and Edwards would later divorce in 1969.³

Joyce made her first television appearance in 1962 in an episode of Brothers in Law, a sitcom about a young lawyer, alongside a young Richard Briers, and went on to make her film debut in Littlewood's film Sparrows Can't Sing (1963).

In the 1960s and 1970s, Joyce became a familiar face in many one-off sitcom roles and supporting parts in films. Joyce's next film part was that of 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."⁹ Joyce appeared in two episodes of the comedy series Steptoe and Son, as the girlfriend of Harold Steptoe. She also appeared in the Hammer Horror film Fanatic (1965) as a villain, and then had a role in the films Catch Us If You Can (1965) - a vehicle for the Dave Clark Five - and A Man for All Seasons (1966). Joyce then had a role as brassy housekeeper Mrs Quayle in Clayton's next film Our Mother's House (1967), a dark drama starring Dirk Bogarde. Joyce also took a leading role opposite Robert Shaw in the television film Luther. Joyce played villains in the television series The Saint and The Avengers, and then followed this with a role in the sitcom George and the Dragon opposite Sid James. Joyce had a role in the film Charlie Bubbles (1968).

Joyce's first main recurring role was that of Miss Argyll, the frustrated girlfriend of the star Milo O'Shea, in three series of Me Mammy (1968–1971); most of the episodes of that series are lost. She had a role in the short film Twenty-Nine (1969) and appeared in five episodes of Dixon of Dock Green. Joyce appeared in the horror films The Night Digger (1971), and Burke & Hare (1972). She followed this with a role in Jason King as a villainous nurse.

Joyce then had roles in the TV spin-off films Nearest and Dearest (1972), Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width (1973) and Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973), and then played a hospital matron in the television film Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) alongside Jane Seymour and David McCallum. She also appeared as customer Mrs. Scully in the pilot episode of Open All Hours, and as militant clippie Jessie Crawford in an episode of On the Buses (both 1973). In 1973, Joyce also appeared in a series of advertisements for the Yorkshire Post with Tommy Godfrey.

It was not until 1973 that Joyce acquired a starring role, when she was cast as man-hungry Mildred Roper, wife of sub-letting landlord George, in the sitcom Man About the House. This series, which starred Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox, Sally Thomsett and Brian Murphy as George Roper, ran until 1976, deriving its comic narrative from two young women and a young man sharing the flat above the Ropers.² Man About the House became a hit with viewers with audiences of up to twenty-four million viewers per episode. The series also spawned a spin-off film which was released in 1974.

When the Man About the House ended, a spin-off was written that featured the Ropers: George and Mildred, which was first broadcast in 1976. The couple were seen moving from the London house in Myddleton Terrace in the previous programme, and into a newer suburban property in Peacock Crescent, Hampton Wick. Much of the new series centred on Mildred's desire to better herself in her new surroundings and climb the social ladder, but always being thwarted, usually unwittingly, by her ineffectual husband's desire for a quiet life.

Like its predecessor, George and Mildred was a huge success, running for a total of five series. In the 1976-1977 festive period, Joyce and Murphy appeared as ugly sisters "Georgina" and "Mildred" in the London Palladium's pantomime of Cinderella which sold over half a million tickets in advance and had to be extended for a further three works due to its popularity.³ From 1977 to 1978, they reprised their roles as George and Mildred in a stage version of the show, which toured the UK in various theatres, including a summer season at Bournemouth's Pier Theatre. In 1979, Joyce and Murphy toured Australia and New Zealand in the stage show.³

Joyce was named the Best Actress in the 1976 Sun Awards, won the title of Funniest Lady on Television in the 1976-1977 TV Times Awards, and was awarded the joint TV Personality of the Year for 1976 together with Brian Murphy by the Variety Club of Great Britain.

Although other dramatic roles eluded her, Joyce appeared frequently on gameshows and chatshows on television, as well as opening public buildings, events and facilities, often with Murphy.³ Following the fifth series of George and Mildred, a feature film version was shot in 1980. Concerned over typecasting, Joyce began to tire of the 'Mildred' role, and expressed her desire to move on to other work, as did Murphy with the role of 'George'.³ Joyce, Murphy and the producers agreed that a sixth and final series would be made of George and Mildred which was due to be filmed in August 1980.³

Joyce married actor Glynn Edwards in 1956. She would confide in Edwards that her greatest fear was being without work, and that she thought every job she had would be her last.³ Joyce and Edwards divorced in 1969 but remained close friends, to the extent that she used to console him after his subsequent relationships broke down.¹⁰

In 1975, Joyce began a relationship with Terry Lee Dixon, the tour manager of the play Boeing-Boeing in which she starred, who was twenty years her junior. The relationship drew much media attention due to their age gap; they separated in 1978 after Dixon began an affair with a younger woman.³

An animal lover since childhood, Joyce became heavily involved with the National Canine Defence League (now the Dogs Trust), contributing to their fundraisers, events and newsletters. Joyce was also a passionate animal rights advocate and adopted numerous rescue animals, including dogs, cats, horses and donkeys over her life. Joyce was also involved with several charities. During the 1970s, Joyce maintained a home in London, but also owned an apartment in Nerja in Andalusia, Spain.³

Joyce was affected by her long-term alcoholism.¹¹

A feature film version of George and Mildred (1980) was her last work. Friends noticed that Joyce had become increasingly withdrawn, lower in mood and had become thin and frail, weighing just under seven stone. Amidst growing concern over her health, she was admitted to hospital in the summer of 1980 after collapsing at home. Joyce died in hospital of liver failure shortly after her 53rd birthday on 24 August 1980. Her co-star and good friend Brian Murphy was at her bedside.¹² Joyce's funeral took place on 3 September 1980 at Golders Green Crematorium, where she was cremated.¹³ Her ashes were scattered on the crocus lawn in the grounds of the crematorium.³

At the inquest into Joyce's death, it was revealed that she had been drinking up to half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years and recently very much more,¹⁴ and that she had, in the words of her lawyer Mario Uziell-Hamilton, become a victim of her own success, and dreaded the thought of being typecast as Mildred Roper.¹⁵² The pathologist stated that Joyce's liver was twice the normal size and that her heart and lungs had also suffered because of her drinking; Joyce's cause of death was given as portal cirrhosis of the liver.¹⁴ Joyce's biography implies that she turned to drink to steady her nerves, particularly after her divorce and subsequent failed relationships, loneliness, typecasting, lack of other work, and lack of privacy due to the popularity of Mildred Roper, and had become depressed.³

Joyce appeared posthumously in her last recorded television performance, duetting with Max Bygraves on his variety show Max, singing "For All We Know". The episode was aired on 14 January 1981. Actor and comedian Kenneth Williams wrote in his diary of the performance that "she looked as though she was crying... as she got up [and left the set] one had the feeling she never intended to return."¹⁶ He also went on to mention her in a later entry in his diary (9 April 1988, just days before his own death) that "there was a break in her voice when she got to [the line] tomorrow may never come... she was a lady who made so many people happy and a lady who never complained".¹⁷

In 1986, The Smiths used an image of Joyce on the sleeve of their UK single release "Ask" and the German release of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others", thereby adding her to what would become a significant set of musical releases, made iconic by their design (other Smiths 'cover stars' included Truman Capote, Alain Delon, Terence Stamp, Elvis Presley, Pat Phoenix, Viv Nicholson, Billie Whitelaw and Shelagh Delaney).¹⁸

In October 2001, a tribute documentary entitled The Unforgettable Yootha Joyce was broadcast by ITV, which featured Glynn Edwards as well as many of her co-stars and friends, including Sally Thomsett, Brian Murphy, Nicholas Bond-Owen and Norman Eshley, talking about memories and their relationships with Joyce.¹⁹

In 2014, a biography was written by Paul Curran, entitled Dear Yootha... The Life of Yootha Joyce, to which contributions were made by those who knew and worked with her, including Glynn Edwards, Murray Melvin and Barbara Windsor. Curran also published The Yootha Joyce Scrapbook, featuring rare and unseen photographs detailing events from Joyce's life in 2015. There was also a third book, entitled Yootha Joyce: Pieces of a Life, published in 2021.

In 2019, a one-woman play depicting Joyce's life, titled Testament of Yootha, was performed by Caroline Burns-Cooke at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.²⁰

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