1. Hylda Baker was an English comedian, actress and music hall performer.
16 Facts About Hylda Baker
1. 2.
Hylda Baker's father, Harold Baker, was a painter and signwriter, who worked part-time in the music halls as a comedian.
3.
Hylda Baker's stage act included a gossip from the North of England, with a silent, sullen companion named "Big Cynthia", almost always played by a man in drag.
4.
Hylda Baker came to national attention in BBC television's The Good Old Days in 1955.
5.
Reisz had seen Hylda Baker performing her sketches at the Chiswick Empire theatre before casting her in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
6.
Hylda Baker had a starring role in the low-budget black-and-white British comedy film Hylda Baker Knows Y'Know.
7.
Later in the series, Hylda Baker began having trouble remembering her lines and had to rely on cue cards and prompts from her co star Madge Hindle, who would whisper her next line to her.
8.
Hylda Baker played a virtually identical role in the LWT comedy series Not On Your Nellie.
9.
Hylda Baker recreated her variety act in an episode of the BBC series The Good Old Days in 1976.
10.
Hylda Baker suffered two ectopic pregnancies in her twenties, which led in part to the breakdown of her marriage.
11.
On Christmas Eve 1961, Hylda Baker was hit by a passing car that mounted the pavement in London's Charing Cross Road, not far from her home at Ridgmount Gardens in Bloomsbury.
12.
Hylda Baker sued the driver of the vehicle for damages and loss of earnings.
13.
Hylda Baker lived the life of a star, dressing in furs and keeping monkeys as pets.
14.
Hylda Baker showed the earliest signs of cognitive decline in 1972, when she was 67, when she had difficulty remembering her lines in the last two seasons of Nearest and Dearest, and by the last season she had to increasingly rely on cue cards and prompts from co star Madge Hindle in order to deliver her lines.
15.
Hylda Baker did make one final on screen acting performance in 1976 in an episode of The Good Old Days, and she made her final TV appearance and musical performance in 1978.
16.
Hylda Baker was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in her early seventies, and at age 76 in 1981 she moved to Brinsworth House, the retirement home for performers, in Twickenham, London.