Acting

Liz Smith

Born December 11, 1921 · Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, UK

Died December 24, 2016 · aged 95

Betty Gleadle (December 11, 1921 – December 24, 2016), known by the stage name Liz Smith, was an English character actress, known for her roles in BBC sitcoms, including as Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared (1975–1979), the sisters Bette and Belle in 2point4 Children (1991–1999), Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–1996) and Norma Speakman ("Nana") in The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2…

Known For

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory · 2005

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

MovieAdventureComedy

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit · 2005

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

MovieAdventureAnimation

Cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his cunning canine pal Gromit run a business ridding the town of garden pests. Using only humane methods, which turns their home into a halfway house for evicted vermin, the pair stumble upon a mystery involving a voracious vegetarian monster that threatens to ruin the annual veggie-growing contest.

City of Ember

City of Ember · 2008

MovieAdventureFamily

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers, in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, before the the lights go out forever.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover · 1989

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

MovieCrimeDrama

When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.

Keeping Mum

Keeping Mum · 2005

A pastor preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon fails to realize that his wife is having an affair and his children are up to no good.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland · 1999

Alice in Wonderland

MovieFantasyFamily

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into a whimsical Wonderland, where she meets characters like the delightful Cheshire Cat, the clumsy White Knight, a rude caterpillar, and the hot-tempered Queen of Hearts and can grow ten feet tall or shrink to three inches. But will she ever be able to return home?

Son of the Pink Panther

Son of the Pink Panther · 1993

Son of the Pink Panther

MovieComedyCrime

The illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau is on the case of the kidnapped Princess Yasmin.

Trail of the Pink Panther

Trail of the Pink Panther · 1982

Trail of the Pink Panther

MovieComedyCrime

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.

Filmography

Sort

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory · 2005

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

MovieAdventureComedy

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.

Grandma Georgina

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit · 2005

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

MovieAdventureAnimation

Cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his cunning canine pal Gromit run a business ridding the town of garden pests. Using only humane methods, which turns their home into a halfway house for evicted vermin, the pair stumble upon a mystery involving a voracious vegetarian monster that threatens to ruin the annual veggie-growing contest.

Mrs. Mulch (voice)

City of Ember

City of Ember · 2008

MovieAdventureFamily

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers, in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, before the the lights go out forever.

Granny

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover · 1989

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

MovieCrimeDrama

When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.

Grace

Keeping Mum

Keeping Mum · 2005

A pastor preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon fails to realize that his wife is having an affair and his children are up to no good.

Mrs. Parker

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland · 1999

Alice in Wonderland

MovieFantasyFamily

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into a whimsical Wonderland, where she meets characters like the delightful Cheshire Cat, the clumsy White Knight, a rude caterpillar, and the hot-tempered Queen of Hearts and can grow ten feet tall or shrink to three inches. But will she ever be able to return home?

Miss Lory

Son of the Pink Panther

Son of the Pink Panther · 1993

Son of the Pink Panther

MovieComedyCrime

The illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau is on the case of the kidnapped Princess Yasmin.

Marta Balls

Trail of the Pink Panther

Trail of the Pink Panther · 1982

Trail of the Pink Panther

MovieComedyCrime

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.

Martha Balls (archive footage)

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist · 2005

MovieCrimeDrama

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

Old Woman

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol · 1984

A Christmas Carol

MovieDramaFantasy

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

Mrs. Dilber

Curse of the Pink Panther

Curse of the Pink Panther · 1983

Curse of the Pink Panther

MovieComedyCrime

Inspector Clouseau disappears, and the Surete wants the world's second best detective to look for him. However, Clouseau's enemy, Dreyfus, rigs the Surete's computer to select, instead, the world's WORST detective, NYPD Sgt. Clifton Sleigh. Sleigh obtusely bungles his way past assassins and corrupt officials as though he were Clouseau's American cousin.

Marta Balls

The Duellists

The Duellists · 1977

In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.

Fortune Teller

The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant's Woman · 1981

The French Lieutenant's Woman

MovieDramaRomance

In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.

Mrs. Fairley

Secrets & Lies

Secrets & Lies · 1996

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

Woman with Cat

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol · 1999

A Christmas Carol

MovieDramaFantasy

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

Mrs. Dilber

High Spirits

High Spirits · 1988

MovieFantasyComedy

When a hotelier attempts to fill the chronic vacancies at his castle by launching an advertising campaign that falsely portrays the property as haunted, two actual ghosts show up and end up falling for two guests.

Mrs. Plunkett

Haunted

Haunted · 1995

MovieMysteryHorror

Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.

Old gypsy woman

The Monster Club

The Monster Club · 1981

The Monster Club

MovieHorrorComedy

A vampire attacks a horror author on the street and then invites him to a nearby club as a gesture of gratitude, which turns out to be a meeting place for assorted creatures of the night. The vampire then regales him with three stories, each interspersed with musical performances at the club.

Villager

Tube Tales

Tube Tales · 1999

Nine short stories based on the true experiences of London Underground passengers: "Mr. Cool" (Amy Jenkins, dir.); "Horny" (Stephen Hopkins); "Grasshopper" (Menhaj Huda); "My Father the Liar" (Bob Hoskins); "Bone" (Ewan McGregor); "Mouth" (Armando Iannucci); "A Bird in the Hand" (Jude Law); "Rosebud" (Gaby Dellal); "Steal Away" (Charles McDougall)

Older Lady (segment "Horny")

Britannia Hospital

Britannia Hospital · 1982

Britannia Hospital

MovieComedyScience Fiction

Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.

Maisie

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby · 2001

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

MovieDramaTV Movie

A young, compassionate man struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his cold-hearted, grasping uncle.

Peg Sliderskew

Little Dorrit

Little Dorrit · 1987

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.

Mrs. Bangham

Harem

MovieRomanceDrama

A young British woman is kidnapped by an Arabian sheikh and held captive in his harem. At first she frantically tries to escape, but as they slowly get to know and appreciate each other the difference between captor and captive dissolves.

Mrs. Pendleton

A Private Function

A Private Function · 1984

A Private Function

In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.

Mother

Play for Today

Play for Today · 1970

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Mrs. Thornley

Casualty

Casualty · 1986

SeriesDramaSoap

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

Tillie

Screen Two

Screen Two · 1985

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Mrs. Slatterthwaite

Crown Court

Crown Court · 1972

Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.

Last of the Summer Wine

Last of the Summer Wine · 1973

Last of the Summer Wine

Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.

Housekeeper

The Paul O'Grady Show

The Paul O'Grady Show · 2004

The Paul O'Grady Show

SeriesComedyTalk

The Paul O'Grady Show is a British comedy chat show hosted by Birkenhead-born comedian Paul O'Grady. The format was originally devised by Granada Television and was broadcast on ITV before moving to Channel 4, where the show was produced by Olga TV. The programme is a teatime chat show consisting of a mixture of celebrity guests, comic stunts, musical performances, and occasionally viewer competitions.

The Bill

The Bill · 1984

SeriesCrimeDrama

The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.

Performance

Performance · 1991

An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.

Anyula

The Ruth Rendell Mysteries

The Ruth Rendell Mysteries · 1987

The Ruth Rendell Mysteries

SeriesDramaMystery

The Ruth Rendell mysteries is a British television series made by TVS and Meridian Television for ITV between 2 August 1987 and 11 October 2000.

Lena Finn

The Sweeney

The Sweeney · 1975

SeriesAction & AdventureDrama

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

Mrs. Davies

Lark Rise to Candleford

Lark Rise to Candleford · 2008

Lark Rise to Candleford

Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm-workers, craftsmen and gentry at the end of the 19th Century. Lark Rise to Candleford is a love letter to a vanished corner of rural England and a heart-warming drama series teeming with wit, wisdom and romance.

Zillah

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles · 1992

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

SeriesAction & AdventureDrama

At the dawn of the 20th century, Indiana Jones discovered the world. From globetrotting family expeditions as a 9-year-old to the battlefields of World War I as a teenager, Indy’s experiences shaped the heroic, whip-cracking archaeologist he would become. At every turn, Indy encounters history in the making, meeting true-life activists, soldiers, writers, artists, and thinkers who helped influence the world we live in today.

Delfina

Trial & Retribution

Trial & Retribution · 1997

Trial & Retribution

SeriesCrimeDrama

Devised and written by Lynda La Plante as a follow-on from her successful television series Prime Suspect, this vast police procedural follows police detectives in England as they investigate crimes and the trials that come about as a result.

Mrs Dorothy Norton

Lovejoy

Lovejoy · 1986

SeriesComedyDrama

The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.

Florence

Screen One

Screen One · 1989

Anthology drama series.

Mrs. Thompson

The Vicar of Dibley

The Vicar of Dibley · 1994

The Vicar of Dibley

Reverend Granger is assigned as the Vicar of the rural parish of Dibley, but she is not quite what the villagers expected.

Letitia Cropley

Bottom

Richie Richard (socially awkward, sexually inexperienced) and Eddie Hitler (carefree alcoholic ) are two social outcasts living on the dole. Trapped together in a squalid flat in Hammersmith, London they are perpetually skint, bored and sexually frustrated. They spend their days scheming, bickering, and being nasty and sadistic to each other.

Fortune Teller

2Point4 Children

2Point4 Children · 1991

2Point4 Children

They're just your average family. Stressed mum Bill, daft dad Ben, and two troublesome teens. Plus just a few crazy ideas, escapades and mishaps. The classic 90s sitcom.

Bette

The Royle Family

The Royle Family · 1998

The Royle Family

The Royle Family is a British sitcom created by Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, and produced by Granada Television for BBC Two (series 1) and BBC One (series 2 and 3). It centres on the lives of a television-fixated Manchester family, the Royles, comprising lazy patriarch Jim, his hard-working wife Barbara, their entitled daughter Denise, their put-upon son Antony, and Denise's lad fiancé–later husband–David.

Norma 'Nana' Speakman

The Duchess of Duke Street

The Duchess of Duke Street · 1976

The Duchess of Duke Street

In Victorian London, Louisa Leyton works her way up from servant to renowned cook to proprietress of the upper-class Bentinck Hotel in Duke Street, St James's.

Nanny

Cluedo

SeriesCrimeDrama

Cluedo was a UK television game show based on the board game of the same name. Each week, a reenactment of the murder at the stately home Arlington Grange of a visiting guest was played and, through a combination of interrogating the suspects and deduction, celebrity guests had to discover who committed the murder, which of six weapons and in which room it was committed, whilst viewers were invited to play along at home.

Mrs. White

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime · 1983

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime

SeriesMysteryComedy

Spirited dialogue, posh Roaring '20s style, and devious mysteries abound as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford mix marriage and mystery solving.

Hannah Macpherson

The Queen's Nose

The Queen's Nose · 1995

The Queen's Nose

Children's series about a magic coin that can grant wishes.

Grandma

Takin' Over the Asylum

Takin' Over the Asylum · 1994

Takin' Over the Asylum

SeriesComedyDrama

A salesman starts to run a hospital radio station inside a facility for people with mental heath needs.

Harriet