Joan Sims (Actor)

English actress Joan Sims (1930 - 2001) rehearsing on stage in London. (Photo: Chris Ware / Getty Images)

Mischievious blonde British actress Joan Sims spent most of her formative film days playing cameo roles as brash cockneys. Often her characters had cultural pretensions, making her East End accent all the more amusing. Sims came to films from the stage and television in the early '50s. As her roles increased in size, so did her waistline, allowing her to play a wider variety (no pun intended) of comedy character parts. She joined up with the looney Carry On gang in 1960, remaining with the troupe for all but five of its films. She remained a regular with the comedy aggregation right through its tawdriest days in such non-epics as Carry on Emmanuelle (1978). When the Carry-On'ers packed it in after this film, so did Joan Sims, who for all her chumminess on camera was in reality a lonely and retiring person. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide