Vivienne Martin

Vivienne Ann Martin (28 December 1930 – 22 January 2023) was a New Zealand-born character actress whose career in British film, television, radio, and stage spanned more than four decades. Born in Kaitaia, New Zealand, she relocated to England in the early 1950s after receiving a bursary from the New Zealand Government to pursue acting.

Martin's screen debut came in 1954 with a role as Arabella in the film The Belles of St Trinian's. Her first television appearance followed in 1957 on The Benny Hill Show, and she secured her first regular television role the following year in the 1958 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, playing Lydia Bennet. After appearing in a number of musical comedy stage productions during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Martin made her Broadway debut in 1964 in The Sunday Man. By 1967, having found limited success in musical stage work, she shifted her focus primarily to television.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Martin built a substantial presence in British television comedy. Her first regular sitcom role came in the 1961 musical sitcom Moody In..., and she later appeared in the 1971 six-episode series Keep It in the Family. She featured in the second series of the ITV sitcom Up the Workers in 1976 and appeared in eleven episodes of The Dick Emery Show between 1974 and 1980.

Martin became particularly associated with radio comedy. She starred as Miss Perkins in It Sticks Out Half a Mile, the radio sequel to Dad's Army, and reprised a version of the character — renamed Miss Baxter — in two television adaptations of the series: Walking the Planks in 1985 and High & Dry in 1987. Her most enduring radio role was Mrs Lillian Rudd in the sitcom King Street Junior, in which she appeared for the programme's entire run from 1985 to 1998. Between 1994 and 1995, she also appeared in three episodes of the television sitcom As Time Goes By, playing secretary Gwen Flack.

In her personal life, Martin married British actor John Burgess in June 1976; she was his third wife, and the marriage lasted six weeks. She died on 22 January 2023, at the age of 92. Her death was announced by the performing arts trade union Equity in their Spring/Summer 2023 magazine.