Star of classic radio comedies

Glaswegian comedy actress Molly Weir, best known as Hazel McWitch in Rentaghost, has died at the age of 94.

Despite winning new-found fame in the Eighties TV series, Weir made her name in the radio comedies of the Forties and Fifties.

After a stint in amateur dramatics, her break came when she joined the cast of Tommy Handley's ITMA (It’s That Man Again), then the most popular show in Britain and already in its tenth series, in 1946.

In 1950, she joined Life With The Lyons, another hit sitcom about the home life of Hollywood double act Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, a married couple living in London.

The show ran for 11 series, spawning two movies and a TV series, in which she also appeared.

Until Rentaghost in 1980, these were her only major screen roles, though she made a number of minor appearancesincluding Carry On Regardless, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing and Bless This House, with Sid James.

She died on Sunday in the Middlesex nursing home where she lived for the past year, since suffering a bad fall.

Published: 30 Nov 2004