Moira Lister

Oct 31 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

SHE was blonde and silken-legged, a young darling of stage and screen, who was the radio girlfriend of the lugubrious Tony Hancock, then Britain’s favourite comedian.

In his show’s first episode in 1954, she had described in aristocratic tones how Hancock’s home in Railway Cuttings was “an upholstered dustbin” – the brilliant line from Ray Simpson and John Galton setting the tone for the series.

Few knew then, however, that in 1946 a real-life date of the effervescent Moira Lister had been a killer with a charming manner, who had sandwiched dinner with her between his final, bloody meetings with Margery Gardner and Doreen Marshall.

In her autobiography, The Very Merry Moira (1969), she told of how she had been wooed at a party by a man of military bearing, calling himself George Armstrong.

“We had a wonderful evening dancing,” she recalled. “Then he took me home, kissed me on both cheeks and said goodbye.”

That was indeed lucky. In a few weeks, she would learn that her dashing suitor had been Neville Heath, who had murdered twice in 10 days. She later wondered if her blonde hair had saved her. Both his victims had been brunette. By then Miss Lister was a star, compared to America’s Lucille Ball.

She was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and educated at a convent in Johannesburg. With encouragement from her mother, she studied stagecraft, gaining juvenile parts.

Her blue-eyed beauty, natural talent and gift for comedy, led her to London in the 1940s. A spell at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon increased her potential and her portrayals of Juliet, Desdemona and Olivia were praised. She played Joanna Lypiatt opposite Noel Coward in a 1947 production of his Present Laughter.

With further successes behind her, she was cast as Hancock’s girlfriend in the first, 16-episode series of his radio show.

Perhaps associated more with the stage, Miss Lister also enjoyed big-screen acclaim in films such as A Run For Your Money, The Cruel Sea, The Yellow Rolls-Royce and Stranger in the House. She married the French soldier, Vicomte d’Orthez, in 1951, and had two daughters.

To many, she will be remembered most for her own sparkling BBC TV series of the late ’60s, The Very Merry Widow. She also appeared on panel games.

Moira Lister, actress; born August 6, 1923, died October 27, 2007.