Sandra Searles Dickinson

Sandra Searles Dickinson is an American-British actress born on October 20, 1948, in Washington, D.C., who grew up in Maryland with her younger brother. Her father, Harold F. Searles, was a psychoanalyst, and her mother, Sylvia Manninen, of Finnish descent, worked as a nurse. Dickinson trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and has built a career frequently centered on characters fitting the trope of a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice.

Her acting debut came in the 1973 British film The Final Programme, in which she played a waitress. She went on to portray Trillian in the television adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and has appeared in films including Superman III, Supergirl, StagKnight, Ready Player One, and The Batman. Her television guest appearances span a range of British productions, among them Philip Marlowe Private Eye, Casualty, New Tricks, Holby City, Uncle, Doctors, and White Van Man. In the early 1980s she was an occasional guest panellist on the BBC quiz show Blankety Blank.

In 1999, Dickinson appeared on Broadway in Not About Nightingales. Her stage work also includes a 1997 appearance as Eunice Hubbel in Peter Hall's production of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. In 1983, she and her then-husband Peter Davison appeared together in Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner's holiday pantomime production of Cinderella, and the two also performed together in stage productions of The Owl and the Pussycat and a 1984 London staging of Barefoot in the Park, in which they played American newlyweds adjusting to life in a high-rise apartment. Dickinson has appeared in numerous pantomime productions over the years, playing Queen Camilla in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in Carlisle in 2007, the Fairy Godmother in productions of Cinderella at the Towngate Theatre in Basildon in 2008 and the Harlow Playhouse in 2009, the evil Queen Maleficent in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Corn Exchange in Exeter from December 18, 2010, to January 9, 2011, and Queen Whoppa in Jack and the Beanstalk at Exeter Corn Exchange from December 13, 2014, to January 4, 2015. In 2014, she understudied Angela Lansbury in the West End production of Blithe Spirit, co-starring Simon Jones, though she performed the role of Madame Arcati only in the public understudy run, as Lansbury did not miss a single performance.

Dickinson has contributed extensively to voice acting. She provided the American voice of Jemima Puddle-Duck in the British animated series The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends, voiced the Voice Trumpets in the US dub of Teletubbies, played Bitchin' Betty in the 1996 film Space Truckers, and voiced Chico in Counterfeit Cat. In The Amazing World of Gumball she voices multiple characters, including Granny Jojo, Mrs. Jotunheim, Karen, Felicity Parham, and the cupcake woman. She is also the voice of Grandma Tracey in the 2015 Thunderbirds revival.

Dickinson married actor Peter Davison on December 26, 1978; the two divorced in 1994. Together they composed and performed the theme tune to the 1980s children's programme Button Moon. Their daughter, Georgia Tennant, is also an actress. Dickinson's grandson is Ty Tennant. On August 16, 2009, she married her third husband, British actor and singer Mark Osmond, the lead singer of the band Bigger Than Mary, who performed at the wedding. The ceremony took place in Shepperton and was filmed for the reality television programme Four Weddings, where the couple's wedding placed third. Dickinson became a British citizen that same year. She and Osmond together run the Shepperton-based stage school Close Up Theatre School.