Wendy Craig

Wendy Craig (born 20 June 1934^[1]) is an English actress who is best known for her appearances in the sitcoms Not in Front of the Children, Butterflies, ...And Mother Makes Three and ...And Mother Makes Five. She played the recurring role of Matron in the TV series The Royal (2003-11).

Biography

Craig was born in Sacriston in County Durham^[1] and attended Yarm Grammar School, Durham High School for Girls,^{[citation needed]} which she visited on 13 October 2007 when she opened a new building named after her. She trained as an actress at the Central School of Dramatic Art.^[2]

From the mid-1950s Craig appeared in British films such as The Servant (1963) and The Nanny (1965) with Bette Davis, but it was her appearances in British sitcoms of the late 1960s and 1970s which led to her becoming a household name, usually playing a scatty middle class housewife. She went from the BBC's Not in Front of the Children (1967) to ITV's ...And Mother Makes Three (1971) (in which she played a single parent), which later evolved into ...And Mother Makes Five. Then came Butterflies (1978), a comedy on BBC2, in which Craig's character was given more depth than in the earlier series.

Craig returned to drama with the series Nanny (1981-83), a series she created, and wrote some episodes herself as Jonathan Marr,^[2] a pseudonym she had used before when writing episodes of ...And Mother Makes Five. Twenty years later, she played a hospital matron in ITV's The Royal (2003-11). However, she has continued to be associated with comedy, having taken one of the leading roles as Annie in Brighton Belles (1993-94), the UK's short-lived version of The Golden Girls.

Craig appeared as Reggie's mother in the BBC1 comedy Reggie Perrin (2009, Series 1 and 2010, Series 2), an update of the 1970s' series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

In 2012 Craig appeared as a guest in Episode 12 of the Series Masterchef along with many other 1970s sitcom stars. In January 2014 she appeared in an episode of the BBC popular drama Waterloo Road.

Personal life

She was married to Jack Bentley from 1955 until his death in 1994. They had two sons, Alaster (later principal oboist for the Birmingham Royal Ballet Sinfonia^[3]) and Ross.^[1] In 2004, it was revealed that her second son was the result of a short affair with John Mortimer.^[3] Alaster's youngest daughter Emma Bentley is following in her grandmother's footsteps by training at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.

Selected filmography

• The Secret Place (1957)
• Room at the Top (1959)
• The Mind Benders (1963)
• The Servant (1963)
• The Nanny (1965)
• Just Like a Woman (1967)
• I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967)
• Joseph Andrews (1977)

References

External links

• Wendy Craig at the Internet Movie Database
• Wendy Craig at the Museum of Broadcast Communications