The Battersea Bardot

David Barnes remembers the star of Cathy Come Home

The BBC's milestone television play Cathy Come Home was first broadcast as The Wednesday Play on 16 November 1966. Carol White's realistically memorable performance, as the titular Cathy resulted in her becoming a household name. Director Ken Loach's gritty, documentary-style play, written by Jeremy Sandford, dealt with topics hitherto unmentioned on TV: a mother's desperate battle with the authorities to keep her children amid deprivation, unemployment and homelessness.

Viewed by 12 million people, it created a public furore, prompted the formation of housing charities and went on to rank as one of the top programmes of all time. It also, at last, brought stardom to Carol White, 17 years after she had first appeared as a child in an uncredited role in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).

While she had craved fame all her life, it was something with which she was singularly ill-equipped to deal.

Carol White was born in Hammersmith, west London on 1 April 1943. She would often joke about being born on April Fool's Day. Named after American actress Carole Lombard by her parents, Joe and Joan, Carol dropped the "e" from her name in her early teens. Joe was a scrap merchant, sometime London cabby, prize fighter and antiques dealer. Though very much in love, her parents had a tempestuous relationship. They doted on Carol and her younger sister Jane.

A chance conversation with Joan's hairdresser, who recognised their youthful appeal, opened up the possibility of the sisters joining the local Corona stage school, which they did aged nine and seven. While the family was poor and the school was a fee-paying one, their newly-acquired agent, Hazel Malone, agreed with the school principal, Rona Knight the girls could join the school in the confident anticipation of gaining enough work to pay the fees.