Norma Ann Sykes (19 May 1936 – 24 November 2016), better known as Sabrina or Sabby, was a 1950s English glamour model who progressed to a minor film career. Sabrina was one of "a host of exotic, glamorous (British) starlets ... modelled on the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Lana Turner"; others included Diana Dors, Belinda Lee, Shirley Eaton and Sandra Dorne.

Early life and career

Sabrina was born on 19 May 1936 at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Cheshire, to Walter and Annie Sykes. She lived in Buckingham Street, Heaviley, for about 13 years and attended St George's School there, before moving with her mother to Blackpool. She spent some time in hospital with rheumatic fever. At the age of 16, she moved to London, where she worked as a waitress and did some nude modelling, posing for Russell Gay in a photoshoot that led to her appearance on the five of spades in a deck of nude playing cards. In 1955, she was chosen to play a dumb blonde in Arthur Askey's new television series Before Your Very Eyes (BBC 1952–56, ITV 1956–58). The show ran from 18 February 1955 to 20 April 1956, and made Sabrina a household name. She was promoted by the BBC as "the bosomy blonde who didn't talk", but surviving kinescope episodes show quite clearly that she did. Around July 1955, James Beney, of Walton Films, released a 100-foot, 9.5 mm short glamour film, "At Home with Sabrina". Goodnight with Sabrina (c.1958, 3:49 mins) is included with Beat Girl (1960), remastered in 2016 by BFI Flipside. She made her film debut as Trixie in Stock Car, a Wolf Rilla-directed drama, in 1955. She then appeared in a small role in the 1956 film Ramsbottom Rides Again. In her third film, Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957), she had a non-speaking role in which, despite sharing equal billing with the star Alastair Sim on posters and appearing in many publicity stills in school uniform, she was required only to sit up in bed wearing a nightdress, reading a book, while the action took place around her. Sabrina's penultimate film role was in the western The Phantom Gunslinger (1970), in which she starred alongside Troy Donahue. Her final film was the horror movie The Ice House (1969), in which she replaced Jayne Mansfield, who had died in a car crash two years earlier.

Personal life

In 1958, she was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Leeds. On 27 November 1967, she married Harold Melsheimer (born 11 June 1927 in Germany), a Hollywood gynaecologist and obstetrician. They divorced ten years later. In 2007, there were newspaper reports that Sabrina had become a hermit, "living in squalor" in a Spanish-style house on a street known as 'Smog Central', under the flightpath of Burbank Airport. Sabrina admitted that she was confined to the house due to back problems, but denied living in squalor. Having suffered from ill health for many years, partly owing to botched back surgery, she died of blood poisoning in 2016, at the age of 80.

Cultural impact

Television appearances

Acting credits