Personal Services Personal Services Personal Services is a 1987 British comedy film directed by Terry Jones and written by David Leland. It is the story of the rise of a madam of a suburban brothel which caters to older men. The story is inspired by the real experiences of Cynthia Payne, the legendary "House of Cyn" madam. Christine Painter (Julie Walters) is a sexually naive waitress and single-mother who pays for her teenage son's tuition by renting flats to local call girls. She later becomes a call girl herself – joining her friend Shirley (Shirley Stelfox) and their "maid" Dolly (Danny Schiller)
Laurence Payne Laurence Payne Laurence Stanley Payne (5 June 1919 – 23 February 2009) was an English actor and novelist. Payne was born in London. His father died when he was three years old, and he and his elder brother and sister were brought up by their mother, a Wesleyan Methodist in Wood Green, London. He attended Belmont School and Tottenham Grammar School, leaving at 16 to take a clerical job. After training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1939, he was exempted from war service as a conscientious objector on condition that he went on tour with the Old