Barbara Windsor through the years - three marriages, affairs, kids TV and campaigning
Dame Barbara Windsor became a national treasure thanks to her roles in the Carry On films.
Dame Barbara Windsor enjoyed a six-decade career in entertainment having made her stage debut as a teenager. However, it was the Carry On films that would turn her into an icon.
(Image: Getty)Dame Barbara Windsor would have celebrated her 87th birthday today (August 6) had she not sadly died in December 2020. The star was a national treasure having delighted audiences since she was a teenager. She became an icon and pin-up thanks to her appearances in the saucy Carry On films but in reality, this only made up a tiny part of her career. She was involved in the franchise for a mere decade of her professional life from 1964 until 1974.
Indeed, prior to the Carry On flicks, she was an acclaimed and award-nominated performer. Having begun her career on stage in 1950 at the age of 13, she made her film debut as a schoolgirl in The Belles of St. Trinian's in 1954. She received a BAFTA Award nomination for the film Sparrows Can't Sing in 1963 - a year before the franchise began, and a Tony Award nomination for the 1964 Broadway production of Oh, What a Lovely War!
Off-screen, her life was almost as colourful as some of the characters she played. The star, who had no children, was married three times. Her first marriage to criminal Ronnie Knight from March 1964 until January 1985 often saw her in the headlines for reasons other than her performances as she stood by her wayward husband and partied with the likes of the Kray Twins.
Her second marriage to chef and restaurateur Stephen Hollings lasted from April 1986 until 1995. Meanwhile, her final marriage to Scott Mitchell a former actor and recruitment consultant, lasted until her death after they wed in 2000, but it raised a few eyebrows due to their 26-year age gap. She also had a well-publicised affair with her fellow actor and Carry On co-star Sid James, which lasted three years, until 1976.
Here Express.co.uk looks back on her life in pictures.
Barbara Windsor was just 17 when she was photographed here in 1955, just one year after her big screen debut in The Belles of St. Trinian's. This is a full nine years before her first Carry On outing.
(Image: Freddie Reed/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
Just a couple of years later in 1957 Barbara was already earning her pin up credentials appearing as 'Aladdin' in the first pantomime ever in a nightclub, which ran in Winston's in London. At just 20 years old she boasted at the time of having the smallest feet in showbiz at a size 1 1/2.
(Image: Bela Zola/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
Barbara's marriage to Ronnie Knight saw her hanging out in nightclubs with the likes of the Kray Twins. The two clubs he ran, the Artistes and Repertoire Club (known as the A&R) on Charing Cross Road and its neighbour Tin Pan Alley in Soho, London, were favoured by the criminal underworld. Knight didn't like being referred to as a gangster saying he preferred the phrase "loveable rogue". The pair remained married for 21 years.
(Image: Daily Mirror/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
Possibly the most iconic scene of Barbara Windsor's career is losing her bikini top while exercising in Carry On Camping. The famous sequence was achieve by someone out of shot pulling the top off.
In total she appeared in nine Carry on Films between 1964 and 1974, including Carry On Spying (1964), Carry On Doctor (1967), Carry On Camping (1969), Carry On Henry (1971), and Carry On Abroad (1972). She also co-presented the 1977 Carry On compilation That's Carry On!
(Image: Victor Crawshaw /Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)