Many people watching the 1970’s sitcom The Rise and Fall
of Reginald Perrin will have been aware of Leonard Rossiter's Liverpool
origins, fewer, however will have known that the actress who played his wife,
Pauline Yates, also grew up in the city.
Pauline Lettice Yates was born on 16th June 1929
in St Helens, the eldest child of Thomas S Yates, a traveller in cough medicine
and lung tonic, and his wife Marjorie who ran a corner shop. The family moved
to Liverpool whilst she was a child and their home was at 75 Parthenon Drive L13.
She attended Childwall Valley High School for girls, leaving when she was 17
intent on pursuing a career on the stage. Apparently she was given an ultimatum
by her mother to find work within a year to train as a teacher. In fact Pauline
Yates was to be that relatively rare case of an actor who was never out of
work.
Her first job was as assistant stage manager at Oldham
repertory company, going on to learn her trade with companies across the
country. Well-schooled by her time on the stage she was soon finding regular
work in the ever-expanding realms of TV soaps and sit-coms. Her TV c.v. reads
like a directory of the top shows of the day, with appearances in Emergency
Ward Ten, Z Cars, Softly Softly, Dixon of Dock Green, Maigret, Human Jungle
and many more. In 1972 she starred in her own series on Thames TV, Harriet’s
Back In Town, and in 1975 co-starred with another Liverpudlian, Derek
Nimmo, in My Honourable Mrs, in
which they both played Conservative MPs. It was her casting as Elizabeth Perrin
which brought her a degree of national fame, with the memorable dialogue of “Have
a nice day at the office…..I Won’t.”.
She married the actor and writer Donald Churchill in 1960
and they had two children, Polly, a writer, and Jemma, an actress. He died in
1991, aged 60, from a heart attack on the
set of the TV programme El C.I.D. in Spain. In her later years she lived
at Denville Hall, a home for retired actors, she died on 21st
January 2015, aged 85.
In a delightfully affectionate obituary her niece makes
reference to Pauline Yates’ great affection for swearing. She recalls that when
visiting her at the nursing home “she characteristically rose to her full height in her wheelchair, looked
at me looking at her, and, with perfect projection told me to “Fuck off!”.
