Are You Being Served? (1972-1985)

First broadcast: Friday, September 8th, 1972 (pilot, as part of Comedy Playhouse) in the UK

Final broadcast: Monday, April 1st, 1985 in the UK

Description: BBC TV situation comedy written by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft which ran for 69 episodes over 10 series. It was set in a department store called Grace Brothers and focused on the increasingly ridiculous antics of the shop floor staff. It was one of many sitcoms Croft wrote with Lloyd, as well as other collaborators, with a distinctive ensemble cast.

• Are You Being Served? also had a stage version, which ran at Blackpool's Winter Gardens Theatre in the Summer of 1976, and this supplied the basic idea for a movie spin-off in 1977.
• A partial remake of Are You Being Served? ran for two series in Australia, in which John Inman reprised his role as Mr Humphries, but the others were based on the UK characters, renamed, and recast. It ran on Network 10 for 16 episodes between Monday, June 16th, 1980 and an unknown date in early 1981.
• There was a sequel series entitled Grace and Favour (UK) aka Are You Being Served Again! (North America) which ran for two six-part series between Friday, January 10th, 1992 and Monday, February 8th, 1993.
• Finally, on Sunday, August 28th, 2016, the BBC celebrated 60 years of British sitcoms by reviving a handful of old favourites, including Are You Being Served? The original characters were the same, but recast, with Only Fools and Horses favourite John Challis as Captain Peacock, Sherrie Hewson as Mrs Slocombe, Jason Watkins as Mr Humphries, Niky Wardley as Miss Brahms, Roy Barraclough as Mr Grainger, Arthur Smith as Mr Harman, and Justin Edwards as Mr Rumbold. There were new characters too, including Young Mr Grace's grandson (also Young Mr Grace) played by Mathew Horne, Mr Conway played by Kayode Ewumi, and Miss Croft, played by Jorgie Porter. This one-off episode was set in 1988, three years after the original run ended. The special attracted 6.3m viewers, and was the fourth most watched show on BBC1 that week.

Rita Hayworth (1918-1987)

Birth name: Margarita Carmen Cansino
Birthdate: Thursday, October 17th, 1918
Location: Brooklyn, New York, USA

Died: Thursday, May 14th, 1987
Location: Manhattan, New York, USA
Cause of death: Alzheimer's Disease

Best known for: Beautiful actress and dancer who was at her height in the 1940s with films such as Cover Girl (1944), Gilda (1946) and Salome (1953). She was never nominated for an Oscar, but was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in Circus World (1964 - she lost to Anne Bancroft). She was married five times, including to actor and director Orson Welles, Argentinean actor and singer Dick Haymes, socialite Prince Aly Khan, and producer James Hill.

Stewart Granger (1913-1993)

Birth name: James Lablache Stewart
Birthdate: Tuesday, May 6th, 1913
Location: London, UK

Died: Monday, August 16th, 1993
Location: Santa Monica, California, USA
Cause of death: Bone and prostate cancer

Best known for: Actor associated with heroic and romantic leading roles between the 1940s and 1960s. Although he was never nominated for an Oscar, he found great fame and success in films such as Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), Blanche Fury (1948), King Solomon's Mines (1950) and North to Alaska (1960). He had two famous wives - the English actresses Elspeth March (1938-48) and Jean Simmons (1950-60).

North to Alaska was actually the last Hollywood film Stewart made, having turned down a role in 1959's Ben-Hur as he refused to take second billing to Charlton Heston. The 1960s was taken up with productions in Europe, principally Germany, where he took on the role of Old Surehand in three adaptations of Karl May's Western novels - Amongst Vultures aka Frontier Hellcat (1964), The Oil Prince aka Rampage at Apache Wells (1965) and Old Surehand aka Flaming Frontier (1965). Further 1960s work included the Italian production Requiem for a Secret Agent (1966), the British/ German co-production The Trygon Factor (1966) and the British/ American co-production The Last Safari (1967).

Betty Grable (1916-1973)

Birth name: Elizabeth Ruth Grable
Birthdate: Monday, December 18th, 1916
Location: St Louis, Missouri, USA

Died: Monday, July 2nd, 1973
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Cause of death: Lung cancer

Best known for: Actress, dancer and singer who enjoyed great success in the war years and the 1950s with a string of Technicolor musicals, becoming the number one box office draw of 1943. For all her fame and success, however, she wasn't once nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe or Emmy. Her famous legs, however, were insured with Lloyds of London for $1m.

The year 1952 was the turning point in Betty's career. Until that point, she'd enjoyed hit after hit and was one of the most popular and highest paid entertainers on the planet. But in 1952, at the age of 35, her contract with 20th Century Fox came up for renewal and Betty asked for more money and more say in the type of films she starred in. The studio refused and Betty went out on strike, and was replaced in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by a certain Marilyn Monroe. In late 1952 Betty failed to turn up for work to film the musical comedy The Girl Next Door, and she was promptly suspended by Fox. Incidentally, Betty was replaced in this film by June Haver, but The Girl Next Door became her last movie, and she quit Hollywood to join a convent!

Gary Cooper (1901-1961)

Birth name: Frank James Cooper
Birthdate: Tuesday, May 7th, 1901
Location: Helena, Montana, USA

Died: Saturday, May 13th, 1961
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Cause of death: Cancer

Best known for: Major movie star whose career spanned from the end of the silent era to the end of its "golden" years. He came to prominence with 1929's The Virginian, and followed that with hits such as A Farewell to Arms (1932), Sergeant York (1941), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) and High Noon (1952). He won two Oscars - for Sergeant York and High Noon - and was nominated for a further three - for Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (he lost to Paul Muni, James Cagney and Paul Lukas respectively). He also won a Golden Globe for High Noon.

Jessica Tandy (1909-1994)

Birth name: Jessie Alice Tandy
Birthdate: Monday, June 7th, 1909
Location: London, UK

Died: Sunday, September 11th, 1994
Location: Easton, Connecticut, USA
Cause of death: Ovarian cancer

Best known for: British actress who enjoyed a solid career over almost seven decades, but who might be best known for her work toward the latter end of her lifetime. She won a Best Actress Oscar in 1990 for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and was nominated for a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar in 1992 for Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1991, losing out to Mercedes Ruehl).

Fritz Lang (1890-1976)

Birth name: Friedrich Christian Anton Lang
Birthdate: Friday, December 5th, 1890
Location: Vienna, Austria-Hungary

Died: Monday, August 2nd, 1976
Location: Beverly Hills, California, USA
Cause of death: Stroke

Best known for: Pioneering director and producer from the German Expressionism school of film making who gave the world the groundbreaking spectacle of Metropolis (1927), as well as M (1931) and The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933). However, he was never nominated for an Oscar, or indeed any of the major movie awards that Hollywood's glitterati crave.

Following the success of his European films, Hollywood signed Fritz up to cash in on his talent, and films such as Fury (1936), Ministry of Fear (1944), The Big Heat (1953) and Moonfleet (1955) were born in a 21-year career Stateside. But as the 1950s wore on it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to secure the financial backing from the Hollywood studios that he required, and after 1956's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, he returned to Germany, lured by the opportunity to make a film of his ex-wife Thea von Harbou's novel Das Indische Grabmal, something he'd toyed with in 1921.