 A very bulky, very enjoyable character actress, in demand on both sides of the Atlantic, having settled in the US in 1989. Though she had been in films since 1969's A Nice Girl Like Me (d. Desmond Davis), she really came to the fore in the '80s with strong roles in The Good Father (d. Mike Newell, 1986) and, especially, as Flora Finching in Little Dorrit (d. Christine Edzard, 1987). She won a supporting actress BAFTA for her richly knowing portrayal of Mrs Manson Mingott in The Age of Innocence (US, d. Martin Scorsese, 1993) and more than held her own against all-conquering youth in Romeo+Juliet (US, d. Baz Luhrmann, 1996), as the Nurse. She has also worked incessantly on TV (Blackadder II, BBC, 1985; Miss Crawley in Vanity Fair, BBC, 1998) and stage, winning golden opinions for her 1990s one-woman show, Dickens' Women, as well as doing voice-overs for such as Babe (Australia, d. Chris Noonan, 1995). She was awarded the OBE in 2002. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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FILM & TV CREDITS
