Mrs Doubtfire: Iconic film character was based on real-life Madame Doubtfire from Aberdeen

Aberdeen's Madame Doubtfire was an eccentric, pipe-smoking shopkeeper who ran a second-hand clothing shop in Edinburgh.

By Kirstie Waterston

April 23 2023, 6:00 am

Mrs Doubtfire and Annabella Doubtfire, the formidable shopkeeper who inspired the comic character. Image: Shutterstock/DC Thomson

Mrs Doubtfire is an iconic 1990s film, but the canny character was inspired by a real-life Madame Doubtfire who hailed from Aberdeen.

The film, starring Robin Williams in the title role, follows the recently divorced Daniel Hillard who dresses up as a female housekeeper to spend time with his children.

The character he invents to enable his ruse is Mrs Doubtfire, a firm but fair nanny with a posh Edinburgh accent.

Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire. Image: Moviestore/Shutterstock

While Mrs Doubtfire’s on-screen escapades are rather fanciful, the real-life Madame Doubtfire’s exploits are also stranger than fiction.

Speaking in 1993, her great-nephews in Aberdeen, Alan and Bruce Noble, described their “notorious” Auntie Bel’s story as “incredible”.

Madame Doubtfire was a formidable and eccentric pipe-smoking shopkeeper who ran a second-hand clothing shop in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh.

She was also a discreet pawnbroker for the rich and famous.

Annabella ‘Madame’ Doubtfire who was born Aberdeen. Image: Doubtfire Contemporary Art

Annabella’s early years in Aberdeen

The real-life legend provided inspiration for author Anne Fine when writing her 1987 book Alias Madame Doubtfire.

But the redoubtable Madame Doubtfire’s story, itself worthy of the silver screen, began in Aberdeen.

Annabella Cruickshank Adams was born to John and Margaret Adams on December 18 1886.

An old street map of Aberdeen with Innes Street marked with a red X. Image: NLS

She was born at 12 Innes Street in Aberdeen, a long-lost city-centre street swept away during the development of North East Scotland College at Gallowgate.

In 1901, aged just 14, Annabella was a fish worker, living at the city’s Barnett’s Close with her parents and three siblings.

Barnett’s Close, which used to be where Marischal Square stands now, was demolished as part of slum clearances in the 1930s.

But young Annabella wasn’t destined to live in a slum or become a fishwife.

Sweetheart killed in First World War

In 1906 when she was 20, Annabella married a soldier, Private Arthur Doubtfire who served with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) as a bugler.

The sweethearts got married at Annabella’s family home at 6 Miller Street in Fittie, another Aberdeen street lost to redevelopment.

Arthur hailed from London, and the couple moved to Essex where he continued serving with the Cameronians, eventually being promoted to Company Sergeant Major.

The junction of Baltic Street and Miller Street in Footdee showing run-down buildings in 1962. Image: DC Thomson

When war erupted in Europe in 1914, Arthur served in France before being sent to Greece to fight in the Macedonian front theatre of war.

Sadly Arthur’s life – and Annabella’s marriage – was cut short when he was killed aged 34 near Thessaloniki.

Upon his death, Annabella moved back to Scotland, settling in Edinburgh.

But her sense of loss is clear from the inscription she chose for his grave at the Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery at Sarigol in Greece.

It reads: “Rest in peace sweetheart, we will meet again, inserted by his sorrowing wife.”

An extract showing the grave inscription for Arthur Doubtfire, written by his wife Annabella. Image: Commonwealth War Grave Commission

The famous Madame Doubtfire’s shop

Now an independent young widow, Annabella made a living dealing furniture, and lived in Edinburgh’s well-to-do New Town, at 3 South East Circus Place.

In 1921, she got married again, this time to Dundee man James Coutts.

But it doesn’t appear they were a match made in heaven as they famously spent little time together.

1-3 South East Circus Place, the former premises of Madame Doubtfire in Edinburgh. Image: Google

Great-nephew Bruce said: “In the ’20s, she packed her husband off to Canada but he came back, so she promptly sent him on a world cruise.”

This was typical of Annabella, a headstrong and successful businesswoman.

By the 1930s, she could afford to buy the houses and retail premises at 1-3 South East Circus Place and established her famous shop ‘Madame Doubtfire’.

Quirky shop inspired book character

Her shop was a warren of basement rooms bursting at the seams with antique clothing and accessories.

Annabella would sit outside in her shawl, knitting, while smoking clay pipes surrounded by cats.

A family picture of Madame Doubtfire sitting outside her second-hand clothes and antiques shop knitting. Image: supplied

Speaking in 2014, author Anne Fine revealed how the quirky shop inspired the source of her title character’s name.

She said: “The name was nicked from a shop near to Edinburgh Academy in Stockbridge.

“It was called Madame Doubtfire and it had peeling paint and sold second hand clothes.

“To be honest a lot of them smelled of cat pee.

“You would buy stuff and wash it a dozen times but tragically it would still smell of cat pee.

“It was in a basement on a corner and if you ask anyone of my age or older in Edinburgh they will remember Madame Doubtfire.”

Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire. Image: Snap/Shutterstock

Madame Doubtfire was ‘rich people’s pawnbroker’

Her great-nephews certainly recalled Annabella’s Stockbridge shop.

Reminiscing about childhood memories of his great-auntie when the film Mrs Doubtfire came out in 1993, Bruce said: “She was notorious. She was the rich people’s pawnbroker.

“But she was discreet. She knew all their secrets and kept them to herself.”

Aristocrats who had fallen on hard times during the Great Depression would call Madame Doubtfire and ask her to visit them.

Aberdeen brothers Bruce, left, and Alan Noble from look at old photographs of their great aunt Annabella in 1994. Image: DC Thomson

Bruce added: “She would jump in her bull-nosed Morris Cowley and always had cash for them if they wanted.

“Sometimes it was the title deeds of their houses they handed over – that’s how she ended with property at Heriot Row.

“At one time she had three houses and when her estate was wound up we were told if she had still had all those properties she would have been a multi-millionaire.”

But the brothers admitted “that Bel liked a drink” and had “made and lost three fortunes”.

Madame Doubtfire’s legacy lives on

Annabella was known for her own distinctive style and was ahead of her time when it came to vintage fashion.

Bruce explained that she was very trendy – although her entire wardrobe came from her antique shop – and she was a bit of a charmer.

He added that she liked her gentlemen “but didn’t suffer any fools”.

Madame Doubtfire still has a presence in Stockbridge in the name and signage of the Doubtfire gallery. Image: Kirstie Waterston/DC Thomson

Following her mother’s death in 1947, Annabella returned to Aberdeen for the funeral and was immortalised in the Evening Express “strutting her stuff in a fur coat on a sweltering July day”.

Annabella closed her shop in 1974 and lived out her remaining days at a retirement home in Edinburgh in 1979, where she died at the ripe old age of 92.

Her nephews recalled that much of her fabulous memorabilia and trademark fur coat ended up at their parents’ house in Torry – and it was still there in 1993.

Annabella’s presence lives on in Stockbridge, more than 100 years after she first opened her shop, at ‘Doubtfire’ a contemporary art gallery which opened at her former shop premises in 2010.