Patricia Hodge

Patricia Ann Hodge (born 29 September 1946) is an English actress. She made her West End debut in 1972 and in 1973 starred in the West End production of Pippin directed by Bob Fosse. In 2000, she won an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the play Money.

Her screen roles include the film adaptation of Harold Pinter's play Betrayal (1983), the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–1992), the TV miniseries The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986) and the TV film Hotel du Lac (1986), for which she received a BAFTA nomination. Since 2009, she has starred in the BBC sitcom Miranda.

Early life

Hodge was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. The daughter of the Royal Hotel owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion (née Phillips),^[1] Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St. Helen's School, Northwood, Middlesex; before attending Maria Grey College (became West London Institute of Higher Education in 1976 then the Twickenham campus of Brunel University from 1995–2005), Twickenham to train as a teacher. She taught English and drama at Russell County Primary School in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, whilst also applying to London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.^[2] She started at LAMDA when she was 22, being awarded on graduation the Eveline Evans Award for Best Actress.^[3]

Career

After graduation, she concentrated on theatre work and 18 months later worked with Bob Fosse on Pippin. However, she found when applying for television work she had become classed as a theatre actress. Having made the break-through in the role of Phyllida (Trant) Erskine-Brown in Rumpole of the Bailey, she found when trying to make the occasional return to theatre work that she had been classed as a television actress. Finding the need to have a flexible career to care for her young children, Hodge made the decision to focus her career on the stage, and hence is mainly seen on television in focus parts and singular roles in-between chosen different theatre roles.^[3]

She has appeared in roles as diverse as in The Naked Civil Servant opposite John Hurt,as Myra Arundel in the 1984 BBC version of Noel Coward's Hay Fever, as Margaret Thatcher in The Falklands Play, and in 2007 as Betty, the wife of tycoon Robert Maxwell, in the BBC TV drama Maxwell opposite David Suchet.^[4] She took the female lead in the 1983 film, Betrayal (based on Harold Pinter's play Betrayal), a roman à clef derived from the playwright's affair with broadcaster Joan Bakewell.

She co-starred with Dame Judi Dench in the 1995 London revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music as Countess Charlotte Malcom.

She was nominated for a BAFTA for her role in a television adaptation of Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac in 1987, and was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the production of Money at the Royal National Theatre.^[5] Hodge is an Honorary Graduate (DLitt) of Brunel University and one of the founder members of the Brunel Club.^[6] Since 2009, she has played a comedy role in the BBC sitcom Miranda, as the mother of the eponymous main character. She is joint President of Grimsby's Caxton Theatre.

Personal life

Hodge married music publisher Peter Douglas Owen on 31 July 1976 in Tonbridge. The couple have two children: Alexander Richard Charles (born March 1989); and Edward Frederick James (born January 1992).

Television

• 1975 The Girls of Slender Means
• 1975 The Naked Civil Servant
• 1978–90 Rumpole of the Bailey
• 1978 Edward and Mrs Simpson
• 1979 The Professionals, "Involvement"
• 1979–82 Holding the Fort
• 1979–80, 1981 The Other 'Arf
• 1980 Nanny
• 1981 Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years
• 1983 Jemima Shore Investigates
• 1984 Hay Fever
• 1986 The Death of the Heart
• 1986 The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
• 1986 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes "The Second Stain"
• 1986 Robin of Sherwood, "The Pretender"
• 1986 Hotel du Lac
• 1988 Heat of the Day
• 1989 Inspector Morse: "Ghost in the Machine"
• 1989 The Shell Seekers
• 1989 Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming
• 1991 Rich Tea and Sympathy
• 1992 The Cloning of Joanna May
• 1996 The Legacy of Reginald Perrin
• 2002 The Falklands Play
• 2002 Waking the Dead "Special Relationship"
• 2003 Sweet Medicine
• 2006 Marple "The Sittaford Mystery"
• 2007 Hustle
• 2007 Maxwell
• 2009–Present Miranda

Films

• The Disappearance, 1978
• Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse, 1978
• The Waterloo Bridge Handicap, 1979
• The Elephant Man, 1980
• Riding High, 1981
• Betrayal, 1983
• Behind Enemy Lines, 1985
• Dust to Dust, 1985
• Skin, 1986
• 92 Grosvenor Street, 1987
• Sunset, 1988
• Falcon's Maltester, 1987
• Thieves in the Night, 1988
• Just Ask for Diamond, 1988
• Before You Go, 2002

Stage

• No-One Was Saved, 1971
• Rookery Nook, 1972
• Popkiss, 1972
• Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1973
• Pippin, 1973
• Hair, 1974
• The Beggar's Opera, 1975
• Pal Joey, 1976
• Look Back in Anger, 1976
• Then and Now, 1979
• The Mitford Girls, 1981
• As You Like It, 1983
• Benefactors, 1984
• Lady in the Dark, 1988
• Noël and Gertie, 1989–90
• Shades, 1992
• Separate Tables, 1993
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1994
• A Little Night Music, 1995
• Money, 1999–2000
• "Summerfolk", 1999–2000
• "Noises Off" 2001–02
• "His Dark Materials", 2003–04
• Dream Me a Winter, 2006 (part of the Old Vic's '24 Hour Plays')
• Boeing Boeing, 2007
• The Country Wife, 2007–08
• "The Clean House", 2008
• Calendar Girls, 2008
• The Breath of Life, 2011
• Dandy Dick, 2012

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Patricia Hodge at the Internet Movie Database
• Museum of Broadcast Communications
• BBC Drama