How blonde bombshell with 41 inch boobs dubbed ‘Britain’s Marilyn Monroe’ inspired Gemma Arteton’s new show Funny Woman

BEAUTIFUL women weren’t meant to be funny too – or so said received wisdom in the sexist showbiz world of the 1960s.

It’s a concept that Bond girl Gemma Arterton sets out to challenge in a new Sky sitcom which she has produced and starred in, and starts tonight.

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Funny Woman is based on the 2014 Nick Hornby novel Funny Girl.

That in turn was heavily inspired by Blackpool beauty queen Norma Ann Sykes, whose Marilyn Monroe looks and 41in chest often overshadowed her comic talents.

Gemma — who yesterday revealed on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 show that she had given birth to her first child, a boy, just before Christmas — said: “We’ve got it running through our series, this thing of, ‘Well, you can’t be funny and attractive,’ which is an outdated notion now, especially in the last ten years, but it wasn’t for a very long time. Society put women in boxes like that.”

In the new series Gemma plays working-class Barbara, who refuses to audition for the Carry On films because she doesn’t want “everything to be about my knockers”.

Her dodgy agent is played by Gemma’s St Trinians co-star Rupert Everett, who, in his combover hairstyle and fat suit, tries to pigeonhole Barbara as a blonde bombshell.

Gemma, 37, who says some industry snobs thought she was “common” because of her Kent accent, said: “I connect very much with Barbara.

Downright lechery

“It’s a character that maybe people would not expect me to play because they think I play all these demure, strict people, but I’m not like that at all, I’m really, really silly. I love being funny and love making people laugh.

“And she’s from a working-class background and all of this other stuff that runs through the series, about class and all of that.”

Funny Woman, set in the 1960s, is billed as the story of “a force of nature” from Blackpool who takes London, and the world, by storm.

While making the show, Gemma met Nick Hornby, who told her he was inspired by real events and real people.

One was Norma Ann Sykes, whose incredible figure — and a change of name to Sabrina — turned her into a global sensation.

Her parents, Walter and Annie, ran a Blackpool boarding house where touring actors would stay, sparking the youngster’s fascination with showbiz.

But at 14, Norma contracted polio and spent two years in hospital where she almost lost a leg.

Fearing she would never walk again, doctors prescribed hours of muscle-building exercises and swimming.

The workouts transformed Norma from a sickly seven-stone child into a stunning blonde with a 41-inch bust, a tiny 18-inch waist, 36-inch hips — and a thirst for fame.

In her strong Lancashire accent, she announced: “I’m using my bust as a jumping off place to bigger and better things.”

Aged just 16 she moved to London and lived alone in an attic room in Kings Cross.

She got work as a waitress and housemaid and made jewellery to sell in local shops.

But she quickly realised that her striking figure made people stop and stare — especially if she was wearing a jumper.

She became friends with photographer Sydney Aylett, who also saw the way men looked at Norma.

He remembered: “The looks ranged from admiration to downright lechery but it wasn’t just the bosom. She radiated a sort of sensual purity.”

Aylett helped Norma launch a modelling career, after he won the trust of her devoted mum Annie, who later travelled the world with her.

Norma came to regret a nude modelling shoot she did when she first moved to London, from which her picture was used for the five of spades in a pack of saucy playing cards.

But in 1955 her big break came, when she was hired as comedian Arthur Askey’s sidekick for his new BBC TV show Before Your Very Eyes.

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It was the show’s producers who renamed her Sabrina, after a 1954 film starring Audrey Hepburn.

Askey later patronisingly wrote that Norma had “a lovely face and figure but could not act, sing, dance or even walk properly”.

That rather underestimated what she could achieve in her tight, low-cut evening gowns, in which she became the first woman to show her cleavage on British TV.

Billed as “The bosomy blonde who doesn’t speak”, her job was to simper as Askey made jokes about her figure.

But it put Sabrina on the front pages of magazines and newspapers everywhere and shot her to stardom.

She became famous for being famous — decades before Kim Kardashian — and was soon receiving 1,000 fan letters a week and making £100-a-time personal appearances.

And her bosom was insured for £100,000 — well over £1million today.

She was mobbed wherever she went, with thousands of fans queueing to watch as her bust was publicly measured.

Fame bought Sabrina furs and jewels and a white Chevrolet with the number plate S41, after her boobs — “Two inches more than Jane Russell and an inch more than Marilyn Monroe,” she would regularly claim.

She took singing, dancing, acting and elocution lessons, released a single, Persuade Me, and won roles in eight films, including 1957’s Blue Murder At St Trinian’s, in which she was paid to sit in bed reading a book.

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In 1959 Sabrina went on a world tour with her own cabaret show, and in Perth, Australia 10,000 fans caused part of the airport roof to collapse.

In the US she was known as the British Bosom Lady and was soon rubbing shoulders with A-list stars.

Sabrina partied with Elvis in Vegas and Frank Sinatra in Palm Springs and became pals with other showbiz icons such as Sammy Davis Junior, Dick Van Dyke and Lucille Ball, who Gemma’s character Barbara models herself on.

She was briefly engaged to American singer Sonny King and also dated German aristocrat Prince Christian Oscar of Hanover, who she cynically snogged in front of photographers to guarantee a spot in the Sunday newspapers.

Clean girl

She said: “I learnt early that I had to fight my own way. I have used men as playthings to achieve my ends and have, in turn, been ruthlessly exploited by them.

“My bust made me a sex symbol, which I’m not. And it made me a household name, like Tide washing powder, which I am — a clean girl from the sticks.”

But Sabrina stepped out of the spotlight as instantaneously as she had entered it.

In 1967 she married wealthy US gynaecologist Dr Harold Melsheimer, gave up showbiz and moved into his mansion in Encino, California.

There she threw lavish parties and doted on their pet Doberman, which had its own bedroom and bathroom.

British author Douglas Thompson remembers: “I’d often see her shopping at Gilson’s Market near Michael Jackson’s family home.

“It was the sort of place where film stars went but no one would take any notice of them. But in her later life Sabrina would stop shopping trollies in their tracks.”

When the marriage ended ten years later, Sabrina moved into a small house in Westlake, east of Los Angeles.

She suffered from chronic back pain all her life.

A botched operation left her partially paralysed and she became a virtual recluse, relying on a lodger, neighbours and a few close friends for support.

She died from blood poisoning in Los Angeles in 2016, age 80, but it took almost a year for the news to come out.

Apart from her amazing career, Sabrina remained endearingly proud of one of her earliest achievements.

She once said: “People seem to forget that I was, at one time, the junior breaststroke champion of Manchester.”

• Funny Woman is on Sky Max and Now TV from 9pm today