The cover art for the Smiths single 'Ask' features a photo-still of English actress Yootha Joyce on the set of the 1965 film Catch Us If You Can* (the same photograph was used on the 1986 German-only single release of 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others').
Yootha Joyce Needham (1927 – 1980) is best known for playing the character Mildred Roper in the British sitcom Man About the House (1973–1976) and its spin-off, George and Mildred (1976–1979).  The series was remade in the United States as Three's Company in 1977.
Yootha Joyce Needham was born in London, the only child of musical parents Percival ("Hurst") Needham, a singer, and Jessica Revitt, a concert pianist. She was named "Yootha" after a New Zealand dancer in her father's touring company, a name she would later say she "loathed and detested".  Joyce dropped the 'Needham' from her name and began using the stage name 'Yootha Joyce' in 1945, saying "it seemed less of a mouthful... being stuck with Yootha is enough".
Joyce died of liver failure four days after her 53rd birthday on August 24, 1980. At the inquest into Joyce's death, it was revealed that she had been drinking up to half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years and recently very much more, and that she had, in the words of her lawyer Mario Uziell-Hamilton, become a victim of her own success, and dreaded the thought of being typecast as Mildred Roper. The pathologist stated that Joyce's liver was twice the normal size and that her heart and lungs had also suffered because of her drinking; Joyce's cause of death was given as portal cirrhosis of the liver. Joyce's biography implies that she turned to drink to steady her nerves, particularly after her divorce and subsequent failed relationships, loneliness, typecasting, lack of other work, and lack of privacy due to the popularity of her character, Mildred Roper, and had become depressed.
Joyce appeared posthumously in her last recorded television performance, duetting with Max Bygraves on his variety show Max, singing the song 'For All We Know We May Never Meet Again'. The episode was aired several months after Joyce's death. The actor/comedian Kenneth Williams wrote in his diary of the performance that "she [Joyce] looked as though she was crying... as she got up [and left the set] one had the feeling she never intended to return." He also went on to mention her in a later entry in his diary that "there was a break in her voice when she got to [the line] tomorrow may never come... she was a lady who made so many people happy and a lady who never complained".
*Catch Us If You Can (U.S. title: Having a Wild Weekend), also known as The Dave Clark Five Runs Wild was the 1965 feature-film debut of director John Boorman. The film was designed as a vehicle for pop band the Dave Clark Five, whose popularity at the time rivalled that of the Beatles. The film's name is from the Dave Clark Five's hit song, 'Catch Us If You Can'.
Enjoy a short clip of Yootha Joyce playing Mildred Roper in George and Mildred:Â