relationships with other women. In 1943, he married a dancer, Meg Sergei (née Williams; 28 August 1913 – 10 April 1977; aged 63); in 1947, they had a daughter Reina. They were divorced on 17 August 1952. On 21 August 1952, James married Valerie Elizabeth Patsy Assan (1928 – 8 May 2022; aged 93), an actress who used Ashton as her stage name. They had a son, Steve James, born in 1954, who became a music producer, and a daughter, Sue, who became a television producer. During the latter part of their marriage, they lived in a house partly designed by James himself, Delaford Park, in Iver, Buckinghamshire, a location close enough to Pinewood Studios to allow him to return home for lunch while filming. During his marriage to Valerie, he had a well-publicised affair with Carry On co-star Barbara Windsor lasting three years. The affair was dramatised in the 1998 stage-play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and its 2000 television adaptation Cor, Blimey!. James's obsession with Windsor was such that it was rumoured that her then husband Ronnie Knight had all of James's furniture rearranged at home as a subtle threat and, on another occasion, put an axe in James's floor, but close friends of the time, including Vince Powell and William G. Stewart, dismissed the suggestions. According to his biographer Cliff Goodwin, James struck his pregnant girlfriend, and he also struck his first wife when she was pregnant. James was an inveterate and largely unsuccessful gambler, losing tens of thousands of pounds over his lifetime. His gambling addiction was such that he had an agreement with his agent, Michael Sullivan, under which his wife was not told how much he was being paid, so that a portion could be set aside for gambling. Death James was on tour on a revival of production The Mating Season, on 26 April, 1976 when he suffered a heart attack on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre. Actresses Olga Lowe and Audrey Jeans thought that he was playing a practical joke at first when he failed to reply to their dialogue. When he failed to reply to their ad libs, they moved towards the wings to seek help. The technical manager, Melvyn James (no relation), called for the curtain to close and requested a doctor, while the audience – who were unaware of what was happening – laughed, believing the events to