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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Comedy queen Beulah dies

by

20161031

She was one of T&T's icon­ic ac­tress­es with an in­fec­tious laugh, these were the words used to de­scribe Shirley "Beu­lah" King, 73, who died yes­ter­day just four days af­ter her hus­band was laid to rest.

"This is so sur­re­al. I re­mem­ber her hus­band in his white car al­ways wait­ing to pick her up af­ter dra­ma prac­tice or plays. They were al­ways meant to be to­geth­er, so sur­re­al," ac­tress Pene­lope Spencer said dur­ing a phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

King, the moth­er of three– two adopt­ed chil­dren and one, bi­o­log­i­cal son–was at a nurs­ing home in Cunu­pia where she took in ill dur­ing the pre-dawn hours of yes­ter­day. She was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty where she died short­ly be­fore 8 am.

For years King bat­tled a se­ries of med­ical is­sues, in­clud­ing di­a­betes, high blood pres­sure, os­teo-arthri­tis, bron­chi­tis and asth­ma. Three months ago she suf­fered a stroke and was hos­pi­talised for over two months be­fore be­ing dis­charged and placed in a nurs­ing home.

Ac­cord­ing to her on­ly broth­er of six sib­lings, Fran­cis Noy Fran­cois, be­cause of her bed-rid­den state she was un­able to at­tend her hus­band's fu­ner­al last Fri­day.

King's hus­band, Richard, died on Oc­to­ber 21, af­ter ail­ing for years.

Fran­cois said he last spoke to his sis­ter last Thurs­day while at the nurs­ing home. "She was in very good spir­its. She spoke a few con­fi­den­tial things with me which should have giv­en me the sign that it was her last few days. I did go back to see her the next day but she was sleep­ing," he added.

He de­scribed his sis­ter as a leader. "She was very gen­er­ous and made peo­ple laugh. She had it so nat­ur­al be­cause that type of hu­mour and act­ing runs in the fam­i­ly but she was the on­ly one that be­came pop­u­lar from it when she was in­tro­duced to the late Fred­die Kissoon. We were all so proud of her and her amaz­ing act­ing skills," he said.

Fran­cois spoke of his sis­ter right in front the very house that she grew up in at the cor­ner of Fran­cois and Free­dom Streets, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas. Al­though she was born in Point Fortin in 1942 King grew up in En­ter­prise.

King's col­league in the­atre and friend, Spencer re­called that when she (Spencer) was a lit­tle girl grow­ing up, she want­ed to be just like King.

"I want­ed to em­u­late that kind of com­e­dy. Beu­lah and Fred­die Kissoon were my in­spi­ra­tion to get in this busi­ness at one lev­el.

"I re­mem­ber the first time we had a scene to­geth­er at a com­e­dy show I was ex­pect­ing to see that char­ac­ter that I saw on stage back­stage but back­stage Beu­lah was so hum­ble and qui­et and with­in her­self. You wouldn't even have known that she was back­stage. When she was on stage she made her pres­ence known," she said.

In Sep­tem­ber 2015, King's health took a turn for the worst when she suf­fered an asth­ma at­tack that caused her to lose con­scious­ness. She was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where she was treat­ed and ward­ed in the In­ten­sive Care Unit. While there, on No­vem­ber 20, King lost her three-bed­room house to a fire.

When she was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal King took to so­cial me­dia in a bid to get fi­nan­cial help to re­build her home.

Her fu­ner­al will take place on Thurs­day from 2 pm at the Ch­agua­nas Ro­man Catholic Church.


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