Helen Lindsay(1929-2023)

Character actress Helen Lindsay was born of British parentage as Helen Jane Charley in Coimbatore, a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Little is known about her early life, but she made her stage debut as a snake charmer in a 1952 production of Pinocchio at the Library Theatre in Manchester. Her first screen appearance followed a year later. Lindsay specialized in playing haughty royals, dignified noblewomen and imperious or snobby society matrons, often in period drama adapted from literary classics. Her stage roles have included Lady Benbow in Thark (the fourth of the Aldwych farces), Princess Tugo-Ukhovsky in Chatsky and Mme de Rosemonde in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (with the Royal Shakespeare Company, 1993). Busiest on television, Lindsay was notable as the proud Estella, Magwich's daughter, in an early BBC adaptation of Great Expectations (1959), the kindly teacher Miss Temple in Jane Eyre (1970) and as Lady Constantia Lorridaile in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1995). Her performances enriched numerous TV series, ranging from The Avengers (1961) to Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), from All Creatures Great & Small (1978) to Foyle's War (2002). Her prolific gallery of historical personae have included the Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, Eleanor de Montfort, in Churchill's People (1974), Queen Yolande of Aragon in The Disputation (1986) and the Dowager Queen Maria de Medici in an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney (1997).

Helen Lindsay retired from acting in 2009. She was married to the art director and production designer Alan Pickford (best known for his work on The Jewel in the Crown (1984)) who predeceased her in 2002.