Jill Melford

Jill Melford (23 November 1931 – 21 February 2018) was an English actress born to actor Jack Melford. She trained at the Ballet Arts School in New York, and in 1949 made her theatrical debut as a dancer in a New York production of Oklahoma!

Melford's Broadway career spanned 1950 to 1951, during which she appeared in Saint Joan and Bless You All. Her London stage work began in 1953 with The Seven Year Itch, and she went on to appear in numerous other stage productions including Auntie Mame, Ulysses in Night-time, The Life of the Party, The Right Honourable Gentleman, There's a Girl in My Soup, Not Now, Darling, Best of Friends, and The Chairman.

Her screen career began in 1952 with a UK television appearance in The Three Hostages, followed by her first film role in Will Any Gentleman...? in 1953. That same year she played Miss Nardis in the British crime drama Murder by Proxy. In 1963 she appeared alongside Norman Wisdom in the film comedy A Stitch in Time, and her other film credits from that decade included The Servant (1963), Hot Enough for June (1964), and Bunny Lake is Missing (1965). Later film appearances included The Vengeance of She (1968), I Want What I Want (1972), The Greek Tycoon (1978), The Bitch (1979), Hussy (1980), Edge of Sanity (1989), and Shoreditch (2003), her final film role.

On television, Melford made several appearances in Danger Man, as well as in Sergeant Cork in 1963 and Taggart in 1993. She played Georgie Thompson in the 1973 film version of Father, Dear Father and held a recurring role as executive Toni Ross in the long-running ITV soap opera Crossroads.

In her personal life, Melford married actor John Standing in 1961. The couple had a son, Alexander, born in 1965, and divorced in 1972.