Actress known for comedy including the Carry On films

Born: August 14, 1930;

Died: September 6, 2018

LIZ Fraser, who has died aged 88, was an actress who made her name in British comedy films of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Although her CV was broad, she is most well-remembered for a number of roles alongside Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock, as well as recurring appearances in the Carry On films and in popular 1970s sex comedies such as Confessions of a Driving Instructor (1976).

She also appeared in the ‘Doctor’ series’ Doctor in Love, Norman Wisdom’s The Bulldog Breed and the third St Trinian’s film, The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s (all 1960), as well as the film version of Home Guard comedy Dad’s Army (1971) as the wife of Ian Lavender’s Private Pike. She was also cast alongside her friend Sean Connery in On the Fiddle (1961), the year before he played James Bond for the first time.

Yet, although her comedy niche gave her national recognition, they also typecast her, and Fraser’s dramatic parts were infrequent. She was seen in the Peter Cushing-led adventure Fury at Smuggler’s Bay (1961); as the lead in low-budget, London-set gangster thriller The Painted Smile (1962); in American director and writer pair Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky’s London-set The Americanisation of Emily (1964), starring James Garner and Julie Andrews; in the Boulting brothers’ John and Hayley Mills-starring The Family Way (1966); and in the class-based drama Up the Junction (1968; not the Ken Loach television play of three years previous).

Some of her best work was as part of the ensemble cast alongside two of the great satirists of their time, Peter Sellars and Tony Hancock (whose television show Hancock’s Half Hour she appeared on during the 1950s). In 1959 she was in John and Roy Boulting’s sharp industrial satire I’m All Right, Jack as the daughter of Sellars’ communist factory shop steward; in 1960 she appeared with him in the heist comedy Two-Way Stretch; and in 1961 she played a brief but memorable role as a coffee shop assistant who argues with wannabe bourgeoisie Hancock about the froth on his cappuccino.

Also a regular on comedy actor Sid James’ show Citizen James between 1960 and 1962, Fraser made her first Carry On appearance alongside him in Carry On Regardless in 1961. She went on to have roles in Carry On Cruising (1962), Carry On Cabby (1963) and Carry On Behind (1975); the gap between the last two reportedly came because a producer had overheard her criticise the way the films were marketed, and blacklisted her.

Fraser turned to the stage as well as the occasional dramatic film in the 1960s, in order to move away from what she referred to as her “bra and panties” roles. Yet her typecasting was her bread and butter during the 1970s through the Carry On return, as well as tacky but popular flicks like Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976) and Confessions from a Holiday Camp (1977).

One of her final film roles came with a different type of British filth, the Sex Pistols’ tie-in The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1980), yet even into her later years she kept busy with guest appearances in series including Miss Marple, Last of the Summer Wine, Holby City and Midsomer Murders. Her final film was 1990’s Chicago Joe and the Showgirl, starring Kiefer Sutherland and Emily Lloyd.

The style of Fraser’s era, viewed as somewhat old-fashioned now, was geared towards making humour out of a woman’s looks; and Fraser fitted the image required of the Carry On genre, a pretty blonde who was regularly required to appear onscreen in her underwear to provide a set-up for the inevitably palpitating and out-of-his-depth man playing opposite her.

Yet while it is certainly true that her ability as a comic actor in her own right was underestimated and underplayed because of this, offscreen Fraser defied the blonde bimbo image which was so popular at the time. Inspired by her mother, widowed and left to run the family corner shop on her own when Fraser was 11, the actress – an enthusiastic poker player – put her money into the stock market and property, and made a good sum for her later years.

“My bust did become the focal point of my career, but really I ran my life from my head rather than my chest,” she said in 2012. “I realised very early on that I was not a leading lady, I was a character actress and I loved the work.”

Born in Southwark in London in 1930 to a travelling salesman and a shop owner as Elizabeth Joan Winch, Fraser was evacuated during the Second World War to Kent and then Devon. She temped in an office to pay for evening drama classes, and was accepted to the London School of Dramatic Art. Her first film role was in Touch and Go (1955).

She was married twice – the first ended in divorce, the second when her husband, the television director Bill Hitchcock, died of a pulmonary embolism in 1974.

DAVID POLLOCK