Trivia

She is the first actress to appear in the film Une belle rencontre (2016) which was made 124 years after she born and 21 years after she died. They used archive footage.

While rehearsing the role of Eliza Doolittle for a production of "Pygmalion" at RADA, the play's writer, George Bernard Shaw, visited and gave her advice that would help her in her subsequent career: 'Go out into the Old Kent Road and just listen to the women talking'.

Gave 1898 as her birth year throughout her career, it was not until just before her 100th birthday that she publicly admitted her real age.

She always pretended to be six years younger than her age, but in 1992 she owned up to reaching 100 and received her telegram from the Queen.

Lived with her husband, who worked for the Western Telegraph Company, in Argentina and Madeira for eight years, only returning to Britain when he became unemployed in the mid-1920's. It was then that she made her stage début, playing Mrs Judd in "The Constant Flirt", at the Pier Theatre, Eastbourne, in 1926.

She was one of Britain's oldest surviving actresses.

She played the charwoman Mrs. Dilber opposite Alastair Sim in the 1951 film Scrooge (US: A Christmas Carol, 1951) and a Cockney charwoman who inherits a fortune in the television series Mrs Thursday (1966-67).

[1914-15] Trained in London at RADA, where she won the Du Maurier bronze medal.

One of the greatest British film character actresses of the Forties and Fifties, the homely Kathleen Harrison made a career out of playing cockney mothers, maids and charwomen.

As her cinema appearances became less frequent, Harrison turned to television, finding a large following as the star of Mrs. Thursday, a role created for her by Ted Willis in 1966. Although the series was panned by critics, viewers loved it and immediately made Mrs. Thursday the most popular programme on British television, even toppling the mighty Coronation Street from its number 1 slot in the ratings.

She had already made her film debut with a minor role in Our Boys (1915), when she appeared in the film Hobson's Choice (1931).

Before and during World War II, she played small parts in numerous British films, including The Ghost Train (1941), Temptation Harbour (1947), and Oliver Twist (1948), and had a small but scene-stealing role as Mrs. Dilber in Scrooge (US: A Christmas Carol, 1951).

Harrison was brought up in London, her father having become borough engineer for Southwark.

She was a prolific English character actress best remembered for her role as Mrs. Huggett (opposite Jack Warner and Petula Clark) in a trio of British post-war comedies about a working-class family's misadventures, The Huggetts.

Films made Kathleen Harrison an amiable, slightly dithery but warm-hearted national figure. She was usually seen as a cockney but was born in Lancashire.

Harrison turned down the title role in writer Jeremy Sandford's Play for Today Edna, the Inebriate Woman (1971).

She got fame as the cleaner Ma Huggett in the series of Huggetts film comedies and a long-running radio serial. The Huggett family made their first appearance in Holiday Camp (1947). Harrison played the London East End charwoman Mrs Huggett. The actress continued with the role, alongside Jack Warner as her screen husband, in Here Come the Huggetts (1948), Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad (both 1949), as well as a radio series, Meet the Huggetts, which ran from 1953 to 1961. Although disliked by critics, almost immediately it became one of the most popular programmes of its day.

Harrison also starred with Jack Warner (her husband in 'The Huggett family' movies and radio series) in the film Home and Away (1956), about a working-class family that wins the football pools.

As her cinema appearances became more infrequent, Harrison turned to television. She starred on television as Mrs Thursday (1966-67), a charwoman who inherits £10 million and the controlling interest in a major company.

She had 3 children Guy, Michael and Alice, , Guy and Alice between them gave her 3 grandchildren.

Trained at RADA.

She spent some years living in Argentina and Madeira before making her professional acting debut in the UK in the 1920s.

She was educated at Clapham High School before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (1914-15).

Harrison also played Kaney in The Ghoul (1933) and the matriarch in Mrs. Gibbons' Boys (1962), as well as two BBC productions of Charles Dickens's novels, Martin Chuzzlewit (1964) and Our Mutual Friend (1976). She later commented that Dickens was her favourite author.

In 1927 she appeared in London's West End for the first time as Winnie in The Cage at the Savoy Theatre. Her subsequent West End plays included A Damsel in Distress, Happy Families, The Merchant and Venus, Lovers' Meeting, Line Engaged, Night Must Fall-also acting in the 1937 film version-Flare Path, Ducks and Drakes, The Winslow Boy and Watch It Sailor!.

Harrison married John Henry Back in 1916; the couple had three children, two sons, and a daughter.

Harrison made her stage debut as Mrs. Judd in The Constant Flirt at the Pier Theatre, Eastbourne in 1926.

She played the maid in R C Sherrifs play Badgers Green and only had 2 lines but she went down so well in the opening night that Sherrif rewrote the part making it bigger.

His father was a civil engineer.

She was educated at Clapham High School.