Alexandra Pigg

Alexandra Pigg is a British actress who made her name as Petra Taylor in the soap opera Brookside, a role she played in 1982 alongside Danny Webb as her character's husband. She comes from the Knotty Ash area of Liverpool, and she attended Holly Lodge Girls' Grammar School and worked as a nightclub dancer to fund the union card she needed for acting work. Her breakthrough film part came as Elaine in Letter to Brezhnev (1985), which earned her a BAFTA nomination. She followed that with Smart Money (1986), a BBC film, and with A Chorus of Disapproval (1989), in which she appeared with Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Irons. Other credits included Strapless (1989), Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (1990), Bullseye! (1990), and Immortal Beloved (1994) with Gary Oldman. She was originally cast as Kochanski in the Red Dwarf pilot, but she was unavailable for new recording dates after an electricians' strike, so Clare Grogan took the part.