Stephanie Cole

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Stephanie Cole, in character as Diana Trent on Waiting for God.

Stephanie Cole, OBE, (born October 5, 1941 in Solihull, West Midlands) is an English actress, best known for playing characters a great deal older than her actual age. Her most famous role was in the television sitcom, Waiting for God. She trained at the world famous Bristol Old Vic Theatre School 1958–1960 and like most actors of that time went on to consolidate her acting skills in repertory theatres around the United Kingdom.

One of her most recognized roles was of Dr Beatrice Mason in Tenko, a drama that chronicled the lives of British women in Singapore after the Japanese invasion. She played the role from 1981 to 1984. During this period, she also played the paranoid and morose customer Mrs Featherstone (nicknamed "The Black Widow") in Open All Hours, who was the only rival to Nurse Gladys Emmanuel for shopkeeper Arkwright's affections; though she was only attracted to him because she liked his stingy ways. Arkwright was scared of her advances and often hid when he saw her approaching the shop.

Stephanie Cole in Murder at the Vicarage, Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, 1963–4 season

Cole also played the role of crabby ex-photojournalist Diana Trent on Waiting for God from 1990 to 1994. The role of Diana Trent was a sixty/seventysomething woman, and an interesting fact about Cole's casting is that she was merely forty-eight years old when she started taping the first series of the show. She was also two decades younger than her leading man, Graham Crowden.

In 2005 Cole was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours.