Rita Webb

Olive Rita Webb (25 February 1904 – 30 August 1981), later known as Olive Rita Thompson, was an English character actress, mainly in comedy roles. She was the eldest child of Henry Augustus Webb (1880–1926) and Rose Jeannette Keysor. She had a younger brother, Henry Richard Webb, also an actor, and two elder identical twin half-brothers, Leslie and Gordon Durlacher, from her mother's first marriage to Samuel Durlacher. She was the niece of Leonard Keysor, the first Jewish serviceman to win the Victoria Cross in the First World War. A half-brother was the actor George Webb. Career Born in Willesden, Middlesex, United Kingdom, she is best known for her appearances as a stooge for Benny Hill in his long-running Thames Television series. At under five feet tall, with a booming voice and dyed flame-red hair, she was often cast as a blowsey mother-in-law or Cockney type character. In 1958, she, Roger Livesey, Terry-Thomas, Judith Furse, Avril Angers, and Miles Malleson, recorded "Indian Summer of an Uncle" and "Jeeves Takes Charge" for the Caedmon Audio record label (Caedmon Audio TC-1137). It was released in stereo in 1964. In the 1960s, she made a number of television appearances with Billy Cotton and alongside Arthur Haynes. Her many other television credits include several appearances in Spike Milligan's Q series, Dixon of Dock Green, Till Death Us Do Part, Sykes, Up Pompeii! with Frankie Howerd, The Wednesday Play and Steptoe and Son. In the Space: 1999 episode "The Taybor" she appeared as a deliberately-unattractive form assumed by the shapeshifter Maya.