Joanna Lumley

Early Film Career

Her early films include Some Girls Do, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and two Pink Panther comedies. She made early television appearances on General Hospital and Coronation Street, before becoming immortalised as Purdy in The New Avengers.

BAFTA Winner

However it was Joanna’s BAFTA award-winning role as the chain-smoking Patsy in the award-winning Absolutely Fabulous which brought her renewed fame: the series proving itself one of the classic sitcoms of British television. She later appeared in Jam and Jerusalem, penned by French and Saunders.

Joanna Lumley: After Ab Fab

Since Ab Fab Joanna Lumley has also acted in Class Act, Cold Comfort Farm and Sensitive Skin. She played the over-the-hill star of a daytime TV hospital drama in Dr Willoughby and was nominated for a Best Actress BAFTA for her role in A Rather English Marriage.

Supporting Gurkhas

Joanna Lumley is known for her support for Gurkhas, the exiled Tibetan people and government, the Kondha indigenous people of India, and the Prospect Burma charity which offers grants to Burmese students. In 2008 she became the public face of a campaign to provide all Gurkha veterans who served in the British Army before 1997 the right to settle in Britain. Joanna was born in Kashmir, India, the daughter of a major in the Ghurka Rifles.

Joanna Lumley: Life In India

She spent her early life in India, attending army schools in Hong Kong and Malaya before moving to England in her teens where she took up ballet. When she failed her RADA audition at 16 she went into modelling. However, acting was still in her blood and one of her earliest opportunities was in 1969 in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Sevice. She also made an appearance in the Morecambe & Wise Show (1969). In 1971 she married comedy writer Jeremy Lloyd but this was not to last long.

Travelling Far Afield

She made the documentary In the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon; in which she charted the journey her grandparents made in the little-known country of Bhutan. In the BBC special Girl Friday Joanna tried her hand at surviving on a desert island and wrote an accompanying book about her experiences.

Joanna Lumley On Film

Her early films include Some Girls Do (1969), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), Games That Lovers Play (1971), she played Peter Cushing’s granddaughter in The Santic Rites of Dracula (1973), James Bond -On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and two Pink Panther comedies (1982 & 83).

Early TV Career

Joanna Lumley made early TV appearances on Steptoe and Son (1972), General Hospital (1975) two episodes of Are You Being Served (1973) short stint in Coronation Street (1973); and occasionally in the gameshow Call My Bluff. Before becoming immortalised as Purdy in TV series The New Avengers (1976 -77) and Sapphire in Sapphire & Steel (1979 -82).

Award Winning Comedy

Award-winning Absolutely Fabulous (1992 -2012). She later appeared in Jam and Jerusalem (2006-08), penned by French and Saunders. Since Ab Fab Joanna has also acted in Class Act (1994-95), Cold Comfort Farm (1995) and Sensitive Skin(2005-07). She played the over-the-hill star of a daytime TV hospital drama in Dr Willoughby (1999); and was nominated for a Best Actress BAFTA for her role in A Rather English Marriage (1998).

Queen of Wall Street

Recently she’s covered both ends of an acting spectrum appearing in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and also as The Queen (2013) in the adaptation of David Walliams’ Gangsta Granny.