Penelope Wilton

Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, the second of three daughters of Cliff Wilton, a Cambridge-educated businessman and barrister who had played rugby union on the amateur and provincial level, going on to be an administrator in the sport, and Alice Linda Travers, a tap dancer and former actress. Leviathan, the Business Who's who- A Biographical Dictionary of Chairmen, Chief Executives and Managing Directors of British-registered Companies, ed. Ruth Dinning, Leviathan House, 1972, p. 398{{cite news |last=Powell |first=Lucy |date=9 June 2008 |title=Penelope Wilton, the winner of discontent |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/penelope-wilton-the-winner-of-discontent-pxdpk97ftfh |work=The Times |location=London, UK |access-date=30 November 2018 |url-access=limited}}{{cite news |last=Billen |first=Andrew |date=26 April 2000 |title=Time for Penelope to soar |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/theatre/time-for-penelope-to-soar-6311750.html |work=Evening Standard |location=London, UK |access-date=30 November 2018}}{{cite web|url=http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/csm/2015/04/14/acting-alumni-win-big-at-olivier-awards|title=Acting Alumni Win Big at Olivier Awards|publisher=Csm.arts.ac.uk|access-date=12 June 2016}}{{cite ODNB |id=69552 |title=Massey, Daniel Raymond |first=Michael |last=Billington |date=8 January 2015}}

She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers. Her cousins include actors Angela and Richard Morant.[https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-143345415 "What's On: Wicked role for Penelope means it's Women Beware Wilton; Theatre (Features)"]{{dl|date=July 2021}}Coventry Evening Telegraph (England) Her maternal grandparents owned theatres.

She attended the Drama Centre London from 1965 to 1968.[http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/csm/2009/03/22/drama-centre-watch-this-face Drama Centre: watch this face] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140302175803/http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/csm/2009/03/22/drama-centre-watch-this-face/ |date=2 March 2014 }}, blogs.arts.ac.uk, 22 March 2009; accessed 14 June 2016.{{cite web|title=The Wheatleys of Houghton-le-Spring: The sweet success of a family|url=http://www.houghtonlespring.org.uk/articles/wheatley_confectioners_linden_travers.pdf|publisher=Houghton-le-Spring Heritage Society}}

Wilton began her career on stage in 1969 at the Nottingham Playhouse. Her early roles included Cordelia in King Lear, both in Nottingham and at The Old Vic.{{cite web|url=http://www.ahds.rhul.ac.uk/ahdscollections/docroot/shakespeare/performancedetails.do?performanceid=11405|work=Designing Shakespeare Collection – Performance Details|title=Performance Details – King Lear|access-date=8 June 2016}}

She made her Broadway debut in March 1971 when she played Araminta in the original Broadway production of The Philanthropist, and made her West End debut in August 1971 opposite Sir Ralph Richardson in the John Osborne play West of Suez at the Cambridge Theatre.{{cite web|url=http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/interview-penelope-wilton|work=TimeOut London|title=Interview: Penelope Wilton|date=28 April 2011|access-date=8 June 2016}} She had previously appeared in both plays at the Royal Court Theatre. She played Ruth in the original 1974 London stage production of Alan Ayckbourn's Norman Conquests trilogy, initially as understudy for Bridget Turner.

Her television acting career began in 1972, playing Vivie Warren in the BBC2's adaptation of Mrs. Warren's Profession opposite Coral Browne in the title role and Robert Powell.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/fce706d308d34b28935c4c64df0c7666|title=Mrs Warren's Profession|date=28 September 1972|issue=2551|pages=35|via=BBC Genome}} The production was repeated as part of the Play of the Month series in 1974 on BBC1.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/66c1ecd4a77a4700ace420bc4b92aad1|title=Play of the Month: Mrs Warren's Profession|date=18 April 1974|issue=2632|pages=23|via=BBC Genome}} In 1994, Wilton portrayed Browne in a radio adaptation of An Englishman Abroad for the BBC World Service{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/fd26d25141f7ce8ae0307019b46566de|title=Play of the Week: An Englishman Abroad|date=27 October 1994|issue=3694|pages=115|via=BBC Genome}} and repeated on various BBC radio formats since.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/cd8f29bf49f65c512c53fc9aeeabe047|title=An Englishman Abroad|date=15 September 2005|issue=4251|pages=143|via=BBC Genome}}

Following the broadcast of Mrs. Warren's Profession, Wilton then had several major TV roles, including two of the BBC Television Shakespeare productions (as Desdemona in Othello and Regan in King Lear ).{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0423xc1|title=Early TV appearances: Penelope Wilton and Brenda Blethyn – King Lear (BBC, 1982), Shakespeare Lives|website=BBC|date=27 July 2016 |access-date=12 December 2017}}

Wilton's film career includes roles in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Cry Freedom (1987), Iris (2001), Calendar Girls (2003) and Shaun of the Dead (2004), Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (2005), Woody Allen's Match Point (2005), and in The History Boys (2006).{{cn|date=December 2022}}

She did not garner fame until she appeared with Richard Briers in the 1984 BBC situation comedy, Ever Decreasing Circles, which ran for five years. She played Ann, long suffering wife of Martin (Briers), an obsessive and pedantic "do-gooder". In 2005, Wilton guest starred as Harriet Jones for two episodes in the BBC's revival of the popular TV science-fiction series Doctor Who. This guest role was written especially for her by the programme's chief writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies, with whom she had worked on Bob and Rose (ITV, 2001). The character of Jones returned as Prime Minister in the Doctor Who 2005 Christmas special "The Christmas Invasion". In the first part of the 2008 series finale, "The Stolen Earth", she made a final appearance, now as the former Prime Minister who sacrifices herself by extermination by the Daleks so that the Doctor's companions can contact him.{{cn|date=December 2022}}

File:Penelope Wilton & Jim Carter.jpg co-star Jim Carter, 2013]]

Wilton appeared on television as Barbara Poole, the mother of a missing woman, in the BBC television drama series Five Days in 2005; and in ITV's drama Half Broken Things (October 2007) and the BBC production of The Passion (Easter 2008). Beginning in 2010, she appeared as Isobel Crawley in all six seasons of the hit period drama Downton Abbey. She was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in April 2008. In December 2012 and February 2013, she was the narrator in Lin Coghlan's dramatisation of Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Cazalets, broadcast on BBC Radio.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s09jz|title=Episode 1, Confusion, The Cazalets – BBC Radio 4|website=BBC|access-date=12 December 2017}}

Between 1975 and 1984, Wilton was married to actor Daniel Massey. They had a daughter, Alice, born in 1977.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/sep/30/features.review27|first=Kate|last=Kellaway|title=A study in emotion |newspaper=The Observer|date=30 September 2001|access-date=25 August 2015}} Before that, they had a stillborn son.{{cite web|url=http://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/entertainment/celebrities/penelope-wilton|first=Nina|last=Myskow|author-link=Nina Myskow|work=Saga magazine|title=Penelope Wilton: a woman of substance|date=30 January 2015}}

In 1991, Wilton married actor Ian Holm. In 1992, they appeared together as Pod and Homily in the BBC's adaptation of The Borrowers. A year later, they appeared together in a follow-up The Return of the Borrowers. In 1998, Ian Holm was knighted and Wilton became Lady Holm. They divorced in 2001.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/3465247/Penelope-Wilton-an-actress-who-epitomises-all-things-quintessentially-English.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/3465247/Penelope-Wilton-an-actress-who-epitomises-all-things-quintessentially-English.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|author=Olga Craig|title=Penelope Wilton: an actress who epitomises all things quintessentially English |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=15 November 2008|access-date=21 November 2012}}{{cbignore}}

Wilton was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2004 New Year Honours and was elevated to become a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours,{{London Gazette|issue=61608 |supp=y|page=B8|date=11 June 2016}} both for services to drama.

In 2012, Wilton received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hull Scarborough Campus.{{cite web|url=https://issuu.com/hull/docs/annual_report_2011_12_final|title=Annual Report 2011/12|access-date=12 December 2017}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|934362|Penelope Wilton}}
• {{IBDB name}}
• Gareth McLean, [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/oct/25/theatre.culture2 Unspoken worlds], 25 October 2007, The Guardian
• [http://www.houghtonlespring.org.uk/articles/wheatley_confectioners_linden_travers.pdf Ancestry of Penelope Wilton], houghtonlespring.org.uk. Accessed 23 January 2023.
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009lwnd Penelope Wilton] interview on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs, 4 April 2008.

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Category:1946 births

Category:20th-century English actresses

Category:21st-century English actresses

Category:Actresses awarded damehoods

Category:Actresses from Scarborough, North Yorkshire

Category:Alumni of the Drama Centre London

Category:Critics' Circle Theatre Award winners

Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Category:English film actresses

Category:English stage actresses

Category:English television actresses

Category:Laurence Olivier Award winners

Category:Living people

Penelope Wilton

Category:Wives of knights