Sandra Caron | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sandra L. Cogan 1936 Stepney, east London |
| Died | 1 September 2025 (aged 89) |
| Alma mater | Aida Foster Theatre School |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Television | The Crystal Maze |
Sandra L. Cogan (1936 - 1 September 2025), known as Sandra Caron, was a British actress.
Born in Stepney in east London, she trained at the Aida Foster Theatre School. [1] She took her stage name in honour of Leslie Caron in part to avoid accusations that she was trading on the popularity of her sister, Alma Cogan, [2] who The Guardian described in 2002 as "the most highly paid woman in British show business in the 1950s and 1960s". [3] In the late 1960s, Caron acted as part of The Second City in 20,000 Frozen Grenadiers [4] and appeared in the films The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom and Carry On Camping. She married American actor Brian Greene in 1985. [1]
In 1990, Caron appeared in the first series of The Crystal Maze as a fortune teller who was subsequently christened Mumsey by the program's host Richard O'Brien. The character appeared regularly in the first, second, and fourth series but was ostensibly holidaying in Bratislava during the third, so Caron instead played Auntie Sabrina, a character described by UKGameshows.com as "a 1960s anachronism of bad taste with the earrings to prove it". O'Brien and Mumsey left on-screen at the start of the fifth series; Maureen Lipman replaced Caron for the show's 2016 revival. [5] Her final on-screen appearance was in 1995 in Agony Again. [1]
Caron published Alma Cogan: A Memoir in 1991 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her death [3] and was performing Fifty Million Frenchmen at the Royal Opera House in London with Jessica Martin in June 2002. [6] [7] After hearing from Martin that the planned BBC Radio 4 series Stage Mother, Sequinned Daughter - which did not mention Caron but did depict Alma as a drunkard and their mother as overbearing - she consulted with her barrister cousin Sir Ivan Lawrence QC, who advised her to seek an injunction to halt its broadcast. The injunction was unsuccessful on the grounds that it did not devalue Cogan's estate, [3] however the BBC did apologise in December 2003 after the Broadcasting Standards Commission ruled that the series had been unfair on Cogan's surviving relatives. [8] Caron moved with Greene to Los Angeles in 2015 and died at that city's Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on 1 September 2025, six weeks after being hospitalised following extreme weight loss and several falls. [1]
| Title | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Not Only... But Also | 1965 | The White Woman |
| The Late Show | 1966 | Self |
| Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River | 1968 | Pinto's nurse [10] |
| The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom | 1968 | Pet shop assistant |
| Carry on Camping | 1969 | Fanny |
| About Face | 1989 | Wife |
| The Green Man | 1990 | Mrs Klinger |
| Agony Again | 1995 | Lily |