Unlikely location for WW2 sitcom about British soldiers in Burma - and it's not a hot spot

His career spans 75 years and includes appearances in films such The Young Ones, Summer Holiday and The Curse of Frankenstein… and Benidorm, EastEnders and SuperTed on television. But It Ain’t Half Hot Mum star Melvyn Hayes was once told by an actor early on in his career that he wouldn’t be on screen for long.

“Over the years there have been some bad people I’ve encountered,” recalls Melvyn today, aged 90. “I won’t name names but I did a TV play and at the end of it, I finished my scene and the whole crew clapped and the whole cast did too.

“And then this one actor came up to me and whispered, ‘Enjoy it... it won’t last’. Well, that was 60 years ago and I am pleased to say it did last!”

Indeed, Melvyn has been so busy he’s only now got round to publishing his autobiography, fittingly called It Ain’t Half Late Mum.

So what’s taken him so long? With a smile, Melvyn admits it was a chore having to submit the chapters to editors but also lawyers who swooped in to remove certain stories.

“It all had to be passed by a legal team and I am afraid they’d call me and say, ‘Take that out’,” he chuckles. “I had a story for the book about an actress but she is still alive. My legal team said, ‘Take that out!’”

Melvyn was born in Wandsworth in South London in 1935 and his first brush with showbiz came in 1950 when he was just 15 years old.

He got a job as an assistant to a conjurer who performed the Indian rope trick for the crowds.

After a few stints in the theatre, he landed film roles in The Curse of Frankenstein and Bottoms Up in the 1950s.

But in 1961 a bigger opportunity knocked when he got a part in Cliff Richard’s movie The Young Ones.

It was such a success that he also appeared in the singer’s sequels Summer Holiday and Crooks In Cloisters and then went on to star in Carry On England and the film versions of Love Thy Neighbour and Man About The House.

“People ask ‘What was Cliff really like?’, I’d like to say he was terrible but the truth is he wasn’t,” says Melvyn. “When we filmed Summer Holiday in Greece, and I had to drive that bus well, I had lessons before we shot it. Then all I could think was ‘Cliff is on board with Una Stubbs and The Shadows and the insurance is going to be enormous if I go over the cliff’. And the headline will be ‘Cliff goes over the cliff’.”

It was his role in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum – about a concert party entertaining the troops in Burma during the Second World War – which made Melvyn a household name.

He is best known for playing the flamboyant Gunner “Gloria” Beaumont in the BBC comedy penned by David Croft and Jimmy Perry which launched in 1974.

“Viewers thought we flew to India to film it,” he laughs.

“We actually did it in Farnborough. It should have got an award for the set.

“I mean it looked like it was blazing hot. But the only make-up we were allowed to have was to have a spray of water and ­glycerine before every scene on our backs and under our arms to make us look all sweaty. It made so many of us household names. And, bless him, Don Estelle who played Lofty would spend most of the opening before the curtain went up for the show running around saying, ‘I’ve had a letter from the income tax man again. All he wants is my money’.

“We all had a great time. I tried to inject some of my own lines into the show but what would happen was I’d say to David Croft, ‘Can I try something?’ and he’d say, ‘Show me’ followed by, ‘That’s very funny. Save it for panto’.”

However, the comedy which featured the words “pooftahs” and “coolies” and a cast that included actor Michael Bates wearing dark make-up to play Indian bearer Rangi Ram was very much of its time and has not been repeated on mainstream telly since.

Melvyn says: “It’s a shame I know but I understand. I mean my mum used to love The Black and White Minstrel Show but it was different times.” Unlike some stars of a certain age, Melvyn admits he is lucky that his phone is still ringing.

There were plans to bring back the popular cartoon series SuperTed.

It originally ran from 1982 until 1986 and Melvyn was all set to reprise his role – ­voicing the effeminate character of Skeleton.

But he reveals that in the current snowflake climate changes had to be made. “We were told they were going to reboot SuperTed but it hasn’t happened,” he says.

“They said it wasn’t going to be like before. I was told, ‘You can’t play Skeleton like you played him before with that lisp’. “And they said we can’t have a character called Bulk because he is a fat man.

“It’s sad but so many things in our business never happen.”

In recent years, he has landed slots on the sitcom Not Going Out with Lee Mack as well as booking a guest seat on the game show Would I Lie To You?

He’s just filmed a comedy pilot called Doubles about two carers who are meant to be looking after an OAP stuck at home.

“But they go to the wrong house!” he adds with a laugh. Melvyn has no truck for today’s flood of reality stars who seem to be in every celebrity game show, TV contest and even panto.

He says: “Back in the day we had ‘real stars’. Now we have celebrities and you don’t know these people.

“When you see those celebrity lists on these shows, I think, ‘I don’t know them’. Suddenly they become stars and they are on every other show.

“In my day I’d do The Palladium panto for 15 weeks with the likes of Windsor Davies. Now you go and do some shows in Brighton or Bournemouth or Belfast and you find you are the only one playing the theatre with a name. You have got people like the local DJ or the local radio man or someone on a reality show.”

The actor, who has been married three times, has six children and is a grandfather and great grandfather. He was with his third wife Jayne for 30 years before she died in 2022. The pair were also foster parents to more than 50 children.

Asked if he had had any “hot” secret liaisons with any stars, he laughs: “No I don’t think so… because I didn’t!”

And having reached 90, his biggest fear is loneliness rather than the Grim Reaper.

“I’m not spiritual or anything,” he adds. “When you get older the people closest to you are suddenly gone. It’s just sad when people are left on their own.”

The one person he would have loved to see enjoy all of his incredible career is his dear old mum Sarah whom he nicknamed Queenie as that was her “stage name” when she performed in clubs as a singer.

“She would have loved seeing me in Benidorm as Mr Pink but I had to swear and she would have hated that,” Melvyn adds. “I said the F-word. It is not a word I ever use. I’d never use it on stage like some comedians these days. They think you have to swear to get a laugh.

“She would have loved the book’s title too.

“It Ain’t Half Late Mum... because I really should have done it sooner.”

• It Ain’t Half Late Mum by Melvyn Hayes (Alliance Publishing Press, £20) is published on January 22, pre-order now from Amazon and Waterstones