Sorry, but as Mae West observed, goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.
Ms. Dearie didn't suffer fools gladly and was unafraid to voice her disdain for music she didn't like; the songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber were a particular pet peeve.
In West's first line on film, after a hat check girl remarks "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds", West replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie".
To an innocent hoop-skirted Southern Belle who thought she might comfort her young men (segregated in the Union hospital), Matron Brannan explains, "Military hospitals and crinolines don't mix, dearie".
Coren complains in the Radio Times: "In the wartime programme we had these old dears in a pub singalong and we had jam jars to drink beer out of and they were saying [assumes old dear voice] 'Oh no, dearie, we never done that!'..
That you are, indeed, dead - but won't lie down?'Oohoh, I don't think so, dearie,' she might've replied.
"Oh, dearie, I don't know about such things.
"Oh, dearie, I never do this, but . . .
"Don't ever admit it, dearie," said the girl.
This is what Judge Korman's father said about the sentencing: "Don't even think about talking to Dearie on this one.
