Yootha Joyce Yootha Joyce Yootha Joyce Needham (20 August 1927 – 24 August 1980), credited as Yootha Joyce, was a British actress best known for playing Mildred Roper opposite Brian Murphy in the sitcom "Man About the House" and its spin-off "George and Mildred". Needham was born in Wandsworth, London, the only child of musical parents Hurst Needham, a well-known singer, and Jessica Revitt, a concert pianist. She was named "Yootha", an Australian Aboriginal name, after a New Zealand dancer in her father's touring company. She was evacuated to Hampshire during the Second World War. She left school (Lady Edridge Grammar school
1970s in television starring Alan Alda, focused on the days of the Korean War, combined both comedy and drama. By the mid-to-late 1970s, viewers tired of socially responsible sitcoms. Former CBS head of programming Fred Silverman defected to struggling ABC started the trend of TV centred on sexual gratification and bawdy humor and situations, nicknamed "jiggle television." Jiggle TV shows included the crime-fighting television series "Charlie's Angels", which starred up-and-coming sex symbols Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson and the risqué sitcom such as "Three's Company", modeled after the British series "Man About the House", in which swinging single-man Robin Trip pretended