Maria Charles

Maria Charles was an English actress, director and comedienne whose stage and screen career lasted more than seven decades. Born in London in 1929, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1946, the year of her West End debut in The Pick-Up Girl at the Prince of Wales Theatre, after a first stage appearance in Worthing in 1945. She played Dulcie in the West End run of The Boy Friend and Solange Lafitte in the original staging of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. On television she was known for playing clingy mothers, notably Bea Fisher in the sitcom Agony between 1979 and 1981, and she appeared in the BAFTA-winning play Bar Mitzvah Boy. She acted in Nell Dunn's comedy Steaming, which won that year's Laurence Olivier Award for best new comedy. Her film work included Cuba (1979), Victor Victoria (1982), Revenge of the Pink Panther, Hot Fuzz and Sixty Six. She died in 2023.