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Joanna Lumley OBE, FRGS (born 1 May 1946) is an Indian-born English
actress and former model best known for her roles in The New Avengers, Absolutely
Fabulous and Sapphire and Steel.
 Early
career
Joanna Lumley was born in Srinagar, India in 1946. She was educated at St Mary's
School in Sussex. Tall, leggy, slim and blonde, Lumley spent three years as a
photographic model, and is said to have made her TV debut in a well-known UK advert
for Nimble bread first screened in 1969. She also worked as a house model for the
late Jean Muir.
Lumley's acting career began with the role of a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's
Secret Service (1969). She went on to have a brief but memorable role in Coronation
Street in which she turned down Ken Barlow's offer of marriage. In the Are You
Being Served? episode entitled "His and Hers" broadcast on BBC1 on 11 April 1973
(season 1; episode 4), she was guest star as perfume representative Miss French. In
the 3 April 1975 episode entitled "German Week" (season 3; episode 6), she was
again guest star, on that occasion as "German Lady."
Major
roles
Her first major role, however, was as Purdey in The New Avengers, a revival of the
secret agent series The Avengers. Although critical reaction to the series was
lukewarm, the casting of Lumley was seen as inspired and following the tradition of
iconic Avengers actresses Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg and Linda Thorson. Lumley's
bobbed hairstyle quickly became known as the 'Purdey bob' and was hugely popular
for a time in the mid-1970s.
In 1979 she appeared in another series with a cult following: Sapphire and Steel,
opposite David McCallum. Conceived as ITV's answer to Doctor Who, Lumley played a
mysterious ephemeral being ('Sapphire') who, with her cohort 'Steel', dealt with
breaches in the fabric of time.
Lumley went on to find fame with a new generation for her portrayal of the chain
smoking, boozing, cocaine-sniffing and other drug-taking sexpot fashion director
Patsy Stone on the British comedy television show Absolutely Fabulous (1992 -
2004).
She has specialised in playing upper-class parts, and her distinctive plummy voice
has reinforced this. However she has demonstrated her ability to go beyond
stereotypical images, most notably in the monologue series of playlets Up In Town
(2002), written by Hugo Blick, and focusing on a society hostess's realisation that
her star is fading.
Other work has included: The Curse of Fatal Death — a special 1999 Comic Relief
episode of Doctor Who — where she was a female version of the Doctor, a film about
a journey made by her grandparents in Bhutan - In the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon
(1996) - and A Rather English Marriage (nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress
1999) and Dr Willoughby. In 1995 she provided the voice of Annie the rag doll in
the animated series The Forgotten Toys. In 2000 she co-produced a new drama series
entitled The Cazalets. She has also appeared in a TV series on Sarawak, where she
spent time as a girl.
Lumley stars as the elderly Delilah Stagg in the 2006 sitcom; Jam & Jerusalem
alongside Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Sue Johnston.
Other
Work
Lumley has gained prominence as a voice over actress and is one of the most
recognised voices in the United Kingdom. Users of AOL in the United Kingdom are
familiar with Joanna Lumley's voice. She recorded the greeting "Welcome to AOL" for
that company. It is, therefore, the first thing that a UK AOL user hears when
logging on.
Private
life
Following her rise to fame, she revealed that she had been an unmarried mother (son
James, born 1967) during the 1960s when it was socially unacceptable. James
Lumley's natural father is the photographer Michael Claydon and is of Anglo Indian
ethnicity. The first of her two subsequent marriages was to comedy writer Jeremy
Lloyd (Are You Being Served? see early career). In (1986) she married conductor
Stephen Barlow; they live in London.
Lumley was awarded an OBE in 1995. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical
Society (FRGS). In 2006 she was awarded an honorary degree from the University of
St. Andrews.
She is a noted animal rights campaigner and vegetarian. She is also a car
enthusiast, whose favourite TV programme is Top Gear. Her favourite car is a
Triumph Stag convertible. She has been involved with a number of charities,
including The Druk White Lotus School (in Kashmir), The Born Free Foundation, Mind
(the UK mental health charity), Sight Savers, The Friends of Kadzinuni and many
others. She has an interest in and concern about environmental matters, and
sponsors the Joanna Lumley Fellowship in Environmental Science at the University of
Oxford. At the 2007 Chelsea Flower Show, Lumley had a fuschia named after her.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Joanna
Lumley - Manifestor - Biography
