Anna Keaveney

Anna Keaveney was an English actress whose most memorable television part was Marie Jackson, the acid-tongued wife and mother she played in the Channel 4 soap Brookside across more than 100 episodes from 1983 to 1985. Born in Runcorn, she was noted for feisty, confrontational characters, and a 1984 brawl between Marie and Sheila Grant was later praised for capturing the class divisions of suburban Britain. After leaving Brookside she worked steadily in television, including the comedy Divided We Stand and the series Birds of a Feather, Stay Lucky and The New Statesman. On film she played Jeanette in Shirley Valentine (1989), appeared in The 51st State (2001) and played Nellie in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake (2004). Later small-screen work included Emmerdale, The Bill, Gimme Gimme Gimme, A Touch of Frost and Where the Heart Is, and her final film appearance came in Asylum, released after her death in 2004.