Francesca Annis

Francesca Annis is an English actress who started performing professionally in her teens and has worked extensively in film, television and theater. Born in Kensington, London, in 1945, she trained in ballet before taking her first major film role as a handmaiden in Cleopatra (1963). Her big break came in the 1965 West End musical Passion Flower Hotel, and she drew notice as Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971). Her performance in the serial Lillie brought her the 1979 BAFTA TV Award for best actress, one of six nominations, and her television work includes Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1983) and Cranford (2007). Her screen credits include Krull (1983), Dune (1984), Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) and The Libertine (2004), and she has played leading stage roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.