Joyce Heron

Elizabeth Joyce Heron was born on 6 November 1916 in Port Said, Egypt, and died on 1 April 1980. A British actress, she worked across stage, film, and television throughout a career spanning several decades. She was married to the actor Ralph Michael.

Heron established herself as a West End stage presence beginning in 1937. Her stage work included She Follows Me About by Ben Travers in 1943, The Shop at Sly Corner by Edward Percy Smith in 1945, and Dead Secret by Michael Clayton Hutton in 1952. She also brought her stage career to New York, appearing on Broadway between 1947 and 1953 in productions including Gently Does It and Love Goes to Press.

Her film work began in 1938 with Premiere, in which she played a dancer. Subsequent screen roles included Karen in Women Aren't Angels (1943), Diana in Twilight Hour (1945), Kitty Mannering in Don Chicago (1945), and Helen Montrose in The Agitator (1945). She continued appearing in films into the 1950s, with credits including a journalist in The Body Said No! (1950), Rosemary Proctor in She Shall Have Murder (1950), Prison Matron Arnold in The Weak and the Wicked (1954), Edna Hastings in Three Cornered Fate (1955), and Lady Catherine Sprott in Beyond This Place (1959).

Television work occupied a significant portion of Heron's later career. She appeared as Mrs. MacKenzie in the series A Family at War in 1971, Mrs. Stevenson in Au Pair Girls (1972), and Lady Berkhamstead in two episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs in 1974. That same year she played Hilda Rumpole in the Play for Today installment Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt, and in 1975 she appeared as Madge Plunkett in Emmerdale Farm.