Georgina Hale passed away last week aged 80.
In the wake of her death, tributes have flooded in for the other star as well as resurfaced details of her life both on and off the screen and stage.
While she enjoyed huge success later in life, the star, whose career spanned five decades, spoke candidly about the difficulties of her upbringing, including how she could not read or write for much of her young life.
Georgina revealed that her publican parents, who passed away within four years of one another, moved around so much that her school life was badly impacted: ‘There was a real shame in it, and you were the dunce of the class’.
While she struggled through her teens, the Doctor Who and One Foot In The Grave star also revealed that she was forced to wash dishes in a kitchen for many years before making a triumphant return to the small screen.
After a series of huge successes, Georgina revealed her career hit a slump leading to her kitchen work as she previously revealed: ‘Once I reached 51, my life drastically changed. The parts aren’t there, the people you’ve worked for have retired or died, and there’s nothing…
‘Four years ago I tried to change my agent, and 11 agents turned me down. One told me they didn’t take actresses over 45 because it was too depressing to talk to them on the telephone…
‘You felt as though you’d never been an actor. I had periods where I wondered if I’d actually done all these things, or whether it was somebody else.’
She revealed the advice she offered rising stars in the wake of this, as she regaled: ‘I say to any young actress they should make sure they can do something else, or, if they make money, invest it wisely…
‘Because once they hit middle age it gets very tough out there.”
Georgina received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for her performance in the original London production of Steaming. The actress also won a British Academy Film Award for Most Promising Newcome for the Ken Russell film Mahler in 1975.
Georgina’s other TV parts included an appearance in Doctor Who – The Happiness Patrol in 1988. In 2010, the actress was listed as one of 10 great British character actors by The Guardian.
Born in Ilford, Essex, in 1943 to publicans Elsie (née Fordham) and George Robert Hole, Georgina married John Forgeham in 1964, but they later divorced.
