Shirley Ann Field

Real name Shirley Broomfield

This story starts tragically and ends tragically.

Life got off to a poor start for Shirley Anne. Born in Bolton, Lancashire, she was the third of four children, with two elder sisters and a younger brother, Earnest “Guy” Field. At the age of six, she was placed in the Edgworth Children’s Home and Orphanage after their impoverished mother was unable to care for them. Four years later, she was moved to another children’s home in Blackburn, where she attended Blakey Moor School for Girls. She subsequently returned to Edgworth until she was 15 when she moved to yet another children’s home hostel in London, training to be a typist whilst still at school.

She took a course at the Lucie Clayton School and Model Agency and soon became a photographic model for pin-up magazines like Reveille and Titbits. And, of course, ToCo – but here she revealed little more than a stocking top. She was subsequently spotted by Bill Watts, director of a theatrical agency, who obtained a number of uncredited extra roles for her in various late 1950s British films, followed by a 7-year contract with Ealing/MGM. The snowball rolled on and she was frequently heard on radio and seen on TV.

But her breakthrough came when she was chosen by none less than Laurence Olivier to play the role of model Tina Lapford in The Entertainer in 1960. The same year she appeared in probably her best known role as Doreen in the ground-breaking film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, co-starring with Albert Finney. In a radio interview in 1993, she reminisced about her friendship with John F. Kennedy and an ill-fated date with Frank Sinatra.

In the midst of this hectic career, she married the aristocratic RAF pilot and racing driver Charles Crichton-Stuart on 7 July 1967 and they had one daughter, Nicola Crichton-Stuart, who was born the same year. The marriage subsequently ended in divorce during the late 1970s.

Her acting career continues almost to the present day. She was in major UK TV productions in 2010 − Waking the Dead and Monarch of the Glen. But the ultimate tragedy is that when she was seen very recently in an episode of Doctors on BBC 1 she was almost unrecognisable. Not because she had grown old but because she had been through so much plastic surgery.

Personal Details  –  Born 1937    37-22-34    5ft 4in (1.63 m)

Appearance  –  35 (8 covers, 5 back covers), debut Span 1 (February 1955).

Spick  –  15, 26, 51(bc), 246

Span  –  1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 12, 18, 41(bc), 46, 104, 142

Beautiful Britons  –  1, 3, 4, 28, 31(bc), 80, X6, X7

Spick & Span Extra  –  55 Summer, 55 Winter, 56 Summer, 52, Ann2

66  –  24, 26(bc), 27, 34(bc), 41, 48, 68