Pat Keen

Patricia Margaret Keen was born on 21 October 1933 in Willesden, Brent, London, and died on 1 March 2013, aged 79. An English actress, her career across stage, television, and film extended from the 1950s through the 2000s.

Prior to pursuing acting professionally, Keen spent two years working at the Foreign Office, a position she credited to her ability to speak French. She subsequently trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama alongside the novelist Paul Bailey, completing her studies in 1956 and accepting a position at the Oxford Playhouse upon graduation. Her first West End appearance came in 1960, when she played Margaret in the original stage production of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, a role later taken by Susannah York in the film adaptation.

Keen made her Broadway debut in 1986 in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. That same year she appeared in the film Clockwise, playing an anxious mother. Her screen work across the decades included A Kind of Loving (1962), The Sailor's Return (1979), Memoirs of a Survivor (1981), We Think the World of You (1988), Without a Clue (1988), The Rachel Papers (1989), Shadowlands (1993), and Fierce Creatures (1997).

On television, Keen was widely recognized for portraying strident, bossy middle-aged women during the 1970s and 1980s. Among her notable small-screen roles was Virginia in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Anniversary" in 1979. She also played Clara Peggotty in the BBC Sunday serial David Copperfield in 1974, a performance described as the "perfect" rendering of the character. Later in her television career she played Addy, a mother-in-law, in the series Down to Earth from 2000 to 2001.

In her later years Keen lived in Ipswich. She moved to a nursing home in April 2009 and died there on 1 March 2013. She was survived by her sister Angela Yeo, three nieces, and a nephew.