WEIR, Molly 1920-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born March 17, 1920, in Glasgow, Scotland; died November 28, 2004, in Middlesex, England. Actress and author. Weir was an actress best known for her roles as Aggie MacDonald in the radio—and later television—series Life with the Lyons and as Hazel the McWitch in the children's TV program Rentaghost; she also wrote popular memoirs. She originally trained to be a secretary and was notable for her amazing speed as a typist and in shorthand. An interest in theater led her to start acting in amateur productions, where she also developed a talent for impersonations. While doing some of these impersonations, she was noticed by a talent scout and soon hired to play the part of Ivy McTweed in the radio series The McFlannels in 1939. During World War II, she acted in films produced by the British Ministry of Information, and after the war she appeared in a number of feature films, such as Floodtide (1949) and Flesh and Blood (1951). Weir gained fame in the 1940s, when she played two parts for the radio comedy series It's That Man Again, as Tattie Mackintosh and as Tattie's mother. National acclaim came with her next big part as Aggie in Life with the Lyons, which was broadcast on radio from 1950 until 1961. Two movies, Life with the Lyons (1954) and The Lyons in Paris (1951), were also made before the series was produced on British television, beginning in 1957. After the series ended, Weir acted in a number of films, such as Carry on Regardless (1961) and Scrooge (1970), but she returned to television with a hugely popular children's show called Rentaghost, which ran from 1977 until 1984. Weir, who was a familiar face in Britain as the woman who promoted Flash cleaning products for television commercials, also wrote a number of well-received memoirs, including Shoes Were for Sunday (1970), Toe on the Ladder (1973), Stepping into the Spotlight (1977), and Spinning Like a Peerie (1983). Her memoirs of her younger days were more recently collected and reprinted in Molly Weir's Trilogy of Scottish Childhood (1988).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Daily Mail (London, England), November 30, 2004, p. 25.

Daily Post (Liverpool, England), December 2, 2004, p. 13.

Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), November 30, 2004, p. 22.

Daily Telegraph (London, England), December 2, 2004.

Guardian (Manchester, England), December 1, 2004, p. 27.

Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), November 30, 2004, p. 7. Independent (London, England), December 1, 2004, p. 35.

Sun (London, England), November 30, 2004, p. 31.