Piers Morgan's Life Stories - Barbara Windsor (Extended Version)

[Music] barbara windsors have one of those incredible lies oh cheeky this is the first big interview they've given since she left eastenders he's bound to throw in the craze eastenders my lovely husband who's oh goodness those are how many years younger than me underneath that jokey exterior is a fascinating woman oh actually yeah i'm gratefud for him i'm perfect [Music] [Applause] [Applause] i was trying to think of a perfect way of starting this interview where i could adequately describe just how big a national treasure you are and i found it and it was the golden jubilee celebrations you are sailing past the palace in your float and out of the top on the balcony the queen is saying to prince philip caught on camera oh look philip it's barbara windsor i know now that makes you arguably as famous as a queen isn't it well i don't know but i mean i pinched her name didn't i windsor it is a family name incidentally ladies and gentlemen i tell you what happened when i when i was i was in a musical my name was barbara and deeks and they said that's not a very good name barbara at 15. i said oh isn't it they said no no no so we thought we'd change it so it's either ellis which was my my family name or windsor which was another family name well that year ruth ellis got on didn't she so that wasn't but it was the coronation so that was it so i've been windsor ever since when you look back on your extraordinary career spanning six decades now what do you think have been your greatest assets actually my boobs ain't that big but i have to tell you something i only take size two as you see i always have a very little so it's the rest of you that's small i just have this very little waist you see and i kind of i had a bit of a bosom but when i walked it was almost like i was teetering over so everybody thought i'd bigger knockers than i have if you actually look at that camping scene i mean it's only a poor little white boob it's not a lot and that's all i ever have studied it quite a few times one day you were a bit of a trailblazer at the time i mean no one got their knockers out in those days no but i was appalled because you know you know the silly old story don't you that that it said in the script that bab's got you know has to have a bikini where she's doing her exercises and then it has to fly off i said look it won't fly off it will go on the floor we'll think of something so they came up with this idea of a fishing rod with a with a hook on it and this this was the carry-on camping where it was in the heart of winter uh they were so mean oh god they were so mean that lot that they wouldn't go on location so they got a field at the back of pinewood where we used to film they sprayed the mud green put green uh painted the the the trees put green leaves stuck them on there you see so anyways it was a hot right in november it was so i'm doing this and they got and then i said oh i got very nervous about showing my boss or anything like that and so they got this lovely old boy who was retiring the next day so anyway so we did it i have to stand up when i do this so they we did it so kenny's going come along barbara oh there you go so it did it anyway the first time it didn't come off and i got pulled into the mud he said tell the director all right get out mop her down gotta go again oh they don't only want you to do one take you see the second day he said don't forget don't show anything because we had a we had a um a sensor in those days called john chavellian the film sensor so anyway so i went again and it went off but i went but hattie went like that with my arm and i flashed the white boob oh we're gonna have to go again they said right so anyway when they took it into john chavelli and said we've got two two of this scene one with showing the boob one not we'd like to go with showing the boob and john trevelyan looked at it and he said well i don't think miss windsor's right boob is going to corrupt the nation we'll go with it you've also always had this irresistible appeal to men haven't you yeah i i don't know yeah that well no i'll tell you about men they really want to give me one night oh no i've heard them say oh there's god oh no don't you don't do anything for me you've had rather more say the opposite haven't you yeah yeah and you were a very very naughty girl yes once i started i thought this is nice i like this i mean my favorite story about you from those days is that you managed to apparently uh seduce the trumpeter and the trombone player from the ronnie scott band and then moved on to ronaldo yes he's watching les condon the trumpet player that's who i've found there's condom yeah let's go down here i guess and uh but i i loved ronnie bonnie scott i thought he was fantastic i got very much in this was my age at peter charles at the time um i he said look i'm gonna uh send you for an audition for uh the ronnie scott band annie ross she was the great greatest jazz singer she's been taken ill and they're looking for someone to go on tour so i'm not that's not me i'm all hi there soundy side of the show very like that you see so anyway i went down to ronnie's original club which was in gerard street and there were six girls lined up you see and i was little and they were and they were all coming out and i'm going stop doing dude me said we had two obvious things he said meet me in leicester square with all the boys in the band nine o'clock on monday morning and they said bring a cocktail dress and i only had a bridesmaid's dress which my mother had made me so i took this bridesmaid's dress and my mother sat up all night putting extra little flowers on that and the first thing ronnie did when i walked and i sat he said you sit there and i sat on the band with all the birds and he went [Music] which makes me think you didn't employ me for me voice so there we go i mean to be serious for a little bit about this i mean have you used do you think quite shamelessly maybe occasionally your your sexuality to get ahead do you think i mean absolutely not no no no no i i mean actually i still now don't think i'm i'm sexy i've never thought i'm sexy i i'm i'm i know honestly i ca no there's like i fought for ten and a half you know i mean i'm not sexy i mean little kylie minogue she's only four she's sexy but no not me i'm not honestly and i've never used it you can carry on you were probably the number one sex symbol in the country but you know funny films funny i mean can you imagine me doing all that with a fella and no i'm quite quite shy i used to have to have a few drinks to get get going i believe me [Music] i mean sex happens on almost every page barbara it's like you're at it all the time really with some of the most famous people in the country morris gibb from the bee gees well morris that was ah now i'll tell you about maurice that was difficult because when they broke up the bee gees i was doing a musical called single root soul which was based on maori lloyd and we wanted somebody to play the jockey and they got morris ned sharing god bless him the great ned show and came up to me one day said he's got no balls on stage but he's got no balls whatsoever you've got to do something so i said would you like to have dinner one night absolutely he said yes so we sat and we had this dinner and then i said where would you like to go my friend she said let's go and have coffee he said look bar he said let's get it over and done with let's go to bed and then maybe right because he knew that he wasn't giving it on stage so he went around a little moment and it was lovely did it work i mean did he get balls back to the stage he was better george best tell me any lady here would you have turned down joel's life i tell you what happened with george they were having a premiere of a carry-on in manchester and suddenly i heard this these girls and there was this vision this absolute vision in the 60s he was so beautiful and we anyway in the bar afterwards he came over to me and he started talking to me and i said to him look don't waste your time with me darling i said you've got all these lovely ladies after you and he said when do i ever get to talk to somebody like you well that did it not me so i was that was it i thought what happened then a magic moment again how magic was it it was great he was fabulous barbara in a career that spanned seven decades just how have you stayed at the top for so long barbara windsor made her name as a saucy seaside postcard brought to life sorry don't apologize tom you better pump the oven today she was the uh end of the pier postcard big boob blonde that uh you'd love to get your hands on oh cheeky the thing about barbara windsor is two things stand out no it's not that it's friendship and loyalty and six decades later she's still a sex symbol at sobi's legend she turns it on like that bar you know she'd be sitting here talking put the camera on her bang she's barbara windsor she still gets the wolf whistles and she loves it [Music] and she turns around and she'll always say oh you've made an asian text symbol very happy love if i could be anybody in the world i would be barbara windsor or maybe jerry hall despite her early movie success it was the role of peggy mitchell in her late fifties that's come to define her phil i don't know she was already a national treasure but she became a national treasure in a different way she cemented her talent in a way oh flaming will kill ya you get it for me you [ __ ] so at 73 is barbara now taking the biggest risk of her career i think it is a tremendous risk to walk away from a part like peggy after 16 years and it it wasn't taken lightly how often do great roles for older women come along very very seldom very very seldom the majority of women of our age are out of work but she's brave she's always been brave i suppose the million dollar quest is fairly obvious why did you leave eastenders at the peak of your game people always say to me how do you survive barbara how are you always like that you know so i say because i turn off i i go indoors and me and scott we have a little postmortem about what we've done and then i turned off and then suddenly he said to me barbara you're not switching off you asked 24 hours a day peggy mitchell i said don't be he said no he said you are he said you'll talk to me and then you'll go off get your head in the script they started doing saturdays as well um and i thought but that was a big leveler when he said that and i thought and i'd lost a lot of friends i'd lost danny larue i'd lost john emma and i'd lost mike reed uh gareth hunt yeah they were they're all going very very very quickly and uh and wendy going it was and i just thought maybe and i i i kind of thought to myself what am i doing what's the pace now of these shows is it relentless oh god look i don't like saying hard work you can't say that not when our soldiers are out there fighting and then the nurses and you know fella stuck down the pit with miners you know you know you can't say you know it's hard work but it is the hours are long hours that's all i was doing was was learning yes it was it was and he's very honest with me scott and he said it's not nice you said you're not did he feel that it was going to eventually affect your relationship yeah we said you're not laughing anymore you don't joke around and i and you know i'm now feel a bit old barb coming back you know so uh you feel like you've lost a bit of the sparkle yes but let me tell you it was very very difficult every time i say okay i'll tell them i didn't it took nearly two years to make that that decision in the back of your mind you must be thinking you've been in the business a long time yes eastenders came at a crucial time for your career did it just bailed you out oh it didn't absolutely so to walk away from this unbelievable job which gave you you know one year awards and national acclaim first time i'd ever got an award for my acting i've got loads of awards for me bits and pieces [Applause] the very first one yeah for these in the world but never ever for my acting and it was it was amazing and i the awful thing is i loved it i loved it so much i love that whole thing of going in and you know and the waldo aloe cathy hello zari the makeup guy i loved all that you see and you must obviously you don't miss the workload but you must miss peggy in the show oh i do i do but do you have moments when you wake up and what have i done yes i have yeah i yeah i yeah i i've been lying if i didn't say that you know how did you tell them the cast well i i did a couple of them before steve i asked round to the house and he walked and he said what's up so i said look he said don't tell me don't tell me you know and i said well i think it's about time but i want you to know did you get emotional talking to him about it yeah yeah i died because you wear your heart in the sleeves yeah i like everything and i'm getting emotional now because well i love that show um yeah it's yeah i miss i miss the camaraderie you know and they're always phoning me i say don't phone me don't phone me can you watch it i i didn't for a long time but i watched it this week when you watched it for the first time did you feel a pang to go back i didn't because there's no queen vic i i didn't but when once i see that new queen vic that's when it's going to hit me again but you can't you know it's what can i do i i since i've left it's been wonderful i mean i haven't stopped i look look i could never come on your show before because eastenders would never let me do you think i mean a lot of soap stars tell me that the workload and it's not really moaning it's a reality the workload because of so many shows a week now yes you do eight against it across each other and you do it all out of out of sync all out i mean at this peak talk me through what your working week was like how bad was it well it would be it would be five five six six days a week uh oh it's 13 hours yeah you see they don't allow you to get into work once you get into the studio let's say your makeup time is 7 30 8 o'clock that's the time they allow and then after that i think it's 12 hours you know so it it is six days a week yeah yeah yeah and the thing about me peggy she was always in the front wasn't i mean you were basically hostage to your own success because the bigger peggy became thanks to your acting the more workload i know i know it it did it yeah yeah but i i loved it i absolutely adored it but i didn't know it had taken me over because you can so easily play a part and it can take you over but apart from steve who are you least looking forward to telling when you when you decided to go there's a two girl and june no june june what did june say to you oh but she was so upset and she still is about it she said how could you leave me it's because i love june brown she's the most wonderful 83 year old ever i mean she is so hip in real life i cannot tell you she wears when she goes out she has a hair cut around like that and she has all these kind of hippie tight clothes and all she could be very very smart you know chanel and she's just wonderful she's just a wonderful actress she can take a piece i hate her because she should just take a script and she go oh yeah i know that you know like that i loved her i missed pam very much because we started to work a lot get together with the with the funnies you know which was lovely more importantly who don't you miss i don't know well actually there isn't really anyone that annoys you no i mean everybody knows how to wear with jessie but you know at the end of the day you have a well you don't talk for a little while and then she's she's having a baby bless her and then you see the baby and you grab each other and say oh sorry sorry you know that's it i'm not one to argue not get on even people i don't like and there have been a couple of people i refuse to live any other names honestly no there isn't there isn't you know there isn't i do get on with people i i do i even people that are not really my cup of tea i'll go out my way to make you know when you when you film the final scenes yeah what was the build up to that like for you when you knew right this is it well you see it's all out of sync i did that final scene walking well i thought they were going to burn me to death didn't i thought that's it i've got when they when i worried about the fire and we're going to make a whole new vic in uh the george lucas studio at elstree i thought that's it i've had it you know well because i said don't tell me what my my um last scene will be or whatever you know whatever you say is okay by me you didn't know if you were going to live or die no i didn't i did not until the the week before i got that script what were you hoping it would be i didn't want to die that's cheeky of me after saying i'm going is that because secretly you knew you might want to go back i just wanted to think she was out there that was it you know when you filmed that scene though obviously hugely emotional on screen but yeah in your head you knew this was it how are you feeling well i i just knew that she was wasn't to break down what i wanted to do was just walk and thought let's see how long before i have to turn around and look at the vic and i almost if you look i almost get past it and i couldn't i had to look back you know right right at the end what were you thinking you silly cow see the cat score what can i get home with steve and all and and daniella and and the two girls and it was the scene where i told him i was going and i had to i had to be strong because i had to show no i'm this is what i'm going to do i'm doing it for phil i'm no good to him i've lost him as kids i've lost grant i've lost you all yeah i'm going they all kept crying sobbing so i had to keep going over again and an actor i wanted to cry but i couldn't so what you have to do when you mustn't cry is you you kind of hold that in don't be silly don't be silly now i'll be all right i'll be all right you don't know i'm doing that and they'll go just unbelievable those scenes they were they were unbelievable i can't believe what i've just watched i'm going to take you back to white chapel in east london yeah 1937 when you're born yes your parents john and your mother rose it wasn't a happy no home for you no because my because my mother and father were terribly different mummy wanted to get out the east end whatever and daddy didn't daddy still wanted to be in the east end you see did your parents love each other i think one of those they fats each other gutless at the beginning and then when it wore off i don't like you they didn't like each other he was a very good looking man my father and my mother was lovely and she had this gorgeous thick red hair and i had nine ears and a nit just like your father do you look at your hair she's like your father was a big disappointment okay but your mother by your own admission wasn't very forthcoming with praise for you no no very critical it's only after she died and if i bumped into someone and and they'd say oh you're rosie oh rosie she was so proud of you but she would never tell me she'd say why did i take you away from the convent because i was in a con i went to a convent when i was between 10 and 13. and she said why why why didn't you become the foreign language telephony so i wanted you to be did she ever tell you that she loved you my mother never told me she loved me it wasn't until i i don't but i love my mum very very much but we never got really never got on much because i was like my dad i had the laugh of my dad i looked like my dad and i think that she always saw my dad in me and then this terrible terrible divorce came when i was 13. and i was a young 13 a very extremely young 13 and um and i remember i had to go into court and uh and i had to write things he'd said to mummy and i and he was sitting there and i felt i was being unfaithful to him when i was awarded to my mother for five shillings a week she said don't worry darling daddy will still come and pick you up take you to the cinema still take dentists and he walked i remember this terrible yellow sweater on and he had um attacks on his heels so you could hear him and i heard him walking down and i saw him and he walked straight past me and and that was it and then i used to stand at the in stoke newington um outside abney park cemetery because he was a bus conductor hoping i see him you know saying please and i did see him once and he ignored me so i i didn't understand that and after he'd gone never heard from him again and then i get these letters from people who looked after him and said oh he was so proud of you he was and from your mother's friends as well yeah yeah oh yeah my yeah isn't it funny it's not strange both of them had these feelings where they just couldn't express to you no i know but i get that love in the theater you see is that why when you came in here yeah and the audience reacted the way that you did i could see a real love towards the audience they're great when i was 14 i went in that show love from judy and i came out and everyone was clapping me god that's good i said a line this is not like this i embrace it very very much but i do like i'd rather talk to me milkman i mean my postman i would some actors that's what upset my mum she came to stay with me one day and i got a house because of her i cannot believe my my daughter's a film star and she's she's famous and she lives in a flat i think so i finally got the house so she came to the house she stayed two weeks when she left i said mummy it's been lovely having you here i thought i'd cook all the things that she wanted try to do everything that i knew the sandwiches had to be cut and forged you know she was snobbed snobby enough i said i said thank you for it it's lovely having you i hope your commentation no i won't she don't think for one moment bubs that i've enjoyed it because i haven't so i said why she said well you put your dressing on you stand talking to your milkman not content with that you stand talking to the postman you're yelling out to people and you're dressing it as it but that's the way i am mom if you hadn't been treated that way by your blood yes perhaps you wouldn't have had that indomitable fighting spirit sure you're right barbara you've had your first taste of the glittering west end and you've loved it and now the west end's bittering night spots are gonna open themselves up to you [Music] in her twenties barbara was singing in nightclubs often dressed in next to nothing but for someone with her ambition this was never going to be enough most people just looked at her like that there's a rather busty little blonde and she was much much more than that at 22 she caught the eye of theater director joan littlewood who cast from the musical things they what they used to be and barbara became an overnight sensation she had her own solo song which was where the little birds go in the winter it was a pretty raunchy affair she absolutely brought the roof off thing about joan littlewood is that she opened a door for barbara windsor giving her leads and opening that door made you realize that she was not just a cockney thing she was also a good actress and she was comforting barbara made her first move into film with the musical sparrows can't sing this easter end girl became a western starlet invited to all the best parties where she met everyone from princes to gangsters including the cray twins if you pointed your finger at barbara windsor you could also point your finger at ronnie craig or reggie craig they're all celebrities anyway she fitted into that kind of society because she was born into it she preferred that to the high and mighty and that's the truth of it she had a one night stand with reggie craig and also dated his brother charlie charlie is a very effortable guy very funny and of course when ronnie and reggie were introduced of course there to light her as well she was an eastern girl and we love her aunt they were charming men they were good looking she likes looks and just a little bit off-center barbara like bad boys so much in fact that at 27 she risked her reputation by marrying nightclub owner ronnie knight when they met he'd already done time in prison but barbara hoped he was going straight i can't be 100 sure what she saw in him but she certainly was very attracted to him and him to her but it was inevitable that it would go wrong [Music] ronnie knight was obviously very charismatic yeah you could tell that very attractive to women my mother said the day ronnie knight got out the car she went oh she died all over again because he was suited and booted very much and i think that's was my passion for ronnie because he reminded me of my dad very much but your mother wasn't happy about you saying no didn't she offer ronnie her life savings to stop him going out with you yeah yeah she yeah yeah so she knew that this was not going to end happily yeah absolutely before you married him had you got any clue no well i about the slightly dodgier side of that well i know he'd been you know because he he went into prison while i i was going out with him and i'd made arrangements and he never turned up and i remember phoning a friend and saying where is he they said he got 15 months i said what for back of a lorry i said what's the back of a lorry so everything these things that's what started it you know but i i thought well he won't now he's with me he won't won't be like that and i'd never been to a prison i remember going to see him at wandsworth and i i i just couldn't believe it i i remember saying you don't want this so i said i tell you what i'll get a flat i'll leave my my family and i'll get a flat and this was all in my 21s and what happened was in that time he went and then i got things saying what they used to be and my life changed from being a working actress which i thought that's that suits me i suddenly had my name up there were you aware when that happened that ronnie might be a problem for your career never never he came out and he bought the great a r club which was a fabulous club in in charing cross road and i thought great this is it then what happened well next next thing i know they came charging in the house five o'clock in the morning and it was to do with uh murder the murder of the the guy who shot his young brother did you think he'd done it no he swore to god on all everybody's lives like they do my mother's life you're like no no no i didn't do it i didn't i had nothing to do with it so it wasn't until many many years later when he did a book he said i hired someone so that was a horrible thing for me to find out that was a real you know the man that you loved was capable of ordering him after he'd sworn he didn't you know i'm gonna play devil's advocate here this thing about you and dodgy blokes i mean when ronnie was sent to prison for 15 months for the handling of stolen goods you slept with a co-star but also two of the craze i mean now let me tell you charlie wasn't like that it was a great great friendship and he wasn't one of those he just thought i was lovely and he would take me out that's what charlie was like he was you know but that thing with reggie i got into a situation i got into a bad situation i'd had too much to drink and i found myself in a situation and i couldn't get out of it cost my heart hoped to die and do you regret that god do i oh god do i yes because you're always quite supportive of the craze yeah yeah well it's a silly thing to say but i know it sounds silly but you can only speak as you find and and how did you find them very very nice very nice you know i didn't know that all i was shocked when they finally got when i got nicked i thought my god you know there's been murders that have been this i didn't know that and you see we use them the reason i got to know them was because we we use the their their club in sparrows can't sing joan littlewood wanted wanted an original east end club and i kind of charlie had come to see me in the show he'd asked to meet me he came to see somebody and things saying what they used to be a friend of his and he asked to meet me and i'd been out to dinner with charlie who was a gent never jumped all over me he was charming so that's so i asked charlie got the and of course after that they said well you've got could you do us a favor can you do a couple of charities so there was me victor spinetti a whole load of us used to do charities for them is it quite relieved though you're now in a circle of people who don't go around murdering everyone i know because i think you know i i i get every now and then somebody has a pop at me in the paper about it but at the end of the day i got i am quite naive tell ask me about show business and wow i can tell you but fool about life does it come down to i mean are you a good judge of men do you think no i don't think so i don't think so till i till till now before you met scott i mean be fair to say i think by your own admission that your fidelity never figured massively highly never in your life johnny could never understand that either really well i went to america i was on broadway um i said don't forget if you feel the urge don't worry about it and you say yes that's typical of you that's typical of you in your theatrical life he said just go off and i said but i'm just saying that to you and that's how i always felt like that it was awful wasn't it you didn't mind him being on facebook no but when i was there but no not while i was but is that because you wanted to be as well i think so it gave me an excuse but you were a naughty girl weren't you god yes yeah i was i was i was are you still a naughty girl no never never never i've been totally well 73 now i've come off it [Music] never stopped you no no but i would i wouldn't i love my husband so much i it's unbelievable how much i love [Applause] three times in my life you know and they're all different my loves you know the three loves i've really loved you you've you've never had children no no and that's always a difficult god it's a man that's asking me that's you appears because i got pregnant four times and four times i had an abortion but you know it wasn't of an error my mother never told me anything she didn't tell me about periods anything when i got my first period i was told i'd hurt myself it was all cover up cover up cover up and when i got pregnant when i first time when i was 17 it was like no no you haven't but we'll take you somewhere and take me somewhere which is what they did but never then said what you don't do so i went and did it again because i was beginning to like it so that's how i got pregnant four times and it's stupid and i was talking to a very photo but she's about the same age as me and i met her a little while ago about a year ago we were talking about this and she said whoever would have thought barbara we could have had children you know we could have you know because it was so disgraceful to have a child out of wedlock was was so wrong oh god do you know something late i owe the ladies you won't believe this if you went in to get a into a chemist to get a a some tampax tampax and you didn't you didn't have a wedding ring on they give you filthy looks that means you weren't a virgin anymore it was it was it was hideous my mother never told me anything and uh and that's it does a little part of you regret not having children yeah i never got the opportunity you know i mean so i made this my children my life this is all my children you didn't have opportunities because you got pregnant four times yeah i know but it was all in that period that i understand that and you were young and confused and everything else but do you look back now and think i wish i actually had well i would like to thought maybe i could like today they they have a choice don't they they they can it's not your disgrace cast out and all the rest of it you know or take the baby away now you don't have that joy i might yeah because i but i love kids because i've always got kids around me do you ever think about what kind of mother you would have been yeah i think i'd have been a good mother and i think i would have been very strict i think i'd have been like my mother but in actual fact i i i really am i'd be in a state now because i think the world is so hard for young people i really do they give it you know they're allowed to do what they like and and oh i don't know it it's not good today the drugs and everything i i think if i would be a grandmother or great-grandmother i'd be worrying worrying worrying i'd be a right warrior do you kind of understand a bit more about why your mother was the way she was now i do because it was the war years you know it was tough yeah i mean she got had an abortion because when she took me for my first abortion she said i want to explain thank you i've had this done to me because your dad went to war and i thought i can't be lumbered with it there was a with another child there was a suddenly from women having five kids when the men went to war they said ah hold up we're not doing this anymore and you'll see a lot like anna my friend annie ross my other we're all the same age and all uh only child children only child it's only that isn't it just a scholar ever wish you'd had kids well it's funny when i said when i we first met because he's so many years younger than i said you know there won't be any children you said i don't want children but who knows when i go to that big carry-on in the sky he might meet someone and change his mind i don't know we're talking carry-ons okay before eastenders which of course is what's made you super famous now it was of course the carry-on film yes yes that very much defined your career how did you land one of the great comedy roles really of certainly in my lifetime i tell you what it was i went to the studio to see my mate ronnie fraser and as i walked down the studio the carry-on people were there and they said barbara windsor would be good they were looking for a new funny little blonde you know and that's it so my agent said at the time please please do this because you don't like filming and you might get to like it well your first scene was with kenneth williams oh yeah carry on spying yes yes there he is apparently he's like he's lethal with new new styles of shows right yeah it's terrible he doesn't like anybody new he didn't like it how are you feeling walking in there was terrified because i admired him so much you know i've seen him play the dough fan and do all these wonderful and how did you deal with him oh don't i cannot tell that story you can i've gone you could tell i promised her i'd never say it again and i bumped into her recently and i said will you forgive me she went i'll think about it as long as you don't say it again force yourself oh crikey when i arrived on my first day you ask questions and you say what so and so like i said what's kenny like and they said he's lovely but he doesn't like new people he's very funny and at the moment he and he don't mention vanilla fielding you know hello darling that one so we're sitting round around this table and kenny's got this great big black beard around him and it was my first line in my first carry-on and i opened my mouth and i went oh sorry sorry sorry got the oh no that nerves and he went oh ducky do get it right like that so i was very flashy in those days so i raised up to my four foot ten and a half i said don't you have a go at me with fernanda fielding's minge [Applause] [Applause] [Music] wouldn't seem lonely i love her and that's how he ended up by coming on my honeymoon so barbara it's 1964 and you're about to embark on the carry-on films which became the biggest thing for your professional life and also the time yes for your personal life yeah yeah the carry-on franchise was well established when barbara signed up as the resident sex pot and carry on spying at the age of 27. she was using an element of herself that she knew went over well with males and it was very clever what about that barbara was more than just eye candy she had comic timing and was a genuine star she was also more daring than other actresses [Music] she was the first one to flash her bosoms wasn't she 99 of the women in that time would say oh my gosh you know they can't do that to me but i said all right darling let's get on with it and fling and in and fling and in and flew i don't remember what i thought about barbara's breasts other than they were probably quite perky whilst barbara charmed a generation of men on screen off screen there was talk of an affair with one of her co-stars what effect is barbara about man you should have asked sid james uh weak at the knees hi some things can happen on a set that isn't normal in real life you are loving that person for the while that you are working together it's because you're making magic together i don't know sid jones was a womanizer i do know he had a lot of feeling for barbara how could i tell just by the way he looked at her i don't want to say anymore when did you first meet sid james we were doing something for charity and i just knew him was sid james uh from funny enough the theater did you see lost in his eyes no my affair with him was only the la the years i was in um the uh carry on london with him never when i was in the show in the films with him ever ever ever tried but i would never ever because he like he relentlessly proceeded in there yes he did and he used to get very moody about it not talk and and then the publicity guy said do me a favor he's giving me a real bad bad time about you can you please go to dinner with him please so i did and i thought right he obviously thinks i'm some fantastic sexy waiver he really thinks i'm great in the sack right i'll show him and i stood i just laid there you know i'm not being fine and i thought that's it so you thought you were fantastic never said a word and we used to go on stage and go 10 days later i'm like you sit there and i'm sitting there i got and he just looked at me said i have to see you again i ah can't bear it that's how it was and then i got very into to just to see it i really really did fall in love with it yeah absolutely i mean he was gargoyle absolutely and uh and then suddenly i found myself exactly the same and i don't know i don't know how i got out of it i somehow got out of it i somehow did i didn't when you saw his widow recently yeah it must have been quite a poignant me too yes it was it was come about we went to a funeral and suddenly i heard someone say barbara barbara and i turned around and it was her and she put her arms around me i said how are you lovely said look the family's here i said hello to the family and all the rest of it and that was that and then when we went out and she she knew presumably yes she did yeah yeah i think had you ever seen the i've seen the the thing she has said on the television and she said that he said oh it's just one of those things it'll be it'll all be all right well it'll be and i'm sure i was just one of those you know things to him you know do you think that what do you think i don't know i didn't think so i mean i i was silly that i went that far because i was also like that it was always like that with me and him and in the end but i did i cared desperately for him i used to worry about him so i knew he wasn't well and i remember nagging him saying you can't that he was going to go on tour because we never spoke we ended up by not speaking i said don't let speak at all and then suddenly i got a telegram from him saying i'm going to be going on tour can i see you before i go until and this was about a year later and uh and i remember writing to him and saying you cannot do that because you're hated and he died on stage in sunderland when you said that news what went through your mind and i always remember phoning ronnie and said which not not a nice thing i suppose and said could you come home i said sis died and i was and he said no no i can't i've got things to do anyway when he came home i was still crying he said i wonder if you'll cry like that over me you know so it was it was quite weird you know and i could never never talk about sid for ages what would have been the truthful answer to that question um well as it turned out no it wouldn't be i think you'd like to work on carry on i mean he seemed such a writer on screen fabulous fabulous but you had to get there's only one takes two takes you know they had it off to they had the same cameraman the same lighting everything was the same in fact that it was the same but different costumes that's what it was like really but it was wonderful i mean what would happen you'd do your scene and you would double check that you knew your lines for the next for the next one and then we'd all disappear sid would get go like that and get out the cards and find someone to play a bit of poker with uh hattie jakes and bernard breslau would do the times crossword all those very posh cross words joan would go and sit with her stand in and talk about the price of meeting tesco's uh charlie altrey god bless him god bless him thought the carry-ons were quite beneath him because he'd been this very famous film star in the 40s that's kind of the way he came over in the center exactly who were your favorites i'd sit with kevin and he'd tell these wonderful jokes they would all be the same but with different characters oh did you hear the one about the vicar and the balls i'd sit there like that like that listening to him because he was a genius wasn't he there isn't a day that doesn't go by he makes me cry because there is no one quite like him oh before all things and i always say to scott i wish you'd met him i wish you'd met him he was one do you know what he went for two years not talking to me because i wouldn't go to i could not i wouldn't go i was working in a show show and uh and it was his first of the the london weekends and evening with and he was the very first because i couldn't go he he never spoke to me for two years i used to see him in the street and he'd walk across yeah and then one day i got a phone call from him uh barbara kenneth here i said oh blimey there's a lot of everything from you in a long time he went no i know what i was off you was like he said my milkman is y'all at the palladium in pantomime and my milkman and his wife and family coming to see see it what and i said well you might you know see him backstage i said of course darling of course i knew you were i said you you're great so you know what i did i did the whole lot i got champagne and everything and i took them backstage took them all over really made a fuss you know so back in with him yeah yeah and he went oh and he wrote me those he would write wonderful letters he would you know wrote me the most wonderful letter you know uh is he the one along with sid that you missed the most oh kenny it's kenny it's kenny through and through i miss him so very very much because he's always mentioned he's always no it's kenny i miss the most obviously carry-on was brilliant for your career as it was for so many people in it but did you was going to ask you did this whole type casting thing it wasn't it was not as bad for me was that the second one exactly when i hit my 50s i went for an audition for bergerac i was well into my 50s and the night before they showed a carry-on film and i walked in and this guy at the director he went oh he said oh i don't know oh they'll need to see and i look young for my age i know that and he said oh tell me about what was it like working with kenneth williams what was it like doing that and i told him and this nice and he looked at me suddenly said oh you can't play the mother of two you're too young looking i said there was such a thing i said as acting you know and he said and that's how it was i'd go for things and they'd say no because they put them into television and once you become a character in people's homes that's what they know you for you see so there i was in my 50s so what i did was i got my act together and i went around the world and i also did every every theater in in in great britain i mean like you know life's got a bit tougher something you've gone through this huge star works beginning to dry up a bit your confidence is low yeah you're feeling unattractive then you meet this guy stephen who becomes your second husband well it was on the rebound of my of my yeah i mean stephen seems to be almost like a kind of blip in between yes yes it was ronnie i want to say sorry to him i should never have got involved with him he was a young man he had a good career he was a manager of a restaurant but i was so down over the business with ronnie everything i really i was in a bad bad state i was in scarborough and i met him and then we got he gave up everything and came to london and and then he was with he said to me my parents aren't happy that i live with someone could we get married and i found myself getting married silly silly but he was a lovely boy and he's very no sorry to him he gave a terrible interview about it and he phoned me up and he wrote to me and said i didn't mean it like that just to remind him what he said he said it didn't take long for the novelty of betting a woman the same age as your mum to wear off yeah i know well that is unbelievable it was horrible it was horrible and i was with scott when that were and i always remember i said i can't go out i must never i'm never going to go out again why do you not feel sorry to him it's like well because i look love he wasn't showbiz he wasn't you know turned down he was pretty hurtful him you could easily put things into his mouth you could you could so there was lots of things that that weren't true in that article but i he hurt me very very much but he wrote to me and said i never i never meant it like that i got twisted i don't know and so there we go and he was the first one to write to me when i got eastenders was he yeah well it's wonderful lessons no no never no i don't know where i think he's somewhere in in the south down south you know now you you meet scott and i want to kind of gloss over stephen it's almost like he was the one in the middle of one year that was a mistake for both of you i was with him a long time eight or nine years yeah yeah yeah it doesn't seem to me to be that significant no i know i agree with you the significant relationships it seems to me were ronnie and sid actually yeah and and now scott who you meet now i mean tell me how you met scott well it was when times weren't good and i was playing in pantomime who was in bloody pantomime theater your comfort blanket yes i'd always do pantomime hello everybody my name is yeah yeah yeah oh i love all that i love fans of mine with a bathroom so i was doing fairy godmother in brighton and of course i knew his mum from years over the years she phoned up the third she said babs every time you come here you never come and see me have dinner she's that wonderful jewish lady with and i knew ronnie one of your husband who uh was a friend of ronnie knight because that was all that standing very messy yeah i know but we all knew each other we all kind of so anyway so i um so i went for didn't say she let me send my son scott to pick you up i said okay so i got myself ready and then knock on the door and there's i opened it and this young man was there and he said hello my name's scott and i'm rita's son i've come to take you and i thought aren't you nice aren't you delightful and i found myself saying would you like to come in i bet you did yes but anyway he said no no we'll get there so i got in the car and he's talking away in the car about this and that and i and then i said well what actually do you do you know what you know he said um well i'm i'm an actor oh so i said can you just tell me how old you're thinking he'd say 17 18 and he said 29 and my whole my head went how are you thinking oh you're only 15 too yes oh i can go to bed with it yeah i just thought he was hot so scott's 26 years younger than you did he's parents no she don't know they rita did because she loves you yeah and the family were great they embraced me so much it was fantastic i think he'd gone through some really dodgy girlfriends and he had his heart broken back thank god miss security comes along georgie best thousands of affairs oh thank god barbara's arriving in our son's life [Applause] you know and we got on so well and i thought and it was funny because i got entertained mr sloane and i thought i really want to get to know him better and i i phoned him i said i've got this play i'm doing would you like to come in here because it's slow in the other part would you like to you know hear me do my lines i hadn't told him i'd done it before years ago kenny williams had directed me in the play and so he came over and that's what started it scott was in your life which is great but your career wasn't going so well but like all greats you weren't gonna let this keep you down for long [Music] at the age of 57 barbara could no longer rely on sex siren roles to make a living but she still needed to work barbara had been with me for a couple of years and it had proved rather difficult for a woman in her early 50s to get the roles that that would have been right for her the reality was things were really tough but a lifeline was just around the corner there was a role going on one of britain's biggest soaps a mum was wanted for the popular mitchell brothers i think people have to remember that casting barbara windsor in a soap like eastenders in the part of peggy mitchell was a risk in those days we didn't have known faces in the cast barbara was the obvious choice but it was essential that she had the right chemistry with actors ross kemp and steve mcfadden when she came in for the screen test obviously it was an audition because it's barbara we all know she's great but it was whether she was right and the chemistry was right steve and i were desperate for her to do that and you know i don't think there was anybody else we'd rather have had or anyone else who really could have played the part but she just nailed it at the test um with with ross and steve who both came in on a bank holiday are you a butcher or a mitchell me and ross just we thought she's got it you know we walked i've smiled at each other and felt you know shook hands and it was a done job you sleep then darling get some rest when she finally did get it i just think she was so thrilled that her reaction was just to burst into tears and just say now i've got to be good in it [Music] in just a short space of time barbara became one of the most popular actresses on television hope you all enjoyed the fireworks good night the reaction from the public was astonishing um and she just was a breath of fresh air she was involved in some of the biggest storylines eastenders has ever seen but after 10 years in the role it was her life away from the cameras it was to prove more dramatic than the soap itself one night in 2003 scott and barbara were on their way to the ivy restaurant when they had a serious crash barbara didn't have a seatbelt on she was flung forward and hit her head smashed her head against the glass panel at the back of the taxi driver she was unconscious i thought she was dead barbara was rushed to hospital but it wasn't her injuries in the crash that worried doctors following routine tests he discovered that unbeknown to her barbara was suffering from a rare condition called epstein-barr as the disease took hold of her she began to get progressively worse she started becoming depressed and it's the first time that i'd ever seen barbara like that after all the years we've been together and it was almost as if this lifetime this rollercoaster life that she'd led up till then it's almost as if she'd suddenly had to be still and it was as if i saw it rising up and it had to come out and she had this real bad breakdown we did have moments where we thought [ __ ] she's not going to come back from this there were times i thought it was going to be the end what do you say to someone that says i don't want to wake up tomorrow [Music] did you ever consider ending it all then no i just hope god would do it for me you know i just i just the main thing is i didn't want to be a burden to scott this young man who had his life ahead of him you know and i thought i didn't want to be like laying and he had to look after me all the time because he did for over a year he did everything he washed me and i couldn't do anything what was the lowest point for you oh well you just when i just couldn't put one foot in front of the other i couldn't walk or anything and and and but then you concentrate on this illness all the time you just you just can't see anything else and and it was when i suddenly slowly started to feel better i thought i know and i called out the bed and i got this track suit on and i because scott had gone around to get some stuff some groceries and i thought i'll be until i'll try and walk down the stairs and at the bottom i'll be waiting for him when he comes back and see i'm trying and as i got to the top of the stairs i went to walk and i fell and he found me at the bottom with the broken ankle do you know what it was the best thing that happened to me because it allowed this to concentrate on that kind of snapped you out of it i wasn't always thinking about oh because can you imagine me lying in bed with that up there and june brown coming in dot cot and wendy richard going oh gold oh you put and i was like a carry-on film you know and i and i can't and that's how i seem to get out of it you know that's just there we go a horrible illness it must have been really tough for you to be out of east tennessee because you obviously love it so much when you watch those early scenes there with the mitchell brothers the stephen ross and stuff what are your memories we hear those guys talking about you well i just love them desperately i really do and i remember that someone said oh did you treat it like your mum and steve said do i he says no no no and i don't feel like a mother i feel like their sister i just feel like they're good good friends who did you base peggy on oh several people i i based the look violet cray because always her hair was done perfectly the temper oh dear um shirley weed mike reed's wife i saw a go at it once i thought oh dear so that was it i love shirley i love her and the snobbishness of peggy on my mother and how much is you know i've got a bit of all that i think i think i have yeah you got a fiery temper oh i used to i don't anymore i don't it was the last time you really erupted it was jesse wallace really that was the last time i erupted what sparked it it must have been like a well she was late so there's jesse she's late for the 25th time and you blow yeah was just like that it was just silliness but i i burst into tears i ran up to the producer i said i've been terribly terribly amateur it's so wrong for me to act like this i've done something really wrong i've lost my temper and i cried she was all white she was fine but you made it up now yeah of course called it wasn't that i was i was aggravated with her she's such a good actress don't be like that don't you know be proud about don't you [ __ ] at the last minute you know i that's that's what it was the unprofessionalism unbelievably you're now 73 but you're an incredible example to everyone despite the 26-year age gap barbara and scott have now been married for 19 years i remember when i first met scott i said to bob you can't do this you really can't do this and [ __ ] why and i said he's so young listen my answer used to say to me as long as you don't do it with the debt your family animals or children everything else is acceptable and i totally agree scott is this amazing presence in barbara's life and no i don't really notice the age difference i think for me they're just kind of two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle i mean one would be lost without the other it was great for the gossips let's be honest you know i was an unknown actor i suddenly appeared on the scene i hadn't been at drama school long suddenly you know we were declaring that we were in love with each other i can remember some of the quotes at the time what's barbara doing with a guy who's got bum fluff where his beard should be nice there was other things like what would they have to talk about in two years time once they've got over the thing of tearing each other's clothes off well it's 17 years later and we still don't stop talking so in answer to that there you go leaving eastenders is a massive step but will she spend more time at home with scott with a new chapter of her career just around the corner she's done 60 years in the business she would have done that before she was actually born as far as i'm concerned barbara come on dear you're only 45. she can sing she can dance she can do any goddamn thing you wanted to do you snap barbara winston in half and it's got showbiz written through like a stick of blackpool rock i mean she'll never retire [Applause] [Music] so have have you and scott stop tearing each other's clothes off or oh goodness for me i'm embarrassed no it's more comfy let's say are you familiar with the with the word cougar well do you know what they put that in the script in eastenders and i i someone yelled it at me that that word and i just took it i just thought it was an animal so i just hadn't taken the noses and then when scott saw it he said they were having a dig at you they were having a dig at us so i said well you know yes i do now i do now but i didn't at the time it's not always been rosy sailing with scott has it i mean how have you worked out the secret of a happy marriage do you think you've got there with scott somehow yeah i don't know we had everything going against us plus he had a terrible alcohol problem uh and and i used to drink and i used to try and match him and anyway he gave it up just like that eight years ago and he's been eight years clean and then i i when i got my illness i stopped drinking i haven't drunk for was it seven eight years not at all no not even i can't even look at a glass of champagne which i used to love to start the evening i was going out with we'll have a nice glass champagne you know like that but no no i don't know you don't miss it scott doesn't drink either no and the great thing is we know everything that goes on we know the gossip and i never want to go home whereas it started to get to me the booze i'd have about six or s drinks and seven drinks and i'd go oh can we go home now can we get you know like that well no no i enjoy my enjoy myself far more what what's the one bit of advice you would give to people to keep a marriage alive oh i don't talk to each other i don't know we do we we rabbit all the time yeah i i i and i'm bad if i have a where i have to make it up he's not he can hold the rouse he can hold it on a bit but i always give in even if it's his fault is it usually his fault would you say no that's usually mine it's usually i've done something you've been everything from the queen of carry-ons to the queen of walford yeah when you look back on this extraordinary journey you've gone on what's the one great moment do you think the greatest of all for you well on i would say meeting scott that that's way way that's number one it has to be i am so happy piers i cannot tell you but if you said a career in showbiz it would have to be the day i stopped the showing things and what they used to be lionel bart he wrote a song for me called where did little birds go to i came out and sang it on the opening night my whole life changed and if you know when eventually and this i suspect may never even happen you finally leave this mortal coil yeah you could write your own obituary would you prefer it to say world's most famous giggle dies or world's most famous cleavage i don't want either those i don't like either of you oh i'd like um she was a good bird [Laughter] thank you very much [Applause] tomorrow we're giving you another chance to see the specsavers crime thriller awards at 10 o'clock back to this evening and wicklif is up [Music] next [Music] you

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Length: 65min 42sec (3942 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2020