Una Stubbs (1937-2021)
Dancer, actress, TV personality, and real cool cat
Dancer, actress, TV personality, and real cool cat
I didn't know Una Stubbs personally.
And, to be honest, I don't really know a great deal about her, apart from the fact that she was one of those women who always made me happy whenever I saw her on screen; not just as Aunt Sally, in Worzel Gummidge, or clowing about with Lionel Blair on Give Us a Clue (before being replaced by Liza Goddard as a team captain), but even as far back as those black and white days of childhood when she played the lovely Rita Rawlings, in Till Death Us Do Part.
The fact that Una was also the face of Dairy Box in 1958-59 and often referred to herself even in later life as the Rowntree's Chocolate Girl, only makes me love her more ...
Originally launched in 1936, Rowntree's was looking to re-market Dairy Box in a manner that might appeal to the hip young things of the new jazz and pop age of the late 1950s, which was then thriving in the bars, clubs, and coffee shops of Soho.
And who better to front such a campaign than 21-year-old dancer Una Stubbs, fresh from appearing on the TV show Cool for Cats. As the kids groove to the latest sounds of skiffle, Una delights in the soft centres: click here.
It's a charming ad and makes one think that Una could possibly have been our Goldie Hawn, if only a film producer had recognised her zany comic potential and exploited it in full.
