Audrey's cuttings
Portsmouth NEWS report dated 12th August 1980
Audrey Jeans
Comedienne. Born Portsmouth, 1930. Audrey was just too ahead of her time for this country. There wasn't much room for comediennes of her type in the golden days of Variety. Most top funny ladies on
the halls were grotesques like HYLDA BAKER, GLADYS MORGAN and NELLIE WALLACE. Audrey was an attrac
tive, beautifully dressed real woman who could dance, sing (straight and point numbers), play sketches, deliver one-liners, get laughs and act. In America she would have been a star.
She began her career, at sixteen, as part of the chorus in the sip FIELD revue Piccadilly Hayride and from then on, with encouragement from the great Sid, worked at comedy. She toured Australia with ARTHUR ASKEY and then, as so often happens - nothing did. She packed it in and worked behind the counter of a friend's shop in Portsmouth.
The agent KEITH DEVON persuaded her to go back into the biz and, with his guidance, she became a good middle of the bill act and an excellent feed for the comics, playing her Variety and cabaret act in the UK and all over the world.
My first big summer season was with Audrey in Torquay and her advice, on and offstage, was invaluable. I was an idealist, blissfully ignorant of the devious politics of show business. I would always say what I thought, and still do. Audrey did manage to make me hold my tongue at least for that season. After one particularly unpleasant runin with the powers that be she took me on one side and said: `Listen. Keep that (pointing to her nose) out. That (pointing to her mouth) shut and who's got a packet of fags on Friday? You have!' I'm still waiting for the packet of fags! Audrey was married twice and, tragically, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while on her second honeymoon in Paris.
From Roy Hudd's book, Cavalcade of Variety Acts 1945-60.
Danny La Rue and Harry Secombe went to her wedding, she lived next door to Francis Rossi and Sid James died in her arms.
And Audrey Jeans’s own life was cruelly cut short when
the hugely popular variety entertainer from Portsmouth died aged 48 in a
hit-and-run incident with a car.
I recently asked if there was anyone who remembered Audrey and readers did not disappoint.
Audrey started as a dancer but became an
all-rounder being able to put over a comical song as well as those of a
more traditional nature. She seems to have been much-loved by all who
met her.
At 14 she appeared in pantomime in Exeter, dancing as
well as understudying Cinderella. She would go on to appear on stage,
radio and television for the rest of her theatrical life.
As a result of my appeal I met Audrey’s sister-in-law Pat and nephew David.
Pat was married to Audrey’s brother Ken and they told me more about the star of stage and screen.
Audrey was born in Riga Terrace, Landport, although the family later moved to
near Fawcett Road and then back to Landport in Longs Road.
When she returned from Australia, where
she had appeared with Arthur Askey, she considered giving up the stage
and worked in a greengrocer’s in Lake Road, Portsmouth. After a year she
tried again and the rest is history.
The family name was
Jennings and her mother’s maiden name was Bolton. When Audrey first
went into the theatre she called herself Fay Bolton.
She
was first married, aged 24, to accountant Harry Frank and famously wore
a pair of pink wellies under her wedding dress. There had been heavy
rain in London the week before the service in Wimbledon and, being the
comedienne she was, that footwear was just the ticket.
Afterwards
there was a reception on the Thames aboard the Tattershall Castle and
the guest list included Danny La Rue, John Inman, Barry Cryer and Harry
Secombe.
The couple later bought a house in Purley,
Surrey, where their next door neighbour was Francis Rossi, the lead
guitarist with Status Quo. They had a daughter, Tracy, who now lives in
Seaford.
But one of the saddest events in her life came when she was on stage with legendary comic actor Sid James in the farce The Mating Season.
They were appearing at the Sunderland Empire and on opening night James collapsed and died on stage from a heart attack.
During the show James suddenly stopped
acting, although most of the audience didn’t realise. Co-star Audrey
started fluffing her lines and ad-libbing. James collapsed on to a couch
and Audrey shouted into the wings for the curtains to be closed. She
held him but it was too late.
David became one of Audrey’s favourite nephews and she took him to many of the theatres she appeared in.
In
later years Audrey bought 5, Highbury Grove on the Highbury Estate,
Cosham, for her mother. Audrey visited many times, sometimes twice a
month when not touring. When she went for a drink in the Portsbridge pub
she would walk in wearing an expensive fur coat and held court.
In 1978 Pat’s husband got a job at Greenwich and he moved the family to
Kent. As Audrey worked on cruise ships leaving from Tilbury she would
often visit the family and stay overnight. Pat remembers her helping
clean the windows in that fur coat!
In late 1980, the year of her divorce, she married Cyril Giddy, a director of Thompson Publishing.
The
couple went to France for their honeymoon and drove to La Rochelle. One
evening, either going to or coming from a restaurant, they were about
to cross a road when a car drove into them killing Audrey instantly. She
was 48. Her husband suffered a broken arm and leg. The hit-and-run
driver was never caught.
The first the family knew of the
accident was when Pat received a phone call from someone speaking in
pidgin English. He was trying to explain what had happened but it was
very difficult. Eventually a member of the British consulate came on the
phone and explained. The family was devastated as was the rest of show
business when word spread.
Audrey’s body was flown home
by air ambulance but Cyril, severely injured, had to remain in France
until well enough to travel home. he then spent another two-months in
Kingston Hospital.
Even then there was a problem as he
was an only child and had no children of his own to nurse him. Although
he had many wealthy friends who visited him they were, at the end of the
day, only colleagues and no one offered him a home so Pat took him in.
She and the family nursed him for six weeks.
Cyril was too unwell to attend the funeral which was held at Portchester
Crematorium. Many showbiz people arrived to mourn Audrey including Jimmy
Tarbuck and Mike Yarwood. Afterwards a wake was held at the Crow’s Nest
pub in Hazleton Way, Cowplain, with several celebrities turning up.
A few months later there was a memorial service at St Paul’s Church (the
actors’ church), Covent Garden where many stars of stage, screen and
theatre turned up. The late Jack Douglas gave the eulogy while Julia
McKenzie sang an aria.
Audrey’s ashes were interred at
Waterlooville Cemetery’s garden of remembrance. Cyril never got over his
new wife’s death and died five years ago.
As a final epitaph Pat told me that Audrey was ‘one of Portsmouth’s own’.
‘She was loving, beautiful, generous, well-dressed with no airs or graces and a friend to all. We all loved her so very dearly.’
Audrey's memorial in Waterlooville cemetery
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