Carry on Cork: Babs hunts for Irish roots
Ms Windsor, the blonde star of the cheeky 1960s Carry On films, arrived in Cork for filming of a BBC family history show called Who Do You Think You Are?
The show, due to go out as part of the BBC’s autumn schedule, involves celebrities receiving expert help in tracing their roots across the globe.
The 68-year-old actress, wearing a glamorous cream-coloured outfit with head scarf, turned heads when she boarded the delayed Cork flight at London Heathrow late on Thursday night.
Travelling with her television production crew, she sat towards the back of the Aer Lingus plane which arrived in Cork at 12.15am yesterday. The plane was 50 minutes late due to air traffic control problems.
Television insiders yesterday confirmed Ms Windsor was filming for the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? show, which capitalises on the popular pastime of tracing family history.
Asked if Windsor had Irish ancestry, one of her team said: “Sort of — but I can’t say any more.”
An only child, the actress was born Barbara Ann Deeks in London in 1937 to a dressmaker and a bus driver. She went to drama school at an early age, later taking roles on the stage and films including Death Trap and Sparrows Can’t Sing.
But her appearance from 1964 onwards as the bubbly, busty blonde in the Carry On films won her international recognition.
Even though she only appeared in nine Carry On films, the 4ft 10in actress remains one of the leading stars of the series.
Her most memorable appearance came in 1969’s Carry On Camping when she played giggly Babs alongside the disapproving Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques.
Windsor returned to stardom in 1991 when she won a role in Eastenders as tough Cockney Peggy Mitchell, landlady of the Queen Victoria pub and mother of hard-men Phil and Grant Mitchell.
She drew inspiration from real life for the part, basing her character partly on Violet Kray, the mother of fearsome 1960s Cockney gangsters the Kray twins.
Yesterday the BBC confirmed a new series of Who Do You Think You Are? is to be announced when the autumn schedule is officially unveiled on July 18. Among the celebrities due to feature is Doctor Who and Harry Potter film actor David Tennant.
Now in its third series, the show has already found Irish links for actress Sheila Hancock, the widow of Morse star John Thaw.
