R.I.P. Una Stubbs, Sherlock‘s Mrs. Hudson
Una Stubbs, a fixture of British television for decades, was 84.
TV News Una Stubbs
As reported by Deadline, British actor Una Stubbs—who is best known, especially outside of England, as the begrudgingly supportive landlady Mrs. Hudson on Sherlock—has died. A specific cause of death was a not given, but her agent confirmed to Deadline that she had died of “an illness.” Stubbs was 84.
Born in 1937, Stubbs was a fixture of British television for decades, popping up on shows like Till Death Us Do Part, In Sickness And In Health, Fawlty Towers, Worzel Gummidge, and the game show Give Us A Clue. She was also a regular collaborator with singer and actor Cliff Richards, appearing in his films Summer Holiday and Wonderful Life as well as his TV series It’s Cliff Richard. In more recent years, she was on The Worst Witch, Marple, The Catherine Tate Show, EastEnders, Midsomer Murders, Call The Midwife. She also had a long and successful career on stage, performing in shows at the Old Vic, the National Theatre, and other longstanding British theatrical institutions.
As for Sherlock, Stubbs’ take on Mrs. Hudson—the long-suffering owner of 221B Baker Street who often must bear the brunt of Sherlock Holmes’ eminently frustrating eccentricities—was livelier and more prominent than in many Holmes stories (especially Arthur Conan Doyle’s originals, where she rarely does anything). While Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern interpretation of Sherlock leaned into the character’s faults, like his drug use and general misanthropic sociopathy, Stubbs’ Hudson became pricklier in response and provided a playful foil for him to bounce off of. When the series went on and gave her a more prominent role in the mysteries, to the point where Cumberbatch’s Sherlock once suggested that “England would fall” if she gave up her position at Baker Street, it was wholly earned and justified.
Cumberbatch, who has actually known Stubbs for years since she and his mother were both actors, referred to her in a statement as “a wonderful, talented, stylish, gentle, joyous, and honest friend,” adding, “So humble and yet so damn good.” Mark Gatiss, Sherlock’s co-creator and the actor who played Holmes’ brother Mycroft on the show, tweeted that it was “one of the great joys” of his life to work with her.
18 Comments
RIP Una. She was also in one of my favorite Doctor Who audio plays, Horror of Glam Rock.
such a good story, the early Eighth Doctor Adventures is probably one of my favourite eras in all of Doctor Who
I was madly in love with her when I was too young to even know what that meant.Another part of life disappears
Well, at least Martin Freeman will FINALLY stop having to explain that he is straight
Thanks to those Cliff Richards movies popping up on TV, during rainy Sunday afternoons in my childhood, my first impressions of Una, was as a sexy young dancer!
RIP Una, you really could move!
Even more Una. (Last one, I promise).
She really is great in those Cliff movies. Before that she was the face of Rowntree’s chocolates.
She’s cleaning up after the mystery solving duo God and Jesus now.
Tlll Death Us Do Part, and its’ later sequel In Sickness And In Health, was the basis of the US All In The Family, but far less cozy and neat. Warren Mitchell’s Alf Garnett was a horrific if often hilariously funny creation, and in many ways more menacing and insidious than Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker. Una Stubbs gave a great performance as the daughter, Rita, the role played by Sally Struthers as Gloria, and is the only person who really takes Alf on and some of their on-screen arguments, usually about racism, anti-semitism or Garnett’s all-round bigotry, along with the power and rawness of the scripts by writer Johnny Speight, still cause shivers and winces more than fifty years on. And yes, Stickybeak, she sure could dance. RIP Una.
Literally everyone I grew up with , friends and family , thought Alf Garnett was in the right on all issues. Especially race. I don’t know that any of them have changed their minds in the years since.
Speight in his later years thought he had failed with Garnett. He had meant to use him as a parody of a deeply ignorant bigot only to find that people agreed with him. Warren Mitchell was also shocked when people would tell him, to his face, that Garnett was right about the ‘coloureds’, the Jews and the ‘queers’, not realising that Mitchell himself was Jewish, although he largely regarded himself as an atheist, another of Garnett’s targets.
That’s always the problem with shows like that; people supposed to think you’re laughing with him and not laughing at him.
RIP Una Stubbs, you’ll always be Aunt Sally to me.
I couldn’t bear that show as it messed with my memories of my first Doctor. I also found it strangely scarier than Doctor Who.
You should see the recent remake with Mackenzie Crook. Less Worzel Gummage, more Freddy Krueger.
No I should not.