Scarlet O’Hara

Pauline Petty, later Pauline Patricia Brennan, grew up around Rye Hill and Scotswood and performed as Scarlet O’Hara. She turned experiences of a deprived childhood into comedy material and built a career as a headline performer in working men’s clubs, in a circuit where women comedians faced substantial obstacles.

Her life and act were the subject of Laughing at Life, an edition of Tyne Tees Television’s Northern Scene first broadcast on 12 March 1981. The documentary connected the stories she told on stage with the life she had lived.