Eileen Bennett who starred with George Formby in one of my favourites ‘Much Too Shy’ has died at her home in the USA a few days ago – at the age of almost 106

I hadn’t realised that she had a son – in fact two sons – but her son Nicholas Hammond was also an actor and he achieved lasting fame playing Friedrich Von Trapp in ‘The Sound of Music’

Eileen Bennett

Eileen Bennett BELOW – On the cover of ‘Illustrated’ at the time that she had just finished ‘Much Too Shy’

Eileen Bennett

After ‘Much Too Shy’ she made one other film and about that time must have met her future husband who was a High Ranking Officer in the US Army and stationed over here in the latter stages of the Second World War.

She then travelled back to the US and lived there for the rest of her long life

Eileen Bennett, who has died aged 105, was known to George Formby fans as his love interest in the 1942 comedy Much Too Shy and, during the war, played the ingénue lead, from 1942 to 1945, at the Strand Theatre in the West End production of Arsenic and Old Lace, when she was described by one critic as “the very essence of blonde pulchritude”.

In July 1945, however, she married Col Thomas Hammond, an American soldier stationed in London as an adjutant to General Eisenhower, and gave up her acting career for family life.

Eileen Mary Bennett was born in London on July 8 1919. Her father had been killed in the First World War and her mother Phyllis worked at the Royal College of Midwifery. From St Christopher’s School, Letchworth, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1936. During the war years she performed in BBC radio plays, had mostly small roles in films, and was one of the first on-air announcers for the BBC’s early television broadcasts.

In ‘Much Too Shy’ she played Jackie, a milkmaid who catches the eye of Formby’s handyman-artist. She recalled the production as a hand-to-mouth affair: “We even did our own hair and make-up,” she told the George Formby Society website. “Wartime rationing meant few precious clothing coupons so we had to provide our own clothes. Luckily I owned a smart Hyde Park riding outfit consisting of some good-looking riding boots and breeches, so I became one of the best dressed milkmaids in England.”

Eileen had a Hillman Minx and was allowed just enough petrol coupons to get her to and from the studios at Borehamwood, so she would give other cast members a lift.

Filming took place under the watchful eye of Formby’s famously domineering wife Beryl, but Eileen recalled that when Beryl had to go to a dental appointment, Formby’s manner underwent a dramatic change: “George and I were sitting in the milk wagon… Suddenly [he] started uttering all sorts of endearments and moving closer until our legs were touching.

“He was trembling with emotion. Poor man, he was so frustrated. I was petrified that Beryl would appear and could see that the crew knew what was going on by their winks.”

Eileen appeared in one more film, the comedy Thursday’s Child (1943) starring Sally Ann Howes and Wilfrid Lawson. Otherwise her main memory of the war years was being bombed out twice: “Fortunately I was out both times. The second time I was out gallivanting. I came back… and found the street cordoned off, my flat completely demolished, and my dog killed.”

She recalled that actors and audiences became quite insouciant about bombing raids. One day during a matinee performance of Arsenic and Old Lace, the theatre received a direct hit: “There was a tremendous explosion. The dust… was so overwhelming that we couldn’t see each other. We just waited for it to settle a bit and then continued. No one on stage or in the audience had moved.”

Eileen left Arsenic and Old Lace after her marriage, in September 1945. Postwar she followed her husband around military postings, to Paris and the US, and brought up their two sons, of whom Nicholas would follow his mother into acting, starring as Friedrich von Trapp in the film version of The Sound of Music (1965).

In 1970, soon after retirement in Washington, Thomas Hammond died from a heart attack. Eileen remained in Washington working as a guide for visiting foreign diplomatic families and at the Hillwood museum, home to a large decorative arts collection. Later she moved to an army retirement community