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Yootha Joyce (August 20, 1927 - August 24, 1980) was an English actress born in South London as Yootha Joyce Needham to musical parents. In 1956 she married the actor, Glynn Edwards - best known for playing Dave, landlord of the Winchester Club in Minder - but the marriage ended in divorce in 1968. It was through Edwards that she first came to prominence in the renowned Joan Littlewood Theatre Workshop, going on to make her film debut in 1962 in Sparrows Can't Sing.

In the 1960s and 1970s, she became a familiar face in many one-off sitcom roles and supporting parts in films, with her first main recurring role being Miss Argyll, frustrated girlfriend of the title star Milo O'Shea in three series of Me Mammy (1968-71). She also appeared as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the pilot episode of Open All Hours. But it wasn't until 1973 that she acquired a starring role, when she was cast as man-hungry Mildred Roper, wife of landlord George, in the innovative sitcom Man About The House. This series ran until 1976 and told the story of two young women and a young man sharing the Ropers' upstairs flat, and the sexual tension and misunderstandings such living arrangements provide.

An example of a typical exchange between the Ropers:

GEORGE: I'm not sure whether I approve of it, Mildred — a grown man sharing a flat with two grown women...

MILDRED: Oh, come on, George, this is the 1970s! They're doing it all over!

GEORGE: That's what I'm worried about, Mildred!

When the series reached a natural end, a spin-off was written for the Ropers, and George and Mildred first aired in 1976. The couple were seen moving from the London house in Middleton Terrace which they'd owned in the previous programme and into a suburban semi-detached property in Peacock Crescent, Hampton Wick. Much of the new series centred on Mildred's desire to better herself in her new surroundings, but always being thwarted, usually unwittingly, by her lifeskill-lacking husband's desire for a quiet life.

A feature film was made of George And Mildred in 1980, but this was to be Joyce's last work. Amidst growing concern over her health she was admitted to hospital in the summer of 1980. A sixth, and final, series of George and Mildred was due to be recorded later that year, but Yootha Joyce died, in hospital, of liver failure four days after her 53rd birthday on 24th August, 1980, following a long battle with alcoholism. The actor Brian Murphy, who played her TV/screen husband, George Roper, was at her bedside. In an episode of the 1999 television series What A Performance!, Murphy recalled how Joyce had looked to be making a recovery after being admitted to hospital with a serious liver infection. "Only two days earlier, she was sitting up in bed looking not too bad... When I went back on the Sunday, I was expecting to see her even better. She sadly had gone into a coma, and whilst I was sitting there, she slipped away."

At the inquest into her death, it was revealed that she had been drinking upwards of half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years, and that she had, in the words of her lawyer, Mario Uziell-Hamilton, become a victim of her own success and the thought of being typecast as Mildred Roper¹. In the 2001 tribute documentary entitled The Unforgettable Yootha Joyce, friends also revealed how she had become depressed at her failure to find another long-term partner following her divorce. Norman Eshley, who had so memorably played George's mortal enemy, Jeffrey Fourmile (in reality they were close friends) said in this documentary that he couldn't believe that her alcoholism was so serious; he said that her performance and comic timing was always perfect.

She made her last television appearance, posthumously, on Max, Max Bygraves' variety show, on 14th January, 1981. She sang the Carpenters song, "For All We Know." At the end of this performance, she told Bygraves, "Thanks, I enjoyed that." Comedian Kenneth Williams recorded in his diary that ...she looked as though she was crying...

After her death, Billy Connolly played some music on pan pipes on a Parkinson show, which he said he had composed for Yootha Joyce, even though they had never met.

In 1986, a photograph of Yootha Joyce adorned the sleeve of Ask, a single released by British band The Smiths.

¹ The Times, September 16, 1980

• Yootha Joyce at the Internet Movie Database
• Yootha Joyce at Find-A-Grave