Dame Penelope Anne Constance Keith, DBE, DL is an English actress, known for her
roles in the British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born. She
succeeded Lord Olivier as president of the Actors' Benevolent Fund after his
death in 1989, and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British
Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the arts and to charity.
Keith joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963, and went on to win the
1976 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for the play Donkeys' Years.
She became a household name in the UK playing Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom
The Good Life, winning the 1977 BAFTA TV Award for Best Light Entertainment
Performance. In 1978, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for The Norman
Conquests. She then starred as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in the sitcom To the
Manor Born, a show that received audiences of more than 20 million. She
went on to star in another six sitcoms, including Executive Stress, No Job for a
Lady and Next of Kin. Since 2000, she has worked mainly in the theatre, with
her roles including Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit and Lady Bracknell in The
Importance of Being Earnest. Early life
Keith was born in Sutton in 1940. Her father, who was a Major by the end of
World War II, left her mother Connie when she was a baby, and Keith spent her
early years in Clacton-on-Sea and Clapham. Her great uncle, John Gurney
Nutting, was a partner in the coachbuilding firm J Gurney Nutting & Co
Limited and Keith recalls sitting in the Prince of Wales's car.
Although not a Roman Catholic, at the age of six she was sent to a Catholic
boarding school in Seaford. It was here that a young Keith first became
interested in acting, and frequently went to matinees in the West End with
her mother. When she was eight years old, her mother remarried and Penelope
adopted her stepfather's surname of Keith. While she did not get on with her
stepfather, her mother was a "rock of love" to her. She was rejected from the
Central School of Speech and Drama, on the grounds that, at 5'10", she was too
tall. However, she was then accepted at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic
Art, and spent two years there while working at the Hyde Park Hotel in the
evening. She began her career working in
repertory theatre across the UK, including Lincoln, Manchester and
Salisbury. Keith's earliest appearances were in The Tunnel of Love, Gigi and
Flowering Cherry. In 1963, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company both in
Stratford and at the Aldwych Theatre in London.
Early career She started her television career in
programmes such as The Army Game, Dixon of Dock Green, Wild, Wild Women and The
Avengers. In the early 1970s, she appeared in The Morecambe & Wise Show,
Ghost Story and The Pallisers. Her film appearances during this time included
Every Home Should Have One, Take A Girl Like You, Rentadick and Penny Gold. In
1967, she had a minor role in Carry On Doctor, but the scene was cut from the
final edit. Her best known theatre appearance, in
1974, was playing Sarah in The Norman Conquests, opposite Richard Briers, her
co-star in The Good Life. Keith and Briers would often film The Good Life
during the day and perform on stage in the West End in the evening.
Television fame Penelope Keith achieved popular fame in
1975 when the BBC sitcom The Good Life began. In the first episode, she was
only heard and not seen in her role as Margo Leadbetter, but as the episodes
and series went on, the scope of her role increased. In 1977, Keith won a
BAFTA award for 'Best Comedy Performer' for her role of Margo Leadbetter.
From 1979–81, she played the lead role of Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in the TV
series To the Manor Born. Following To the Manor Born, Keith has appeared in
six other sitcoms as the main lead: Sweet Sixteen, Moving, Executive Stress,
No Job for a Lady, Law and Disorder and Next of Kin. She also had the starring
role in a TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's play Spider's Web. She won a
second BAFTA award as 'Best Actress' in 1978 for The Norman Conquests. In 1982
Keith starred in a TV production of Frederick Lonsdale's On Approval. In
1988, she hosted one series of the ITV panel show What's My Line?, following
the death of its original presenter, Eamonn Andrews. She had a featured role
in the 1998 ITV serial Coming Home. Ongoing work
Keith has regularly appeared on stage, taking the classics and new plays across
the country. These include Shakespeare, Shaw, Sheridan, Wilde, Rattigan and
Congreve. She played Lorraine in Noël Coward's Star Quality, while in 2004 she
played Madame Arcati in Coward's Blithe Spirit at the Savoy Theatre. In 2004,
Keith starred in the first of 5 full-cast BBC radio dramatisations of
M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin novels, playing the title role. Two years later,
she appeared at the Chichester Festival in the premiere of Richard Everett's
comedy Entertaining Angels, which she later took on tour.
In 2007, she played the part of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being
Earnest on tour, which transferred to the West End in 2008, at the Vaudeville
Theatre. She has voiced adverts including ones for Pimm's, Lurpak, Tesco
and, most famously, The Parker Pen Company, which was named one of the 100
Greatest Adverts in a Channel 4 programme. In 2012, she starred in Keith
Waterstone's Good Grief, having previously appeared in the play'a
premier production in 1998. In 1997, she provided the voice of the
narrator for Teletubbies, and also starred in the radio adaptations of To
the Manor Born. In 2003, she appeared opposite June Brown in the television
film Margery and Gladys. In 2007, she starred in a one-off To the Manor Born
Christmas Special, In 2009 she presented Penelope Keith and
the Fast Lady, a one-off documentary for BBC Four about Dorothy Levitt, the
Edwardian motoring pioneer. She returned to television in 2011 presenting the
four-part BBC documentary The Manor Reborn.
Awards Personal life
In 1978, the year The Good Life ended, she married Rodney Timson, a policeman.
They had met while he was on duty at Chichester Theatre where Keith was
performing. Timson, who is four years her junior, had been married twice
before. They adopted two children. Keith and Timson live in Milford,
Surrey. Keith has a great passion for gardening. In 1984, she had a rose named
after her. Penelope Keith has been President of the Actors' Benevolent Fund
since 1990, taking over after the death of Lord Olivier, and is president of the
South West Surrey National Trust. On 2 April 2002, her 62nd birthday, she
began a one-year term as High Sheriff of Surrey, the third woman to hold the
post. She is also a Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey.
She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1989
New Year Honours, and was promoted to a Commander in the 2007 New Year Honours
for "charitable services". In the 2014 New Year Honours, she became
a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Arts
and to Charity. References
External links Penelope Keith at the Internet Movie
Database