Wendy Craig

Wendy Craig, born Anne Gwendolyn Craig on 20 June 1934 in Sacriston, County Durham, is an English actress appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to drama and charity. The daughter of farmer George Craig and his wife Anne, née Lindsay, Craig attended Durham High School for Girls before passing the 11+ examination and transferring to Darlington High School. When she was twelve, her family relocated to Picton, North Yorkshire, where she attended Yarm Grammar School. She subsequently trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, at that time housed in the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Craig's stage career began in the West End in 1956, when she appeared alongside Robertson Hare in John Dighton's farce Man Alive. Her Broadway work followed, spanning 1958 to 1959, during which she appeared in the play Epitaph for George Dillon. On television, one of her early appearances came in the Danger Man episode "The Gallows Tree" in 1961.

During the 1960s, Craig appeared in British films including The Servant (1963) and The Nanny (1965), the latter opposite Bette Davis. Her performance in The Servant earned her a BAFTA nomination for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. It was her work in British sitcoms, however, that established her as a household name. She starred in the BBC series Not in Front of the Children from 1967 to 1970, a role for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in 1969. She then moved to ITV for And Mother Makes Three (1971–1973), in which she played a single parent, and its sequel And Mother Makes Five (1974–1976). The BBC2 comedy Butterflies followed, running from 1978 to 1983.

Craig created the drama series Nanny (1981–1983) and wrote episodes under the pseudonym Jonathan Marr, a pen name she had previously used when contributing scripts to And Mother Makes Five. She took a leading role as Annie in Brighton Belles (1993–1994), the British adaptation of The Golden Girls, and made several appearances in the 2002 television adaptation of John Galsworthy's novel The Forsyte Saga. From 2003 to 2011 she played Matron in the ITV series The Royal. Further television appearances included Reggie Perrin (2009–2010), Death in Paradise (2016), Unforgotten (2017), the first three series of the CBBC programme The Worst Witch (2017), in which she played Miss Bat, Emmerdale (2018), and an episode of Doctors (2019) alongside former Butterflies co-star Bruce Montague.

Craig was married to trombonist, scriptwriter, and journalist Jack Bentley from 1955 until his death in 1994. The couple had a son, Alaster, who became principal oboist for the Birmingham Royal Ballet Sinfonia. Craig also has a son named Ross, an IT consultant, who was the result of an affair with John Mortimer. In 2004, Craig visited Mortimer to formally disclose that their affair had produced a son, then aged 42. Since the 1990s, Craig has lived in Cookham, Berkshire.