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.
Emmerdale and Hollyoaks actress Georgina Hale died aged 80 last week and prior to her huge successes she revealed the hardships she faced in her rise to the top
Georgina is pictured in A.D.A.M., directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, in 1973
Georgina and Huw David pictured in Emmerdale
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.
The actress in McVicar in 1980, starring opposite Roger Daltrey
Georgina admitted she grew up overweight and shy, and kept changing school as her parents moved around different pubs, which she believed devastated her education. She told the Glasgow Herald in 2002: ‘I had a really bad education. I couldn’t write, spell, or read, so it was a real problem…
‘Because that sort of thing wasn’t acknowledged then. There was a real shame in it, and you were the dunce of the class, always getting whacked around the head…
‘We were on the move a lot as well, so going to so many schools, always being the new girl, it was so frightening and so nerve-wracking as a kid, and it really affected me.”
Adam Faith and Georgina in Budgie in 1971. The actress played wayward wife Jean in the second series
Georgina’s mum died when she was 18, followed by her father four years later and at the age of 19 she was given tickets to see West Side Story, which she said ‘blew my mind’ as she’d never stepped foot in a theatre before seeing the show.
She went on to train at Rada and graduated in 1965, and made her stage name Hale.
Her film debut came in the historical drama ‘Eagle in a Cage’ in 1971, in which she played Betsy Balcombe alongside Kenneth Haigh as Napoleon Bonaparte.
She had parts in Royal Shakespeare Company productions and her West End debut came in Chekhov’s The Seagull in London’s Duke of York’s theatre in 1976.
Georgina also succeeded Elizabeth Estensen in the eponymous role of T-Bag, the villainous, tea-drinking sorceress in a succession of children’s adventure shows made by Thames Television.
Georgina also succeeded Elizabeth Estensen in the eponymous role of T-Bag, the villainous, tea-drinking sorceress in a succession of children’s adventure shows (pictured in 1992)
