Joanna Lumley

Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley was born on 1 May 1946 in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, in British India. Her mother, Thyra Beatrice Rose (née Weir), was English, and her father, Major James Rutherford Lumley, was born in Lahore with Scottish and English ancestry, serving as an officer in the British Indian Army's 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles. During World War II, her father fought in Burma, most notably at the Battle of Mogaung in June 1944, where his life was saved by Tul Bahadur Pun. Her grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Weir, was born in Ghazipur, served as an army officer in Kashmir, and was a close friend of the 13th Dalai Lama. Major James Rutherford Lumley was a direct descendant of Maj.-Gen. Sir James Rutherford Lumley, who was himself a direct descendant of Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots.

In 1954, the family traveled to England aboard the HMT Empire Windrush. When her parents returned to Asia, Lumley remained in England, boarding at Mickledene School in Rolvenden, Kent, at the age of eight. From age eleven to seventeen she attended Holmhurst St Mary's Convent School, run by the Community of the Holy Family. After being turned down by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at sixteen, she attended the Lucie Clayton Finishing School in London. She received no formal drama school training. Before her acting career began, she spent three years as a photographic model, working notably with photographer Brian Duffy and as a house model for Jean Muir.

Lumley made an early television appearance on the Bruce Forsyth Show in 1966. Her acting career began in 1969 with an uncredited role in the film Some Girls Do and a role as a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which she played one of Ernst Stavro Blofeld's Angels of Death. That same year she appeared in a British television advertisement for Nimble Bread. In 1973, she played Elaine Perkins in Coronation Street, a character who turned down Ken Barlow's offer of marriage, and also appeared in two episodes of Are You Being Served? written by Jeremy Lloyd. Also in 1973, she appeared as Jessica Van Helsing in The Satanic Rites of Dracula, the last Hammer Dracula film to star Christopher Lee, and had a role in the comedy film Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! (1974) alongside Leslie Phillips and Joan Sims.

Lumley's first major role came when she was cast as Purdey in all twenty-six episodes of The New Avengers, which aired from 1976 to 1977. In 1979, she took on the role of Sapphire in the ITV series Sapphire & Steel, opposite David McCallum, playing a mysterious elemental being who addresses breaches in the fabric of time; the series ran until 1982. In 1986, television producer Sydney Newman suggested Lumley for the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who, though the idea was not pursued.

Her career reached a new level of prominence with her portrayal of Patsy Stone, the louche and frequently drunk fashion director in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, which ran across several periods from 1992 to 2012. The role earned her two BAFTA TV Awards. She reprised the character in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie in 2016. Among her other television credits are Class Act (1994–1995), in which she starred as Kate Swift alongside Nadine Garner and John Bowe; the sitcom Jam & Jerusalem (2006–2008), in which she played the elderly Delilah Stagg alongside Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, and Sue Johnston; Sensitive Skin (2005–2007), in which she played the lead character Davina Jackson; and Finding Alice, which began in 2021. In 2025, she played Grandmama in the American series Wednesday.

Lumley's film work spans several decades. Her appearances include Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), Shirley Valentine (1989), James and the Giant Peach (1996) and Corpse Bride (2005), both collaborations with director Tim Burton, Ella Enchanted (2004) alongside Anne Hathaway, and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), directed by Martin Scorsese. She also appeared twice as Mrs. Dolly Bantry in Agatha Christie's Marple, in the episodes The Body in the Library (2004) and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (2009). In addition to on-screen roles, she provided the voice of Annie the rag doll in the animated series The Forgotten Toys in 1995 and the voice of Sims the chicken in the BAFTA award-winning animated series The Foxbusters in 1999.

Lumley appeared on Broadway in 2010 in the revival of David Hirson's La Bête at the Music Box Theatre, which opened on 14 October 2010. The production also starred David Hyde Pierce and Mark Rylance and was directed by Matthew Warchus. The same production had previously run at the Comedy Theatre in London from 26 June to 28 August 2010. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play in 2011.

Beyond her performance career, Lumley is an advocate and human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign, and supports animal welfare organizations including Compassion in World Farming and Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals. She received the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards in 2013 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2017. In the 2022 New Year Honours, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama, entertainment, and charity.