The Life of Sabrina

Also see

• A biographical article from Bombshells: Glamour Girls of a Lifetime
• The landmark 2002 article in the 'Mail on Sunday.'
• An account of Sabrina's Australian tour by Betty Stewart.
• Read the newspaper articles that chronicle the sad second Oz visit in 1961-1962.

1936

19 May 1936: Norma Ann Sykes was born to Annie and Walter Sykes in the maternity wing of Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Cheshire, England.

Norma's birth certificate - thanks to David J.
Click it to read about the birthday investigation.

She lived at 25 Buckingham Street, Stockport for about 13 years, attending St George's School, on Buxton Rd. Find out about the bells at St George's Church.

Hear the tenor bell of St George's Church (mp3, 9K).

[Hmmm. Should I be getting worried that my research may be getting a little too fastidious? Nahhh!]

1937

19 May - turns 1

July 1937 - Norma has her first known photo bunny shoot.

Norma Ann Sykes (destined to be Sabrina) at 14 months

1939 - 1945

A temporary interruption to the Sabrina story.  While many people ran around with guns, Sabrina had the wisdom to turn 3, 4, 5 ,6, 7, 8 and 9.

Sabrina herself confirmed that she was a swimming champion and planned to swim the English Channel.  She was in training in Stockport at the age of nine - at which age she could beat girls aged 15. She swam a mile a day at the YWCA at nine years of age. Her secret to swimming was a "special way of turning" and a lengthy underwater swim after the starting dive. 

July 1945 - Norma (yet-to-be-Sabrina) Sykes, at the tender age of ten, has her class photo taken at Cale Green (Middle) School in Stockport, Cheshire. Sent in by classmate Peter (front row, third from right), Sabrina stands in the back row, fourth from the left. The teacher (at left) is Mr Fletcher, and at the far right is the principal, Mr Urmston. Thanks, Peter: this is great Sabrinastuff!

And young 1945 Norma Sykes (left) ... and approx 1957 (right)
Kiddies: can you spot two differences between these pictures?
Gosh! What clever fellows you are!
Yes - there are no hair ribbons, and the dress is a different shade of grey!

Circa 1948

19 May - turns 12

The "Box of Delights" book notes that she was "the junior breast stroke champion of Manchester" at the age of 12. (I'll wait a minute for you all to stop sniggering and return to your desks.) Thanks to Paul Walsh for finding this vital snippet.

Mrs Beryl Ellis (email), who walked baby Sabrina in her pram, also says she was a very good swimmer and won lots of medals for the school.

See More Sabrina Swimming Snaps

Norma's mother, Annie (neé Haslam) was a seamstress and had bright ginger hair. Her father, Walter Sykes, worked in Mechanical Engineering (he was not a coal miner) and was a natural blonde and had curly hair. Norma Ann was a natural blonde (though she often wore blonde wigs too.)

As a teenager, Norma Ann contracted polio for four years, and was hospitalised for two years. A leg operation nearly proved serious enough to require amputation, and left her right ankle scarred.

[From 'Lowdown 1963'] "Doctors feared she would be crippled for life, but prescribed a rugged series of exercises to develop her muscles. Each day, she spent hours swimming in a heated pool and performing bodybuilding feats. Her remarkable chest expansion is a direct result of these workouts. From a 97-pound weakling, she became an anatomical wonder. Besides her overdeveloped pectoral muscles, she also built powerful arms and legs. When she finally left the hospital, she was as strong as she was healthy. She had lost touch with most of her schoolmates during her long illness and she didn't want to return to school with younger classmates, so she set out for London to show off her new physique."

The daughter of one of Norma's schoolfriends reported that Norma didn't have many friends while at school. The girls were jealous, and the boys would follow her around, "you know, boys being boys."

In later years Norma often wore unfashionably long skirts, because she was self-conscious about her scarred leg. She was careful in later photo sessions to conceal the scars from the camera.

Norma Ann and her family moved from Stockport in about 1947, where she said in her interview that she attended Tilby Road (sp?) and Tivoli High School until 1952 when she left school at the age of 15.

Her mother ran a private hotel off Central Drive, Blackpool.

According to another source [Leslie] who says he knew Sabrina, her mother and father were in Beeston, Leeds, Yorkshire before leaving Leeds to open a boarding house in Blackpool located by the gas works opposite Central pier. Sabrina was said to have attended Fleetwood Girls High School. (Fleetwood is north of Blackpool.  Sabrina does not mention this school.)

1953

19 May - turns 17

At the age of 16 Norma went to London. JavaJim reports she went with David Whitfield the singer of Carra Mia Mine, but Sabrina denies it. She worked as a waitress in a seamy section of London.

Sabby and David Whitfield, 5 Nov 56

Between meals, she was kept busy serving slaps and roundhouse rights to the spivs, toffs and Teddy boys who kept trying to find out if her measurements were real. When she tired of slinging punches as well as hash, she got a job as a housemaid.

She walked into the Labor Exchange, asked for a job as a maid. The stunned clerk asked, "MMMilkmaid?" When his gaze finally climbed to her face, Sabrina said, "No. Housemaid." [Picture Digest 1956. Also reported in Uncensored 1958]

As a housemaid she encountered the same old pinches and pats, though in a more genteel way. When her employer tried a little 'slap and tickle', she floored him with a resounding slap. Out of work again during these tough times, one day she was scanning the help wanted ads when she noticed a call for models, no experience needed.

The place was a tiny studio, where the sixteen year old Norma posed naked, but it bothered her, so she never went back. (Read about the photographer, Russell Gay)

Read up on the nudie facts

It turns out that the photos she made actually started her in show business. Alex Sterling, the noted British glamour photographer happened to see the pictures and he summoned her to his studio. The resultant work was viewed in London's picture magazines and the public took notice.

After being rejected by leading photographers for being "too voluptuous" she diets and reveals her wasp-like waist. She gets cheesecake work in such men's magazines as "Spick" and "Span".

Nigel reports that "in the early days of her time in London she tried to get taken on as a Harrison Marks model and .... they turned her down. Harrison Marks went on to be the most famous photographer of the nude female form in the country (in the world?) but friends and colleagues in the business would forever remind him of the one who got away. The answer I believe was that when she was very young and raw she just wasn't that great to look at. I think she must have developed quite quickly in London, been taught how to dress, put on weight as she ate better and generally filled out between the ages of 16 and 18"

There was a fight amongst agents to get to Sabrina first. Offers poured in asking to represent her. She almost quit when nearly everyone she talked to promised to make her a star, and wanted her to drop up to their cosy flats, have a drink and talk it over.

Sabrina picked Bill Watts as her agent. He signed her to a five year contract. She continues cheesecake modelling and appears on several prominent magazines' front covers.

She never posed nude again because, as she said in the interview, she didn't need to.

1954

April 1954: 'Blighty' 10 April 1954 - pre-Sabrina days.

About this time TV producer Bill Ward was looking for a girl for the Beauty Spot feature in Arthur Askey's TV series Before Your Very Eyes, and when Sabrina's photograph was sent in by her agent, along with 23 others, he decided his search was over. The rest is history. Norma became Sabrina.

19 May - turns 18

1955

Such was Sabrina's fame that when the 1954 Audrey Hepburn film of the same name was shown in Britain, it had to be renamed Sabrina Fair.

8 January 1955: Appears on the cover and centrefold of Picture Post. Do we have evidence? Of course we do - thanks to Sabrina Fan David J! The appearance was entitled A Lancashire choice to beat the Italian Beauties.

Click the pic to see Sabrina's Norma Sykes' breakthrough!

The very staid Post was the largest selling magazine in Britain at the time and it signalled the emergence of Norma Sykes as the leading photographic model in Britain at that time — which is why she gets her break as the glamour component of Arthur Askey’s new show on BBC TV a month later.

Appears in Span #6, Feb 55 as Miss Norma Ann Sykes.

Appears in 'Spick' - February & May 1955

Read Arthur Askey's autobiographical account of how he gave Sabrina her start on TV.

18 February 1955 -- first appears on Before Your Very Eyes, the Arthur Askey show, on BBC — 8 episodes.

See Sabrina on Before Your Very Eyes in 1958 with Arthur Askey. Thanks to Roger!

The BBC goes Berserk! (Picturegoer, 19 March 1955) - recounts the rampant publicity the BBC engaged in to pre-promote Sabrina's first TV appearance.

She had one line to say, "Doesn't it make you want to spit?" But it wasn't what she said during the show, it was her remark after that started her on the way to fame. Invited to a backstage party after the premiere, a group of critics seized on Sabrina and asked what, besides one line, she really did in the show. She shrugged. Then she said. "I really don't know. I'm just a dumb blonde."

The remark made every paper and from then on Sabrina was in the "A" list and was being wined and dined in London's costliest restaurants such as La Rue's, Simpson's and the Dorchester, a favourite place of Princess Margaret.

"Before Your Very Eyes! was only moderately well received by critics and public alike, until the introduction of the completely dumb voluptuous blonde, Sabrina (Norma Sykes), whose fondness for tight fitting dresses turned her into British TV's first sex-symbol."  (Source)

Out of nowhere, the nudes Sabrina had taken months earlier (by Russell Gay), suddenly appeared on playing cards, along with those of other girls. The newspapers latched onto the story.

The Sabrina Nudie Card Page

She becomes a household name overnight as Sabrina. The revelations of the nude photography as a 16 year old did not dent her appeal — they may have helped. But she apparently hated the photos and was arrested for destroying them whenever she found them on sale. According to Confidential, "Sabrina visited the office of the playing card distributor and systematically proceeded to wreck the joint. Sabrina complained to Detective Superintendent Steve Glander of Scotland Yard. "I was only a kid of 16 when those photos were taken," she sobbed to him. "I was not going to admit defeat to my parents and ask them for train fare home. Please stop them from publishing pictures of me in the nude. I will do anything to stop them from being circulated."

His crack detectives volunteered to help with the photo round-up.

Sabrina was determined not to remain just another dumb blonde. She applied herself to singing, elocution and deportment lessons.

A sixteen-week variety tour followed her TV series, and this had her topping the bill after only four hours rehearsal. This tour was a big disappointment to Sabrina, however, for she soon discovered that all she was required to do was to drape herself decoratively against the side of the stage while cross-talk comedians wove their gags around her.

Sabrina and Arthur Askey boosted each others careers:
they both knew a good thing when they saw it.

April - Beauty Parade

19 May - turns 19

26 May 1955 - Sabrina presents the trophy at the 20th Gold Collar Classic Final (greyhound race) at Catford.

'66' magazine - a Sabrina souvenir. (1955)

Make Way for Sabrina! Picturegoer, 25 June. During the making of Stock Car.

Sabrina Washes Her Hair, A.M. 21 June. Some of the best ever pictures of Sabrina.  She is barely 19 years old.

One Look and all Britain Gasped - People June 29, 1955

Appears in her first movie, Stock Car, but her carefully-trained voice has been redubbed with a harsh Cockney accent. Sabrina is furious...

According to Speedway And Stock Car World of July 7 1955, Sabrina made an appearance at a Birmingham stock car meeting with Bill "Mad" Mason.

July 1955 - Debuts in variety, appearing with the Three Deuces at the Chiswick Empire in a twenty-week run. Click the pic to read the article.

November 1955: ... as described in 'Don't Make a Mug out of Me says Sabrina' - Picturegoer Nov 12, 1955.

November 1955: Featured in Beautiful Britons

November 1955 - Male - inside front and back covers!

November 1955: Appeared at the Fashion Designers' Ball held at the Royal Festival Hall.

3 Dec 55 - Sabrina's thoughts on Marilyn Monroe - Picturegoer

12 December 1955 - Sabrina judges Beauty award at Lyceum Ballroom, London, with Terry Thomas. (Pathe Ref: BGX502010136)

Date unknown: Sex-quisite - A Sabrina Album - a Sabrina-sized compendium, year unknown.

Date unknown: Sabrina through the looking glass. Best of QT (1950s)

In 1955 - Appears at the Palace Theatre, Chelsea in "FRENCH CAPERS" with JIMMY FRENCH; RON, POP & ARTHUR WILTON; SID ENGLAND.

1956

Appears in the 'super revue' "This'll Make You Laugh" with Tessie O'Shea, Nat Jackley, Arthur Worsley, The Nitwits, TV Toppers And Marianne Lincoln.

I'm guessing and hoping the yellow lady is Sabrina. 
If not, just pretend it is.

In more detail...

January 1956: England's Jayne Mansfield - People.

12 January 1956: Bird show. OLYMPIA, ENGLAND: Sabrina makes kissing noises at mynah bird in cage.

February 1956: When she showed up to ceremonially open a Sheffield hardware store, four thousand people turned out to see her, resulting in a massive traffic jam. It turned into a near-riot when her dress strap broke.

According to a different story (QT, May 61), "she was attending a premier in Birkenhead and wearing a black velvet evening dress that fit her like a second skin. The crowd pressed close to admire the terrain and some lout stepped on the star's train. There was a warning sound of tearing fabric, followed by a sight for sore male eyes. Sabrina had been wearing nothing under the dress from the waist up, and her braless bosom sprang almost into full view. The heroine swooned at that point, and so did several sturdy lads among the onlookers. The bobbies had to be summoned to keep order."

The second series of BYVE was screened in 1956-1958 on ITV.

6 February 1956: Stars in a British Pathé newsreel having her picture taken at a Bourne and Hollingsworth's department store. See the story.

March 1956: Appears in PhotoPlay

April 1956: Appears on cover of Carnival (see her other covershots here)

19 May - turns 20 years old

June 1956 - Double Feature, Beautiful Britons #8

July 1956: Sabrina and Corinne - Span #23

July 1956: When Sabrina was shot in the nude! Lowdown

July 28, 1956: What now for Sabrina? - Picturegoer

July 1956 - Elementary My Dear Watson, Point

11 August 1956: Appears in 'Blighty'

15 September 1956: Why Sabrina Won't Talk, Picture Week

September 1956: England's Jayne Mansfield - People,

October 1956: Sabrina was on the bill for the 1956 Royal Command Variety Performance in London as a 'surprise artist'

Sabby and David Whitfield, 5 Nov 56,
at the Royal Variety Performance rehearsal
at the London Palladium.

She was very disappointed when the show is cancelled due to the Suez Canal crisis

...which is why we don’t have pix of Sabrina meeting the Queen...

Or do we?

I just bet you boys would kill for a picture of Sabrina mournfully inspecting the dress she would have worn to the Variety Performance.  Here 'tis!  It is of sugar pink lame with shaded pink net.

'Hard Luck Sabrina 5 Nov 56' - Mail

3 September 1956: Sabrina helps judge a bathing beauty contest in Morcambe with the likes of Ben Lyon and Dickie Valentine. Visit British Pathé to see it.

1956 photoshoot newsreel of Sabrina in glorious technicolour - yes, folks! People who lived before 1960 did have flesh tones!

13 October 1956: What I Think About Men - TV Mirror

October 1956: Cover and article, Picture Digest - nudie card disclosures!

Click to read the article

She was the guest of honour at the Savoy Luncheon at the Variety Club of Great Britain.

Appears with Arthur Askey in the movie Ramsbottom Rides Again.

November 1956: Eye Stopper from Britain, Adventure Magazine

The Samba Sabrina? You bet! She was a 1956 cultural icon and here is the proof! Click the pic to enter the competition and record the Samba Sabrina! And as for the lyrics, it's not too hard: "Sa-bri-na.... Sa-bri-na"

1957

Releases her hit single containing Persuade Me and A Man and Not a Mouse

3 January 1957: Appears at film premiere of Giant, at the Warner Theatre in London.

5 January 1957: 'Blighty'

17 Jan 1957 - Hark!  Sabrina has broken her silence!  Australasian Post

April 1957: Headlines the London West End variety show Pleasures of Paris (a show she will eventually take to packed houses in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa).

Sabrina in the playbill for London's 1957 production of Pleasures of Paris at the Prince of Wales Theatre

A very small pic of the PoP programme.

7th February 1957- Sabrina appeared at the Gaumont State Theatre in Kilburn with Arthur Askey who compered the launch of the Vauxhall Victor.

18 February 1957 - Sabrina was present at the Lyceum London with Jill Ireland, Tony Wright, Steve Cochran and Sam Costa for the presentation to Norman Wisdom as the Comedian of the year.

28th March 1957 - Major Beatti oversaw the making of Thoresby Hall in Sherwood Forest open to the general public. To mark this auspicious occasion he invited the voluptuous but silent blonde celebrity Sabrina. At that time the "Sabrina Slept Here" publicity stunt had been targeted at several Stately Homes, and Sabrina duly slept in Thoresby Hall on the night of 28th March 1957, the cause of much bawdy humour among male workers across the estate. It had been the Major's plan to have Sabrina dress as Maid Marian the following day and serve the first guests with venison.  http://thoresby.blogspot.com/

May 1957: 'Span' magazine #33 cover and article.

1957: What do they see in Sabrina? Adam, Vol 2, Num 1

13 May 1957: Sabrina tells her secret - Pictorial (Australia)

May 1957 - Appears in Art and Photography in a story about Russell Gay, the Glamour Photographer

19 May - turns 21

Cameo appearance in the movie Just My Luck with Norman Wisdom.

Ron reports that English racing authorities raise their eyebrows when Sabrina wears that outfit to Royal Ascot and she was asked to leave.

18 June 1957 - Sabrina a Sensation at Ascot. Sabrina, the babe with the biggest bust in British show business, was a sensation at the races when she gate-crashed the hallowed royal enclosure at Ascot, England, dressed in this low-necked organdy. The show girl walked into the enclosure without a ticket, departing after 15 minutes as thousands peered, including dukes, viscounts, lords, barons and earls.

18 June 1957 - British TV's "Dumb Blonde" not so dumb. This vision in organdy with the plunging neckline is Sabrina (Norma Sykes) British television star known the length and breadth of the British Isles as "TV's dumb blonde". Yesterday Sabrina proved the fallacy of the title when she crashed the royal enclosure at Ascot and told a reporter she was just "looking for the powder room". Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal party appeared not to notice the intrusion.

June 1957 - Sabrina, Beautiful Britons #20

August 1957 - I was born. My mother reports that Sabrina was in no way involved. Dammit!

September 1957 - LEND-LEASE NUDE - Sir! Sep 1957

October 1957: Sabrina Surprised, Male Point of View magazine.

5 October 1957: I haven't a real friend in the world - TV Mirror.

October 1957: '66' Star Feature on Sabrina

October 1957: A Day In the Life of Sabrina - Photoplay

When Sabrina lost her Dress in the Street - Exposed, Oct 1957

10 October 1957 - Prince of Wales Theatre - the Miss World girls get the opportunity to meet the cast of the new show 'Pleasures of Paris'. "Even Sabrina casts an admiring eye over the competitors -and with her statistics, she can afford to be critical."

November 1957: Sabrina Today - Span

9 November 1957: FILM BALL AT LONDON'S FESTIVAL HALL (Pathe Ref: T09115702) : Scenes include: Sabrina and Barry Sullivan drinking coffee.

28 December 1957: The Amazing Sabrina Survival - Picturegoer

1957-1958: Appeared in Living It Up (Associated-Rediffusion/Jack Hylton) a sitcom of 9 x 30 minute episodes in black and white. The TV version of popular radio series Band Waggon with Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch living in a flat on top of Associated Rediffusion's broadcasting house. Also featured were Anthea Askey, Danny Ross, Hugh Morton, and Bill Mercy. (Source)

Appears at the opening of the Granada in Brixton (see the newsreel)

Sometime around the end of 1957 or start of 1958, Sabrina went to Paris with Billy Smart, circus playboy and leopard-giver.  (I've just realised that in my whole life, this is the first time I've ever typed the words, "Leopard-giver".  Hmmm.)

1958

January 1958: Why Sabrina Stopped Playing with the Playboys, feature article in UNCENSORED [U.S.A.]

You'll be fitter if you're fatter - Australasian Post, 27 Feb 58.

19 May - turns 22

22 May 1958: Sabrina appears in a British Pathé newsreel featuring British stars cavorting with fans at a Battersea Park Variety Club Garden Party in London. Visit British Pathé to see it.

The release of the hit comedy movie, Blue Murder at St. Trinian's

Early 1958: Short visit to America to do TV

19 March 1958 - Sabrina: made to measure - Crowd (Oz)

May 1958: Sabrina Slays the Yanks. '66' magazine

3 July 1958 - Attends Carnival at Bexhill and Eastbourne (Film Clip BGU503040563)

17 August 1958: Appeared on 'The Frankie Howerd Show' on ITV along with Margaret Rutherford and Michael Denison at 8.30pm.

September 1958: My Night Out with Sabrina - Photoplay

October 1958 - Escapade Interviews Sabrina - Escapade (U.S. visit).

October 1958 - Sabrina the Great - Pose, October 1958.

November 1958: Britain's answer to Jayne Mansfield. Hi-Life magazine.

En route to Australia, Sabrina visits Rome - A bust for Sabrina - Sir Knight, Vol 1 Num 9

What did she do there? THIS!

Oh - and an Italian handled her bust!  (More details here)

[Probably 27 Nov 1958 - source unknown]

SABRINA ON WAY AT LAST

Mrs Sykes

FOUND — One blonde TV bombshell named Sabrina. with a 41.5 - 18 - 35 figure.

Bosomy Sabrina, who mystified everyone by disappearing in Rome last week, will arrive in Sydney tomorrow by Pan American.

The fabulous British blonde was due in Syd­ney originally last Thursday, but nothing was heard of her after she stepped off her aircraft in Rome.

However, everything is smoothed out now and Sabrina will hit Sydney at 10.25 am.
She is booked to appear soon at the Tivoli in Melbourne and Sydney.

Happiest person about the news of her arrival is Sabrina's mother, Mrs. Ann Sykes, who reached Sydney by BOAC early today.

Mrs. Sykes was bitterly disappointed when she discovered that Sabrina was not here in advance to meet her.

But she was sure the glamorous Sabrina would turn up.

28 November 1958 - Arrives in Australia to do Pleasures of Paris and stays until 15 November 1959. Extremely popular down under. Your editor's mother assures me Sabrina and Arthur performed in Melbourne.

While in Australia, she went fishing with Bob and Dolly Dyer (quiz show stars) and Graham Kennedy, Australian TV icon. Pictures of Sabrina in Australia.

MANY MORE DETAILS of her Australian visit can be found in Betty Stewart's account of Sabrina - Toast of Australia

28 November, 1958 (front page of Daily Mirror, Sydney)

STARES ALL THE WAY

Sabrina — the world's most famous bosom — flew into Sydney and laughed at reports that she had been "lost."
"What, me get lost? Don't be silly," she said with a glance at her famous statistic.

[Sabrina's mother, Mrs. Sykes, arrived in Sydney on Wednesday— the day her famous daughter was due. She said she didn't know where Sabrina was.]

As she stepped from the Pan-American air- liner, hundreds of goggle-eyed men pushed and jostled each other to get a glimpse of the 41-18-36 blond.

Photographers and newsreel and TV camera men struggled to get the best vantage point.
The voluptuous actress stopped all work at the airport. Work­men downed-tools and stood on trucks, heavy equipment and fences to see her.

"Gosh it's hot," she said.

(Continued on page 4 - which is missing)

She also made a TV ad for Caltex.

She was delighted to see Slim Dusty's greatest-hits and vice versa

Click Slim Dusty to get to see more of Sabrina

It was a vintage year as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr also toured in 1959. No entertainer got more publicity or bigger crowds than Sabrina until The Beatles toured in 1964.

Sabrina talks about her Australian stay - and Sinatra - in her life story.

Under this picture, the ever-reputable Picture Scope suggested in September 1958 that Sabrina "has what it takes to play Daisy Mae in the London version of "L'il Abner". Can anyone confirm that Sabrina did play the role, or was 'Picture Scope' making fun of her clothes?

18 November 1958 - In Rome

24 November 1959 - In Hollywood with Steve Cochran, en route to Oz.

1959

6 January 1959 : AUSTRALIA: "MAGGA DAN" LEAVES FOR ANTARCTIC. Visnews filmed the polar ship "Magga Dan", leaving Melbourne for the Antarctic. Among the equipment they carried was an amphibious "duck" named after Doctor Sabrina, who was visiting Melbourne, and was present at the ship's departure. (Sadly, film not held by the Sabrinastuff site)

15 January 1959 - SABRINA-ELLIOTT CRICKET

Two well-known personalities - one British and the other Australian - spent the lunch-hour together in MELBOURNE today practising for a charity performance to be held on Sunday for the Red Cross Society. Champion miler HERB ELLIOTT....and his eye-watching time-keeper SABRINA. They'll both take part in Sunday's International Charity cricket match at St. Kilda Oval. While ELLIOTT did some routine lunch-hour training at Como Park today, most eyes were on SABRINA, dressed for the occasion in matador pants and white sweater.

Sunday's cricket teams will be led by former Test captains - Sir LEONARD HUTTON and IAN JOHNSTON. But for the onlookers the best was yet to come. SABRINA had gone to the Park to do some quiet bowling. She's to bowl the first ball at Sunday's cricket match. and it was obvious today that she badly needed a lot of practice. Coached by an obliging Army cricket team, SABRINA finally bowled one ball which connected with the bat; and she became so enthusiastic about cricket that she stayed for more than an hour. (Source: ABC, Duration: 91.5 feet, Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)

24 January 1959: FILM OF SABRINA ON A SHEEP STATION.

At weekend of January 25, Sabrina visited the one-thousand acre property of Mr. Terry Fogarty at Toolern Vale, thirty miles north-west of Melbourne. Mr. Fogarty is shown in our film lifting Sabrina on to a horse. Mr. Fogarty, who owns seventeen thousand sheep, is prominent in wool production and last year took a wool fashion show to London. The two dresses worn by Sabrina are made from wool from Mr. Fogarty's sheep. The dark dress is a four ounce lightweight printed wool, cool in summer, warm in winter. The other is jersey - a finely woven wool. Both dresses are washable, crease-resistant, mothproof and stain resistant. The temperature while Sabrina was at the property was 122 degrees . The shearer in the shearing sequence is Eric Rogers, a Victorian champion shearer. (From http://www.itnarchive.com - sadly, I don't have the film. Naturally, if anyone happens to have a copy of this film, please let me know!)

28 February 1959 - Sabrina visits boys with polio at the Margaret Reid Hospital, Mona Vale Road, St.Ives, N.S.W.

1959: Release of the film, Make Mine a Million with Arthur Askey

April 1959 - The Glamorous Headline Hunters, Modern Man

9 May 1959: The Making of the Caltex ad and the Ardath Hit Parade - Pix magazine [Australia]

1959 - Appears in the Tivoli Sydney production of Pleasures of Paris. 

Read the programme.

19 May - turns 23

Sabrina at her 23rd birthday celebrations

June 1959: A Sabrina Exclusive for Photo Digest

September 1959: Sabrina's Got What it Takes - Sir! Sep 1959

Queen Sabrina - Modern Man Yearbook 1959

Sabrina leaves for America

Sabrina and manager Ray Bolwell at Mascot leaving for USA, 19 Nov 59

November 1959: Arrives in the United States (again) where she stays doing mostly nightclub work in Manhattan's Latin Quarter until March 1963 — with side trips to Canada, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Sabrina gets off the plane in New York..
If nothing else, this site is thorough.

Venezuelan Sabrina Fans can report their Sabrina memories here!

1960

January 1960:

1960 - Exclusive... Sabrina - Mr Cool

Controversial visit to Cuba where she consorts with its new revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro.

Her cabaret show went on to tour in over thirty states. "The people here respect me as a performer," she declared. "I'm not just known as, you know - a bosom."

9 Feb 1960 - Miami Beach FLORIDA: British song-stylist, Sabrina, who will open at the Singapore Hotel here 17 Feb, is soaking up some of the Florida sunshine on the beach.

February 1960 - Come and Make Love to Me - Foto-Rama

19 May - turns 24

April 1960 - Quick magazine  has a lengthy article about "Sabrinia"!

23 June 1960: MY LIFE STORY, by Sabrina. Australasian Post

23 June 1960: 'Sabrina has been offered a new job - as a model for a bronze mermaid which is to be placed with another on a rock at Australia's Bondi Beach.'  Read more

Potential Mermaid: 1960

August 1960: 'Pose' magazine

Sabrina is antibikini! Ace, Aug 1960

October 1960 - 'Argosy' magazine (USA)

(Thanks to Sir H)

25 November 1960 - New York - wearing an abbreviated velvet and gold lame costume, British actress Sabrina reigns as Queen of the annual Artists and Models ball here. In the background is actor Dick Van Dyke, who was king. 

December 1960 - Cover of 'Top Secret' magazine (USA)

1961

1961

March 1: Sabrina hits America - People

April: Sabrina's screen test for 'Satan in High Heels' - Scene For Men

May: Sabrina and Castro - On the QT Magazine

19 May - turns 25

1962

Read the newspaper articles that chronicle the sad times from November 1961 to November 1962.

1962 - Was in Las Vegas

Feb 1962 - A very strange episode in which Sabrina claims that she was engaged to Sonny King, but he denies it.  Very peculiar indeed.

4 January -7 April 1962 -- Brief return trip to Australia to promote Twist dance craze and nightclub engagements — then heads back to US.  Her return to Australia to promote the Twist for Lee Gordon rapidly turned sour.  On Jan 24 she went public with her complaints against Gordon.  After 2 months' unemployment in Sydney she left the country bitter, broke and threatening to sue Gordon. Read the newspaper articles.

Sometime in 1962 - Sabrina ("The Toast of Gold Street") appeared in the President Follies Burlesque in San Francisco.

Full size - sorry!

27 January 1962: Sabrina's Secret Diet - Pix (Australia)

1962: In Praise of Bosoms, Spree

Sabrina films 'Satan in High Heels' (which premieres in New York in March 1962). It failed commercially, but has become somewhat of a cult film recently.

Click to enlarge

Appears to have enjoyed the life of a starlet in the USA. Competition from other buxom blondes — Mansfield, Van Doren, Lansing, Joy Harmon etc etc — was very strong and was made more difficult by her refusal to pose nude which would have opened the door to ‘Playboy’ etc). As she said in her interview, she didn't have to strip off because she didn't need to.

Early 1960s -- Roger reports that Sabrina was the "hostess with the mostest" on Hughie Green's "Double Your Money" program. (This needs confirmation). Hughie did crack a joke about her, however, on Opportunity Knocks (MP3).

Click to enlarge

19 May - turns 26

1963

1963

March 1963 -- Returns to Britain to star in ‘Sunday night at the Palladium’ with Arthur Askey on national TV.

19 May - turns 27

September 1963: The Day Sabrina Blew Her Top - Confidential

4 September 1963 - It's Too Hot for England! - Everybody's - the British censors ban Satan in High Heels!

1964

1964

Sabby was crowned Queen of the World Trade Fair in New York.

19 May - turns 28

July 1964 - Sabby can still woo the Yanks. Inside Story re-tells the juicy story of Sabrina for Americans.

November 1964: Happy Landings, Spick

At Cleveland Park, Middlesbrough in 1964, speedway motorcycle racers competed for The SABRINA Trophy.

December 1964: Returns to the US for a stint in the touring Pajama Tops, temporarily replacing June Wilkinson, another British export better known in the US but completely shutout in Britain by Sabrina’s popularity.

After Pajama Tops continues to do nightclub and theatre work

1965

1965

19 May - turns 29

January 1965 - Appears in “Pajama Tops” for a 10-day run at the Civic Theatre (and/or American Theatre) in New Orleans. The cast included Sabrina, Richard Vath, William Browder, Maralyn Turner. Don McArt, Sandra Gayle and Robert Osborne.

Appears in movie The House of the Black Death

Spring: Spick and Span magazine, Extra #14 - the last magazine appearance until 1971.

From Everybody's, 17 Feb 1965
Guess who? It's Sabrina. It's been a long time since anyone heard of her. She was snapped at London Airport on her way to the U.S. for a three-months; tour with a play. Sabby showed she has lost none of her flamboyance - that's a leopard-skin coat she was "spotted" wearing.

1966

19 May - turns 30

Onstage in The Loving Couch, co-starring with Virginia Mayo 1966 in Toronto and other cities

Sabrina by the pool, 6 August 1966 in Toronto, aged 30

1967

Sabby with Troy Donahue in 1967, most likely for the filming of The Phantom Gunslinger.

19 May - turns 31

Onstage in Rattle of a Simple Man, August 1966-7, Ivar Theatre, Los Angeles;

Appears in The Phantom Gunslinger (Mexico, 1967)

Appears in a double episode of Tarzan with Ron Ely and Ethel Merman

November 21, 1967, aged 31, marries Dr Harold Melsheimer, a wealthy Hollywood plastic surgeon (or gynaecologist, depending on who's telling the story), in LA. They settle down in Encino, CA. Sabrina continues occasional film, television, theatre and nightclub appearances. She quits showbusiness and eases back into an opulent married life, complete with a 40ft yacht, sports cars, mink stoles and Hollywood parties. Her Doberman Pinscher has its own bedroom and bathroom.

1969

19 May - turns 33

1971

1974 and beyond

The Last Hurrah: Sabrina visits England to appear in This Is Your Life for Arthur Askey.

Around 1977

19 May 1977- turns 41

1977 - Sabrina and Dr Harry's rocky marriage ends in divorce, acrimoniously.

19 December 1984 (according to the LA Dept of City Planning), Sabby moved to North Hollywood.

Around 1997

19 May - turns 61

Sabrina has a large tumour removed from her hip

2002

19 May - turns 66

The Mail on Sunday reported that Sabrina is living a hermit-like existence in "semi-squalour in a grubby Californian suburb at the intersections of three ten-lane motorways and right underneath the flightpath of Los Angeles' Burbank Airport."

Read Sabrina's rebuttal.

She spends most of her time in a wheelchair.

2003

19 May - turns 67

Sunday 20 April, 2003 - Sabrina rings the Sabrina Site's Melbourne Headquarters and dispels some of the Mail On Sunday's conclusions.  Listen to and read the interview.

2005

19 May - turns 69

The Mail On Sunday apologises for their silly article.

2006

19 May - turns sixty-ten (a more genteel way of saying it). 

Sabrina breaks her leg. She phones the Sabrinastuff site and sends some great pictures from her scrapbook.

2006 or early 2007 - Sabrina and Steve Page were driving down Sunset Boulevard when a tree fell on the car, crushing the front of it.  She put another disk out in her back.

Sabrina's homepage | Pictures | Sabrina films

Thanks to 'Sir H' and Lea & Beryl Ellis (nee Beryl Coburn) for some of this information.
Beryl Ellis, the mother of Lea Ellis, who sent information about Norma Ann as a girl, was a friend of the family of Norma Ann Sykes, and often walked to the park with Norma in her pram from an early age up until around the age of two.

'Sir H' wrote: "Congratulations on a truly magnificent site, it’s informative, funny, comprehensive, a deserved tribute to the phenomenon that was Sabrina — and the drop dead gorgeous pics are a great reminder of why she was so popular. I’ve put together the following timeline of highlights of her career... (biography) Finally, I’ve a small archive of photos, clippings, magazines which you don’t appear to have and which I can ship to you if you want." And he did: leading to the 'Sir H' collection.