Kathy Staff

Kathy Staff was an English actress whose career was largely in British television. Born Minnie Higginbottom in Dukinfield, she started out in 1946 with touring repertory companies, first as Katherine Brant, later as Kathy Staff. In the 1960s she took extra work for Granada Television. Her best known part was Nora Batty in Last of the Summer Wine, the BBC sitcom, a role she held from the 1973 pilot until 2008, across 245 episodes. She also played Doris Luke in the ATV soap Crossroads between 1978 and 1984 and again between 2001 and 2002. Other television work included Coronation Street, Open All Hours and The Benny Hill Show. On stage she was Lady Bracknell in a Birmingham Rep production of The Importance of Being Earnest, and her West End credits included When We Are Married and the farce Two into One. Her films included The Dresser (1983) and Mary Reilly (1996). She died in 2008.