Are You Being Served? star Mollie Sugden had an incredibly famous husband

Are You Being Served? was loved around the nation when it aired between 1972 and 1985, introducing us to a range of characters like Mr. Wilberforce Claybourne Humphries, Miss Shirley Brahms and Mrs. Betty Slocombe, who was played by the late Mollie Sugden.

Mollie, who passed away at the age of 86 in 2009, had an incredible career, appearing in other iconic shows including Coronation Street, The Liver Birds, That’s My Boy and Grace & Favour, which served as a spin-off to Are You Being Served?.

Away from her sitcom roles, Mollie was married to fellow actor William Moore, with the pair appearing opposite one another in several of their roles, including in The Liver Birds. The duo, who married in 1958, were also parents to twin sons Robin and Simon and grandparents to five grandchildren.

Scroll down for all you need to know about Mollie’s famous husband…

Mollie’s husband William

Born on 19 April 1916, William was six years his wife’s senior. The star made his first on-screen appearance in 1966, appearing in Coronation Street. He returned to the show in 1969, when he started playing regular character Cyril Turpin. William departed the soap the following year, but returned briefly in 1972, before his character was killed off-screen in 1974.

William also appeared in sitcoms, including My Husband and I and That’s My Boy, where he acted opposite Mollie, but his biggest role was in the 1980s soap opera, Sorry!, in which he played Sydney Lumsden. The character became incredibly popular, mainly thanks to his signature catchphrase, “Language, Timothy!”

Mollie and William met back in 1954 in Swansea when they were both part of a production company that was being run by Terence Dudley. The couple married four years later and welcomed identical twin sons Robin and Simon in October 1963.

During their respective stage careers, Mollie and William would often act opposite one another, something that carried over into much of William’s TV roles, with Mollie’s time on Coronation Street also coinciding with her husband’s.

© Getty Images

The family lived together in a cottage in East Horsley, Surrey, where Mollie found great pleasure in tending to the garden and growing her own vegetables. The couple didn’t often speak of one another, but William once sweetly noted: “She’s a terrible softie, and she’ll do anything to avoid any argument.”

The pair remained married until William died at the age of 84 on 24 April 2000. Mollie died nine years later, on 1 July 2009.

Reflecting on their late mother in 2016, Robin joked to The Daily Mirror about how Mollie was renowned for dealing with things on her own. “Mum was from that ridiculously stoic generation,” he explained. “One time she had a heart attack and didn’t tell anyone. She was lifting a wardrobe at the time.“