Girls from classic comedy Carry On reunite to speak of life behind scenes
There may not have been any flying bras or bikinis but there were certainly lots of laughs when these five former Carry On girls reunited.
Champagne flowed as Madeline Smith, Anita Harris, Valerie Leon, Jacki Piper and Louise Burton came together to mark the 50th anniversary of the aptly named Carry on Girls – the 25th movie in the hit film franchise. And it was a double celebration for Valerie – who appeared in seven Carry On films and went on to be a Bond girl – as she marked her 80th birthday.
As the women roared with laughter talking about the old times, Valerie told me in disbelief: “Who would have thought back then we’d still be talking about this today?” And Anita, 81 – a 1960s pop singer who appeared in Carry on Doctor and Follow that Camel – added: “We will treasure this day. It’s wonderful how each generation has taken on the films.
“It’s kept our reunion together over the years.”
Anita and Sid in 1967 film, Carry On Doctor (ITV/REX/Shutterstock)All five women feature in a new book to mark the film’s anniversary this month. In it, they recall making 31 movies with national treasures such as Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and the late Barbara Windsor – whose flying bra in 1969’s Carry On Camping went down in British film history. And the women certainly have some tales to tell.
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Valerie’s most famous role was as leader of a female tribe in 1970’s Carry On Up The Jungle, which saw her wear a furry animal print bikini. “That was my favourite as I like to be in control,” she joked. “I didn’t get to keep the bikini but I should have done. Memorabilia does very well now.”
While the Carry On films were famed for their innuendo-laden scripts and bawdy slapstick humour, Valerie says the writers struggled to get some of their more risque lines in.
She said: “In Carry On Camping, I was in a tent with Charlie [Hawtrey] and we had to scramble out. His line was, ‘She was showing me how to stick up my pole’. But that was far too suggestive then and was changed to ‘ the pole’.”
Anita, who appeared in 1967’s Follow That Camel and Carry On Doctor, also recalls some of the odd filming locations. She said: “Follow That Camel ‘filmed’ in the Sahara Desert – which was actually Camber Sands beach in March. It was a little chilly around the knicker tops!
“I had to do weeks of belly dance training and they zoomed in on my ruby, which kept popping out of my belly button. I think eyelash glue eventually stuck it in.”
Valerie with Joan, Frankie and Sid in 1970’s Carry On Up The Jungle (Alamy Stock Photo)During one scene in 1970’s Carry On Up The Jungle, Jacki, 77, was left with rope burns after she had to swing through trees with a harness attached to her bikini.
Her co-star Terry Scott also had one strapped to his loincloth. “We’d both be burned between our legs,” Jacki recalled. “Terry had to go to the nurse and have Savlon slapped on various parts. He told me, ‘Thank goodness I’ve had children!’”
In her four films, Jacki had only one bedroom scene – with a naughty gorilla. She recalled how the actor’s wife would turn up every day “carrying his head as it was quite heavy”. She added: “Years later, I was doing a sketch with The Two Ronnies and a man rushed up to me in the canteen and said, ‘Jacki Piper! My father was the gorilla who went to bed with you!’”
Jacki also recalls how the Carry On fun didn’t stop when the cast went out to restaurants, either. She said: “Everyone there would be sophisticated and behaving but on the Carry On table, we were all screaming with laughter and throwing bread buns at one another.
Louise Burton (2nd from right) in Carry on England“I used to get lunch with the late Joan Sims and we’d laugh so much, all our make-up would melt off.”
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She also giggles over an incident when Charles Hawtrey’s mum visited the set. “She was a non-stop smoker and a cigarette set her handbag on fire. They called the fire brigade.” While the actresses all insist they felt very safe and cared for on set, Valerie admits they got plenty of unwanted attention in the 1960s. “A lot of the big executives visited the set one day, and one was coming onto this young girl who had just joined the film,” she recalled. “Sid had a reputation for being lascivious, but he was the opposite. He went over and said, ‘Just leave her’. He was very protective of all of us.”
While the Carry On films went on to become classics, the women agree that they would not be able to make them today. Louise, 68, said: “Back then, you were grateful to take your top off if they wanted you to. It is so different now. “You’d never get away with it as everything you said would be deemed too suggestive or too racial.”
Jungle Queen: Jacki with TerriAnd Jacki added: “In the old days, there was ‘suggestively funny’ and everything was sort of hinted at. But everything is looked at in such detail now.” Some of the script jokes were deemed too racy even then, though.
Madeline, 74, who appeared in Carry On Matron in 1972, remembers her character fretting over her newborn son’s “little thing being bent to one side, unlike his father’s”. The punchline was removed by the British Board of Film Classification.
She said: “Instead, in the bed next to me was Joan Sims, who had a sausage on the end of her fork.”
As well as its cheeky humour, Carry On was known for its late producer Peter Rogers’ penny-pinching budgets.
When Louise appeared in Carry On England at 17, she had to sofa-surf. “I was just out of drama school,” she said. “You didn’t get expenses so for seven weeks, I was somewhere different every night.”
Jacki recalls having to asking Rogers if a car could pick her up and take her to the studio as she had to be there early. “He told me, ‘You can have a car and no salary or a salary and no car,” she said. Valerie also claims film star Joan got no help with her medical expenses before she died in 2001 aged 71. She said: “Joan and Charlie died in poverty. Those films were made on a shoestring.”
But despite the tight budgets, the movies proved to be a career springboard for the women – with many of them going on to star in Bond films, big TV shows and on the stage. Anita said: “Carry On was a launch pad. It was such a British institution… something to be proud of.”
- The Carry On Girls by Gemma and Robert Ross, published by The History Press, is out on November 23
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