Last of the Summer Wine

[Spade_Cooley 9,521]

Obit in The Stage: https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/obituaries/2017/obituary-jane-freeman/

[msc 18,439]

4 minutes ago, JQW said:

Jane Freeman, who played Ivy from 1973 to 2010, has died according to Wikipedia.

 

Obit

 

 

Although that obit has her born 1935, which is a staggering difference from her widely accepted 1921 birthdate!

 

 

EDIT - Can't believe I got ninja'd looking for a sodding sad faced emoticon FFS, how daft!

[Bibliogryphon 9,577]

2 hours ago, msc said:

 

Obit

 

 

Although that obit has her born 1935, which is a staggering difference from her widely accepted 1921 birthdate!

 

 

EDIT - Can't believe I got ninja'd looking for a sodding sad faced emoticon FFS, how daft!

Chalked up the second highest number of episodes on the show behind Peter Sallis.

If her birthdate is 35 does that cause a problem for 20/20?

My windy city team went in this morning and I am already into the subs.

[Spade_Cooley 9,521]

Commenter on The Stage calling "fake news":

 

[Sean 6,315]

4 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

Chalked up the second highest number of episodes on the show behind Peter Sallis.

If her birthdate is 35 does that cause a problem for 20/20?

My windy city team went in this morning and I am already into the subs.

Indeed it does.As it was widely misreported you can pick another woman born in 1921.

[Bibliogryphon 9,577]

Do we believe the 35 date. That would have made her in her late thirties when the show started?

[YoungWillz 21,042]

Never mind, I see there was another page and I didn't see the above.

[Bibliogryphon 9,577]

1 hour ago, Shaun of the Dead said:

Indeed it does.As it was widely misreported you can pick another woman born in 1921.

I am sticking with Jane until that 1935 date is confirmed from another source or I get the point. Nothing on BBC yet.

[YoungWillz 21,042]

Listen up chaps. if the London Times gives her an obit, she dead. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jane-freeman-t6nd7h8cv

[msc 18,439]

They've gone for the 1935 date too.

[CoffinLodger 1,248]

Ivy R.I.P . Just Peter Sallis left from the original cast now then

[CoffinLodger 1,248]

1 hour ago, YoungWillz said:

Listen up chaps. if the London Times gives her an obit, she dead. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jane-freeman-t6nd7h8cv

Normally I would agree but the BBC did say Brian Matthew was dead 3 days before he was... If she was 96 I assume this report is true till proven otherwise though.Also she apparently  died 5 weeks ago so that's plenty of time to get it right !

 

PS it's quite possible she was born in 1935.She did look very young in those early episodes

 

PPS just noticed Peter Sallis's wife, the actress Elaine Usher,  died last year so that combined with his old mates death might speed him on his way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Usher

[msc 18,439]

Something I did think about re Sallis. I haven't looked too deeply into it, so people can point out wrong I am. He used to be fairly on tap to pay tribute to his old colleagues as they went, with even a single sentence on the BBC. I can't recall the last time he's even done that in recent years. Obviously he can't see anymore to go out much, and apparently he was "too ill to do voice work" since about 2011.

[Toast 16,138]

8 hours ago, CoffinLodger said:

9 hours ago, YoungWillz said:

Listen up chaps. if the London Times gives her an obit, she dead. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jane-freeman-t6nd7h8cv

Normally I would agree but the BBC did say Brian Matthew was dead 3 days before he was... If she was 96 I assume this report is true till proven otherwise though.Also she apparently  died 5 weeks ago so that's plenty of time to get it right !

 

 

Looks like the BBC is still too nervous to report it! 

[themaninblack 2,112]

I'm going to hold fire until we found out what age she was.

[The Mad Hatter 1,092]

1 hour ago, themaninblack said:

I'm going to hold fire until we found out what age she was.

She was old that's good enough for me!

[Sean 6,315]

1 hour ago, Toast said:

 

Looks like the BBC is still too nervous to report it! 

 

Yeah I noticed that.She is someone I would definitely have got BBC coverage if she died.They are probably being extra careful after embarassing themselves by killing off Brian Matthew 4 days early last week.

[msc 18,439]

Well, remember the BBC didn't have her in the final episode as they didn't think she was worthy of the send off. (A decision which a lot of Summer Wine fans vehemently disagreed with.) So, you know, they might just not plan to run her an obit at all, sadly.

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

Freeman - obit in The Stage

 

Dunno if anyone hereabouts had her in a dead pool, but this is q/o standard for quite a few

 

Link: https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/obituaries/2017/obituary-jane-freeman/

 

Sorry, just seen the post above - so now we have TWO links to that obit

[msc 18,439]

Third link to it inside 24 hours, even. It's a popular Stage obit!

[Toast 16,138]

2 minutes ago, msc said:

Third link to it inside 24 hours, even. It's a popular Stage obit!

 

Yes, and this is the one with the comment which questions its authenticity.

[msc 18,439]

Yeah. My gut feeling is she's dead, ,but the DOB is wrong, though annoyingly she's the one member of the main cast whose earlier life biography is vague in the series history book.

 

However, this interview from 1995 has the following line

 

Quote

Even in the 1950s, Jane Freeman recalls, "a lot of us were convent girls, we were used to playing fellers in school plays".

 

which could suggest fresh out of school in the early 50s? If so, I'm wrong, and where did 1921 come from? It's even been used in newspapers before.  I think she was likely to be in her 20s when she toured with the Osiris lot, but the exact date of when she did that is the question.

[Toast 16,138]

"Jane Freeman was born Shirley Ann Pithers in Brentford on June 12, 1935"

 

If they have her birth name correct (which the commenter says they don't), then there is a matching entry for Shirley A. Pithers in the GRO birth index in the June quarter 1935. 

Nothing like it around 1921.

 

There's also this bit "After graduating from the City of Cardiff [now Royal Welsh] College of Music and Drama in 1955".  Which means she would have been about 34.  Not impossible, but ....

[msc 18,439]

Yeah, the only issue I'm thinking of is that the obits might be confusing two similarly named actresses (which happens a lot). ie Ivy died but some other actress with a similar graduated at that time period. However, its equally likely (more so, imo) that the 1920s DOB was in fact utterly wrong and a whole bunch of regional papers reported it from time to time without double checking their facts.

 

You'd be surprised how little fact checking happens at times. To pick an extreme one at random, thanks to the research of some SF mags in the 80s, there are Doctor Who fans today who think Harold Pinter appeared in a Troughton era Doctor Who under a pseudonym, because it was the name Pinter used to act back in the 1950s pre-fame. Despite the actual actor still being alive, and saying it was him (and Pinter himself saying he wasn't in Dr Who), there's still folk out there who believe it and repeat it.

 

Anyhow, that's more of a tangent than anything.

[Toast 16,138]

24 minutes ago, msc said:

Yeah, the only issue I'm thinking of is that the obits might be confusing two similarly named actresses (which happens a lot). ie Ivy died but some other actress with a similar graduated at that time period. However, its equally likely (more so, imo) that the 1920s DOB was in fact utterly wrong and a whole bunch of regional papers reported it from time to time without double checking their facts.

 

 

I think you're probably right there.  The Times obit has a lot more detail.

Still no BBC obit, and she died a month ago.  Whatever did she do to upset them?