Eleanor Bron
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Eleanor Bron (born 14 March, 1938) is a British actress.
Born in Stanmore, London to Jewish parents, she was educated at the North London Collegiate School and Newnham College, Cambridge.
Bron began her career in the Cambridge Footlights revue of 1959, entitled The Last Laugh, in which Peter Cook also appeared. The addition of a female performer to the Footlights was a significant departure, having been until that point an all-male bastion, with female characters portrayed in drag. As with so many other members of the British satire boom, participation in the Footlights was a springboard to a long career in British comedy. In the ensuing years she would write and perform in dozens of productions for television and radio, including collaborations with novelist and playwright Michael Frayn.
Her notable film appearances include a role in the Beatles film, Help! and in Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's film Bedazzled. This is not to be confused with the 2000 remake of the same name. More recently she has appeared in the film adaptations of A Little Princess and The House of Mirth.
She plays the recurring character of Patsy's mother in the sitcom, Absolutely Fabulous, an exuberantly horrible woman who "scattered bastard babies across Europe like a garden sprinkler". She also appeared as an art critic in a parody of an Andy Warhol documentary on the BBC sketch comedy show French and Saunders, written by and starring Jennifer Saunders of Absolutely Fabulous and Dawn French of The Vicar of Dibley.
She appeared in one episode ("Equal Opportunities") of the BBC series Yes Minister, playing a senior civil servant in Jim Hacker's Department. Hacker plans to promote her to strike a blow for equal opportunities — but he reckons without the male culture of the Civil Service.
Her comic talent particularly shines in her perfomances in the Amnesty International Secret Policeman's Balls live benefit shows, working alongside greats like Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson. During one sketch, she has a cosy chat with God about reflecting on her sins without committing the sins of vanity and self-obsession, ending with, "Well, of course, Thou knowest what I mean."
During 2001 and 2002 she has been appearing in the BBC radio comedy sketch show, The Right Time, along with Graeme Garden, Paula Wilcox, Clive Swift, Roger Blake and Neil Innes. Another notable radio appearance was in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the 2002 episode "The Madness of Colonel Warburton".
She is often credited as an inspiration for the name of the Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby". She's also mentioned in the Yo La Tengo song "Tom Courtenay". ("Dreaming 'bout Eleanor Bron, in my room with the curtains drawn...")
Bron appeared in for a brief scene in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who serial City of Death alongside John Cleese as art critics in an art gallery in Paris. The pair are admiring the TARDIS, thinking it to be a piece of art, when the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Lalla Ward) rush into it and it dematerialises. Bron's character, believing it to be part of the work, states that it is "Exquisite, absolutely exquisite!"
Later, she had a more substantial guest role in another Doctor Who television serial, 1985's Revelation of the Daleks. She has more recently also appeared in an audio drama based on Doctor Who by Big Finish Productions, (Loups-Garoux), in which she plays the part of wealthy heiress Ileana de Santos.
She is the author of several books, including Life and Other Punctures, an account of bicycling in France and Holland; and The Pillow Book of Eleanor Bron.
Until his death in 2003, she was married to architect Cedric Price; they had no children.
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