Did you know Ruth Madoc went to RADA? Did you know she played Fruma Sarah in the film "Fiddler on the Roof"? Did you know she looks and sounds spookily like my Mum (especially in the 80s and early 90s when Mum had her trademark short, straight hair and her accent was at her strongest)?
We remember her as the 'vamp from the valleys' in Hi de Hi of course and that Wispa ad with her longed for love object, Jeffrey. Actually looking again at that ad, she's hot, what was Jeffrey thinking? Jeffrey, the gauche, bumbling Hugh Grant of his time with all the passion of a wet Pontins' tea towel. You should have targetted someone a bit more rum, Gladys. Was he really worth hanging around in a banana-shaded uniformed job for? Bet she doesn't think so now.
On stage Ruth has done everything from Shakespeare to musicals, co-starring with the late Harry Secombe in Pickwick, playing Dorothy Brock in 42nd. Street and an 80 year old Jewish mother in Gypsy.
Most interesting for me, she played the daughter's role in the stage version of A Taste of Honey, and while no Tush, I bet she was great and was less of a mousy, hide under her fringe victim than le Tush. It would have been interesting to see.
In 2000 she played the role of Mrs. Ifans in Very Annie Mary alongside fellow Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce.
But life was not always smooth for Ruth, she was brought up by her Grandparents in a small Welsh town, near Swansea because her parents were nomadic and couldn't settle to a life of child-rearing.
She was and still is greatly loved as a symbol of Welsh freshness with anyone old enough to remember balancing a French Fancy on their knee while tuning into Hi-de-Hi. Lest we forget her serious side too though. This is what one fan remembers:
John Price from Rotherham ---originally Porthcawl (presumably not *that* John Price)
Yes a good actress---I remember seeing her in a television version of Dylan Thomas' under milk wood and since that scene of her in the water have always thought what a good looking lady she is.
That ad in full:
Ruth Madoc, born 16 April 1943 in Norwich but brought up in Llansamlet, near Swansea.
