Lady Godiva Rides Again (In Memory of Pauline Stroud)

Lady Godiva Rides Again (dir. Frank Launder, 1951)

 

 

I. 

 

There are many reasons to value this 1951 British comedy about an unsophisticated and impressionable young waitress who enters the slightly seedy and somewhat sinister world of showbiz after appearing as Lady Godiva - the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who became legendary for riding naked through the streets of Coventry - in her home town's annual pageant and then winning the Miss Fascination Soap beauty contest (first prize: a cheque for £1000; a mink coat; and a film contract).

For one thing, the sexual politics of the period fascinate and appal in equal measure and remind us why raising awareness around issues to do with the sexual harassment, abuse, and exploitation of women in the entertainment industry (and, indeed, wider world of work) is something that we should all be sympathetic towards. 

 

For another thing, it has a fabulous cast in both lead and supporting roles, including George Cole, Sid James, and Britain's very own blonde bombshell Diana Dors as Dolores August [1]. Further, there are a number of amusing cameo appearances by the likes of Alastair Sim and Dora Bryan. 

 

The film also allows 18-year-old Joan Collins to make her (uncredited) screen debut as a beauty contestant, alongside the nightclub hostess Ruth Ellis, also playing a nameless beauty contestant, who - as I'm sure readers will know - was hanged for the murder of her lover, the racing driver David Blakely, in 1955.     

 

 

II. 

 

Finally, I would like to give a particular mention to the star of the film, 21-year-old Pauline Stroud - the very lovely English actress who, sadly, died, aged 92, a couple of years ago. 

 

She lights up the film and the casting directors made an excellent decision in giving her the role of Marjorie Clark ahead of the hundreds of other young women who chased the part; including Miss Dors and Miss Collins, and, somewhat surprisingly, Audrey Hepburn [2]. 

 

According to her friend Olive Simpson, writing in an obituary for The Guardian: 

 

"Lady Godiva should have been the first film in a five-year contract but, by the time it was released, Pauline had become engaged to Peter Lemos, member of a wealthy Greek ship-owning family, and he did not wish to share her with the cinema-going public. She ended the engagement, but not before the contract was broken and her career prospects damaged." [3] 

 

Arguably, Pauline's engagement to Peter Lemos mirrors Marjorie's marriage in the film to a wealthy Australian businessman (Larry Burns, played by John McCallum). 

 

Like Lemos, Burns also puts the kibosh on a young woman's wish to forge an independent life as an actress. After rescuing Marjorie from appearing nude on stage as part of a French revue, he whisks her off Down Under and, before you know it, she's a wife and mother [4].

 

Notes

 

[1] I can't say I'm a huge fan of Miss Dors - she always frightened me as a child - but she's excellent in Lady Godiva Rides Again (as she is as Mrs. Rix in one of my favourite episodes of The Sweeney, 'Messenger of the Gods', (dir. Terry Green, 1978)). Interestingly, the film was released in the US with its original title in 1953, but then re-released as Bikini Baby with Miss Dors given star billing. 

 

[2] Miss Hepburn, a West End chorus girl at the time, screen tested for the role, but it was thought her figure was too slim. 

 

[3] Olive Simpson, 'Pauline Stroud obituary', The Guardian (4 Sept 2022): click here.

 

[4] In contrast, Miss Stroud never married and toured in rep and had a number of film and television roles until the 1970s. She then worked for many years as an extra in numerous opera and ballet productions in Covent Garden, a real trouper until the end. 

 

 

To watch an amusing opening scene from Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), click here. 

On the Haunting Beauty of Sue Lloyd

Sue Lloyd (1939 - 2011)

 

'The dead they do not die - they seduce from beyond the grave ...'

I. 

 

I mentioned in a recent post written in memory of Brigit Forsyth [1], that, as I get older, I find my desire is increasingly tied to nostalgia and has effectively become a type of spectrophilia - i.e., sexual attraction to ghosts, or, as in my case, the haunting images of dead actresses from the 1960s and '70s (the decades in which I was born and grew up). 

 

One such actress of whom I particularly fond at the moment is Sue Lloyd, who guest starred in many much loved English TV shows during this period, including The Saint (1964 and '67), The Avengers (1965), Department S (1969), Randal and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1970), The Persuaders! (1971), and The Sweeney (1976) [2].

 

Lloyd also regularly appeared as secret agent Cordelia Winfield, alongside Steve Forrest in the British television series The Baron (1965-66), but is perhaps best remembered today for her long-running role as as Barbara Hunter (née Brady) in the British soap opera Crossroads [3].

 

 

II. 

 

Although Lloyd had studied dance as a child and, in 1953, won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School at Sadler's Wells Theatre, she unfortunately grew just a little too tall (5' 8") to play a swan princess. And so she became a model - even appearing once on the cover of Vogue - and a showgirl, before embarking on an acting career. 

 

Lloyd did also star in a number of films - including alongside Michael Caine in The Ipcress File (1965), Peter Cushing in the cult horror Corruption (1968), and Joan Collins in The Stud (1978) - but I'm not much of a cinephile and really only care (here at least) about her TV work.  

 

But what is it I like so much about Miss Lloyd, I hear you ask ... Well, simply put, she exuded the kind of dazzling beauty and sexual sophistication of the older woman which excited me as an adolescent and continues to work its magic some 50 years later ...

 

As Simon Farquhar writes in his obituary for the star who died in 2011 (aged 72):

 

"There was always something of the ghost of a fading Hollywood glamour queen possessing Sue Lloyd [...] With half-closed eyes, cigarette gravel voice and elegant, haughty poise, she brought an air of smouldering decadence and feline allure to often decidedly mundane productions, as if a world-weary Lauren Bacall was deeming to cross the Atlantic and play with the little people for a while." [4]    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lasses?' (2 Dec 2023): click here. 

 

[2] Unlike some other actors, Lloyd was delighted at the cult status much of her television work had acquired, and she happily contributed interviews and commentaries to subsequent DVD releases and responded to fan requests.

 

[3] Lloyd was in Crossroads from 1979 to 1985, so this slightly falls outside the period that interests me and is not really a genre of show that I particularly care for. 

[4] Simon Farquhar, writing in The Independent (30 Oct 2011): click here.