Actor Sue Holderness feels guilty that Only Fools and Horses has ruined the lives of everyone called Marlene and Rodney.
The 75-year-old actress is famous for playing Marlene – the wife of Boycie played by the late John Chalis – in the beloved BBC sitcom about the misadventures of wheeler-dealer Del Boy Trotter and his brother Rodney.
Sue feels sorry for anyone christened Marlene because they constantly get Boycie’s bellowing Marlene catchphrase shouted at them and it’s the same for Britain’s few Rodneys who will be forever called Dave, Trigger’s name for Nicholas Lyndhurst’s character.
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She said: “It’s surprising how many people do say to me, ‘Oh, we’ve got a Boycie and Marlene in our pub.
(Image: BBC)
“And people come up and say, ‘Look at my husband. He’s Boycie, isn’t he? Do the laugh love, do the laugh.’
“I mean, there are a lot of people who are Boycie and Marlene in their lives.
“Occasionally, you meet Marlenes, you know, the poor devils have been christened Marlene and they spend their whole lives having to hear Marlene, Marlene, and it’s affected them.
(Image: ExpressStar)
“And of course, Rodney, anybody called Rodney is going to be called Dave.”
Sue also said that fans are disappointed when they meet her to discover she is posh in real life and doesn’t speak in a cockney accent like her alter ego does in The Nag’s Head.
But she is happy to slip into character for them because she is still immensely proud to have played Marlene.
Sue told the Only Fools and Horses Podcast: “People are a bit depressed when they find that I don’t talk like Marlene.
“I’m very happy to talk like Marlene and do occasionally, but the reaction usually is, ‘You’re very posh and you’re very small.’
(Image: Getty Images)
“Apparently on television, I look very tall and I’m not, I’m quite small.
“There’s nothing I can do about that – I’m posh and I’m small.
“But it didn’t stop me loving it, embodying this glorious cockney tart that was Marlene.
“I’d like to have gone on playing her until the end of my days.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
