Joan Sims Movies and Career Information

Joan Sims (9 May 1930 - 28 June 2001) was an English actress best remembered for her roles in the Carry On films, and latterly for playing Madge Hardcastle in As Time Goes By. Irene Joan Marion Sims was born in 1930, the daughter of the station master of Laindon railway station in Laindon, Essex. Sims' early interest in being an actress came from living at the railway station. She would often put on performances for waiting passengers. She decided that she was certainly interested in pursuing show business, and soon became a familiar face in a growing number of amateur productions locally, during her teens. In 1946, Sims first applied to RADA, but her audition was unsuccessful. Her first audition included a rendition of Winnie the Pooh. She did succeed in being admitted to PARADA, the academy's preparatory school, and finally, on her fourth attempt, she graduated and trained at RADA. She graduated from RADA in 1950 at the age of 19. Sims appeared in a number of Brian Rix's Aldwych Theatre farces, but revue was Sims' greatest medium, especially in the works of Peter Myers. In 1958 she got a part in Peter Coke's play Breath of Spring, which opened at the Cambridge Theatre in March,