Tragic life of 'UK's Marilyn Monroe' from 'dumb blonde' label to exploitation
With her 18-inch waist, platinum blonde beehive and an eye-popping bust her agent insured for £100,000 against “deflation”, she was Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe.
Norma Ann Sykes, better known in the London of the 1950s and 1960s as glamorous model and actress Sabrina, became an almost overnight success.
But just like Monroe, hers would be a tragic story.
Keen to work as an entertainer from a young age, she left her Blackpool home and moved to the capital aged 16 hoping to break into the world of showbiz.
Sadly, while she achieved fame and fortune she found herself in a sexist environment where her roles were limited to flashing her flesh and she was continually exploited by men.
Gemma Arterton gives birth to her first child with Peaky Blinders actor husband
Tragic life of 'UK's Marilyn Monroe' from 'dumb blonde' label to exploitation (Getty Images)
Gemma Arterton stars as Barbara Parker - the force of nature who takes 1960’s London by storm (Sky UK)Her first TV role, as a sidekick to comic Arthur Askey, was billed as “the bosomy blonde who didn’t talk” and set the trend for her whole career. Eventually growing to hate her celebrity, she died alone, aged 80, as a housebound recluse.
Now, her story is the inspiration behind the Sky Comedy series Funny Woman, adapted from Nick Hornby’s 2015 novel Funny Girl.
When Hornby wrote about the fictional Barbara Parker’s bid to crack the boys’ club of 1960s British comedy, he based the character on Norma.
He said he was stunned by the lack of women on the comedy circuit at the time, while the US had its beloved Lucille Ball.
“Even in something like Monty Python,” said Hornby, “that poor girl just stood around in a bikini most of the time. Comedy was a boys’ club. So I wanted to put a fictional character in that gap.”
Barbara, played by Gemma Arterton, faces the same challenges as Norma – whose interest in showbiz was piqued by the touring entertainers who would stay at the hotel her parents, Annie and Walter, ran in Blackpool.
After contracting polio aged 14, Norma nearly lost a leg and had to stay in the hospital for two years. She was prescribed a tough routine of muscle-building exercises and swimming – which she later credited for her 41-inch bust and sculpted abs.
Dreaming of a showbiz career, she decided she had to get noticed by agents in London. So in 1952, aged 16, she lied to her mum about going on holiday to Bournemouth and moved to the capital.
Norma was the UK's answer to Marilyn Monroe (Getty Images)It wasn’t long before Norma met glamour photographer Russell Gay, who persuaded her to pose naked for him. One of her nude images made its way onto a deck of pornographic playing cards.
Two years later, once a household name, the 18-year-old Norma went to Scotland Yard to demand the nudes be withdrawn from circulation and their vendors prosecuted. But the police dismissed her complaint.
EastEnders star unrecognisable in throwback pic on movie set with A-list actor
“I thought if I posed in the nude it would help me be successful in modelling,” she said at the time. “I was hungry and alone and didn’t know what I know now. Now, these photographs could ruin me. I think it’s terrible that unscrupulous people are trying to take advantage of something I did when I was just a kid.”
In 1955, she was brought to the attention of Askey, who needed a sidekick for BBC series Before Your Very Eyes.
He had seen photos of Norma by Sydney Aylett, who helped her find modelling work, and TV producers loved her hourglass figure. In her first role, she had to just pose in low-cut dresses while Askey leered at her and made smutty jokes.
But audiences loved her and TV chiefs quickly rebranded her as Sabrina, in a nod to Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart’s hit film Sabrina Fair. She was a huge hit, getting 1,000 fan letters a week.
Norma was expolitated when she first entered the industry (Getty Images)
Norma became one of the biggest star's in the UK (Daily Mirror)And with the fame came money. She was suddenly earning £200 – the equivalent of £3,356 today – for personal appearances at shop openings and music halls, as well as £20 a pop for her fortnightly BBC episodes.
After signing a five-year contract with agent Bill Watts, Norma got a plush Knightsbridge flat and took on a maid, an accountant and a secretary, as well as splashing out on mink stoles and a sports car customised with leopard-skin upholstery. “It was crazy. I had no talent, no experience, but suddenly I was a star,” she recalled years later.
“I could hardly walk down the street without crowds surrounding me, trying to rip off my clothes. It got so bad I could only go out in disguise.”
Norma had a temporary setback when the BBC, aware of the risque reputation it had helped her develop, dropped her from the show and confirmed it had no future plans for her.
Askey cruelly wrote that she “had a lovely face and figure but could not act, sing, dance or even walk properly”.
Norma pushed past the criticism by throwing herself into work. She picked up small film roles in 1955’s Stock Car, Ramsbottom Rides Again the following year and then 1957’s Blue Murder at St Trinian’s.
But she was never quite able to shake off the “dumb blonde” label.
Sabrina aka Norma Ann Sykes and Bertl Unger (Getty Images)Obliged to play the attractive but silent, simpering stooge in every show she was cast in,
Norma also found herself the butt of breast jokes on BBC Radio’s The Goon Show, which featured references like, “By the measurements of Sabrina!” and “By the sweaters of Sabrina!” But she used her notoriety and her figure to her advantage as she built up a fortune – even signing replies to her fans “With bust wishes”.
And she played the press, making sure reporters knew all about her romances – even managing to engineer a kiss with German prince Christian Oscar of Hanover in front of paparazzi. “He was simply another rung on the ladder to the top,” she later said. “I learnt early I had to fight my own way. I’ve used men as playthings to achieve my ends and have, in turn, been ruthlessly exploited by them.”
After spending an evening with Elvis, befriending Sammy Davis Jr and Dick Van Dyke, and enjoying a brief engagement to American singer Sonny King, Norma disappeared from the limelight almost as quickly as she had entered it when she married gynaecologist Harold Melsheimer.
Norma was compared to Marilyn Monroe (Corbis via Getty Images)She moved into his Californian mansion and spent her days throwing lavish parties on her self-named yacht, driving her Chevrolet with the licence plate S41 (after her bra measurement) and hanging out with her pet leopard, Chico.
But they divorced in 1977, after 10 years, and Norma moved into less glamorous digs in Hollywood. There, she succumbed to the back pain that had plagued her all her life and after an op left her partially paralysed, mum Annie moved to the US to look after her until her own death in 1995.
Norma barely left home after that, trusting a few close friends, a neighbour and a lodger to care for her until she died of blood poisoning in 2016.
Now, as Gemma Arterton re-treads Norma’s story as Barbara, viewers will get a sense of what the showbiz world of her time was like for women.
Gemma, 37, said of her character: “She’s a real working-class girl. You know she’s not perfect, although she’s very ambitious, and sometimes it takes a lot out of her. But the audience is just going to love her. She’s so very lovable.”
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