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When Sabrina emerged from her taxi, a dozen photographers zoomed in on the famous cleavage, temporarily ignoring star guests like Norman Wisdom.īetween 19 the cinema newsreels and press cameramen followed Sabrina around as she judged beauty contests, posed with exotic birds, visited disabled people, attended film premieres and negotiated the London streets in her enormous American saloon with the S 41 personalised number plate. In March 1956, Askey invited her to his daughter Anthea’s wedding. Sabrina returned to Before Your Very Eyes, where she continued to distract male guests like bodybuilder Joe Robinson, and she was also seen to effect as the hostess in Hughie Green’s quiz show Double Your Money. Within a month she had accumulated more than 500 press cuttings. On 18 February 1955, billed as the “a glamorous new playmate for Big-Hearted Arthur”, Sykes shimmered into the Britain’s living rooms to become an overnight sensation. In June 1954 Askey was ending a run of the farce The Love Match at the Palace Theatre in London, where the next attraction would be the Broadway hit Sabrina Fair – this inspired Sykes to ditch the name Norma. The “dumb blonde” was a cliché of 1950s popular culture and Askey decided that Sykes would be the literal personification of this stereotype.

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Liverpool comedian Arthur Askey invited her into BBC television series Before Your Very Eyes. Before long her image was on the cover of Blighty, a men’s magazine that offered cartoons and short fiction, along with its photographs of scantily clad women. Cheshire teenager Norma Sykes came to London in 1953, determined to become a successful model.

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