On the Jukebox this Weekend at Dolores Delargo Towers

And oh... the... twiddley bits he used to play when all alone with me

Very sad news. One of my all-time favourite all-round entertainers, the actress and comedienne Sheila Steafel has departed to join the merry throng in the the eternal Variety show of Fabulon.

Miss Steafel was, quite simply, "always there" - I remember her mischievous, almost-but-not-quite-giggling personality from way back when I was quite young. She emerged into the spotlight [from a long career as a jobbing actor, an émigré from South Africa] as one of the stalwarts of The Frost Report (Mr F's successor show to the legendary That Was The Week That Was) alongside John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett - and she was a regular on The Two Ronnies Show over many years. She popped up as a comic "foil" for just about every comedian on British TV - including Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Bernard Cribbins, Eric Sykes, Jimmy Tarbuck, Arthur English, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Kenny Everett and Spike Milligan - starred in an adaptation of Diary of a Nobody, and had a lengthy stint in the children's show The Ghosts of Motley Hall, as well as a long and varied stage career. Along the way, she was married to Harry H Corbett ("Harold Steptoe") for six years.



It was, however, for her stupendous regular appearances on The Good Old Days we loved her the most! I need no excuse to play these two gems, both of which are embedded in the very fabric of our being here at Dolores Delargo Towers:

Sheila Steafel - Twiddley Bits [Good Old Days]

Sheila Steafel as "Popsy Wopsy" [Good Old Days]

We went to see the great lady in her one-woman show Victoria Plums back in 2005, in which she featured many of her favourite (and mostly obscure) Victorian Music Hall songs - as collected in a CD of the same name, which forms a treasured part of our collection to this day. It was on this occasion that we were fortunate to meet her after the show, and she signed a photo for us, which has pride of place among our gallery of the great and the good...



I am wearing a black armband as we speak.

RIP, Sheila Frances Steafel (26th May 1935 - 23rd August 2019)

This weekend, I am mostly dressing casual...

...like today's birthday girl, star of Psycho and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - Miss Vera Miles, 90 years old today!

The secret of her long life might be revealed by her most famous quote:

"I love young men, lots of them, your ancient masculine double standard."

Amen, sister.

Fame is a by-product

“I’ve been popular and unpopular, successful and unsuccessful, loved and loathed, and I know how meaningless it all is. Therefore I feel free to take whatever risks I want.”

“Fame is a by-product. Fame is something that should happen because you do work that speaks to people and people want to know about your work. Unfortunately the personality of people has taken over from the work and the artistry and it’s this thing now that stands on its own. I don’t think one should ever aspire to being famous.”

“People think they will wake up one day and I’ll be gone. But I’m never going away.”

Many happy returns, Madonna Louise Ciccone (born 16th August 1958)

Freak Unique

"I'm not a camp, throwaway queen; I'm not in Neverland. I'm not Jennifer Lopez with three people to pluck my eyebrows. I've made myself what I want to be - not everybody's cup of tea. And people wanna have a look at me. I fully accept that. People have always wanted to have a look at me."

"If people don't think I can fall into what the norm is, that's their problem and not mine. I'm not the norm; I'm not deluded."

The late, great, dearly-missed Mr Pete Burns would have been 60 years old today.