Dilys Laye (born Dilys Lay; 11 March 1934 – 13 February 2009) was an English actress and screenwriter, best known for her comedy roles. Early life Laye was born in Muswell Hill, London, the daughter of Edward Lay and his wife Margaret (née Hewitt). Her father left the family when she was aged eight to work as a musician in South Africa and never came back. During World War II Laye and her brother were evacuated to Devon, where they were unhappy and endured physical abuse. Laye returned home to a new stepfather and a mother who was keen to transfer her thwarted ambitions to her daughter. After education at St Dominic's Sixth Form College, Middlesex and training at the Aida Foster School, Laye made her stage debut aged 14 as a boy in a play called The Burning Bush at the New Lindsey Theatre and her film debut a year later as a younger version of Jean Kent in Trottie True. Career From 1950, Laye appeared in numerous West End revues, including And So to Bed, Intimacy at 8.30, For Amusement Only, and High Spirits. In 1954, she played the first Dulcie in The Boy Friend on Broadway alongside Julie Andrews, with whom she shared a Manhattan flat during the run. At this time she dated a young actor called James Garner. In 1957, she began appearing in films more regularly, including one of the schoolgirls in Blue Murder at St Trinian's and a married vamp trying to seduce Dirk Bogarde in Doctor at Large. She played a girl in the park, in the Norman Wisdom film Follow a Star (1959). She also appeared with Ian Carmichael in the comedy play The Tunnel of Love in the West End and was directed by Joan Littlewood in Make Me An Offer. In 1962, Laye made her first appearance in the Carry On films, replacing an unwell Joan Sims in Carry On Cruising at four days' notice. She returned in the James Bond parody Carry On Spying (1964), a hospital patient who falls in love with Bernard Bresslaw in Carry On Doctor (1967), and as his permanently car-sick companion, on holiday with Sid James and Sims in Carry On Camping (1969), her fourth and last in the series. Also, in 1962, Laye appeared in the British sitcom The Rag Trade. In 1965, she starred with her good friend Sheila Hancock in