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1-22 of 22
- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of four children, Blackman was born in London's East End, to Edith Eliza (Stokes), a homemaker, and Frederick Thomas Blackman, a statistician employed with the Civil Service. She received elocution lessons for her 16th birthday (at her own request), and later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which she paid for by working as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service. She was also a dispatch rider for the Home Office during World War II, playing an important role in the war effort.
Blackman received her first acting work on stage in London's West End as an understudy in "The Guinea Pig". She continued with roles in "The Gleam" (1946) and "The Blind Goddess" (1947), before moving into film. She debuted with Fame Is the Spur (1947), starring Michael Redgrave.
Blackman suffered a nervous breakdown following her divorce from Bill Sankey, a man 12 years her senior, who's jealousy, fraudulent business practices, and emptying of her bank accounts took it's toll. After hospitalisation Blackman began counselling, which would last for years, and began rebuilding her career.
TV series work also came her way again, most notably the highly popular The Avengers (1961), co-starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed. As the leather-clad "Catherine Gale", Blackman showcased her incredible beauty, self-confidence, and athletic abilities. Her admirable qualities made her not only a catch for the men, but also an inspirational figure for the 1960s feminist movement.
Blackman took on the role of Greek goddess Hera in popular movie adventure Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with Ray Harryhausen and melodrama Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey. She then played "Pussy Galore" in the classic James Bond film Goldfinger (1964). Blackman went toe to toe with Sean Connery's womanizing "007" and created major sparks on screen.
Blackman continued to work consistently in films and tv, while also appearing on stage where she earned rave reviews as the blind heroine of the thriller "Wait Until Dark" as well as for her dual roles in "Mr. and Mrs.", a production based on two of Noël Coward's plays. She also enjoyed working with her second husband, actor Maurice Kaufmann, in the play "Move Over, Mrs. Markham" and the film thriller Fright (1971). She proved a sultry-voiced sensation in various musicals productions such as "A Little Night Music", "The Sound of Music", "On Your Toes", and "Nunsense."
In the new millennium, Honor was seen in such films as Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Color Me Kubrick (2005), Reuniting the Rubins (2010), I, Anna (2012) and Cockneys vs Zombies (2012), as well as the British TV serieses Water, Water, Everywhere (1920) The Royal (2003) Coronation Street (1960), long running series Casualty (1986) and finally You, Me & Them (2013), her last role after her retirement several years earlier.
Divorced from Kaufmann in 1975 (although they remained friends until his death, Blackman even cared for him during his 13 year battle with cancer), Blackman never remarried, revealing in an interview that she simply preferred single life, "Basically I'm a shy person and I like my own company". Unable to conceive, the couple adopted two children, Lottie and Barnaby, in '67 and '68 respectively.
The ever-lovely and eternally glamorous star continued to find regular work into her 90s, including co-starring in the long-running English hit comedy series The Upper Hand (1990) and performing her one-woman stage show, "Wayward Women"
Honor Blackman died on April 5, 2020, in Lewes, Sussex. She was 94.- Actor
- Producer
Jimmy Akingbola can be seen in the coveted role of 'Geoffrey', trusted advisor to Phil and the Banks family and the link back to his humble roots in the UK in BEL-AIR, the acclaimed serialized one-hour dramatic analogue of the '90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He has also completed filming Freegard alongside James Norton and Gemma Arterton.
His other recent credits range from EMMY nominated Most Dangerous Game for Quibi, EMMY winning Ted Lasso for Apple TV+ and for his role as arch-villain 'Baron Reiter' in Arrow (CW) he was singled out by The Hollywood Reporter as an 'iconic character' and "in their top ten major villains list". He was also seen in ITV crime thriller The Tower with Gemma Whelan, Kate and Koji with Brenda Blethyn for ITV and Britbox and In The Long Run, created by and also starring Elba for Sky One.
Additionally Jimmy set up Triforce Creative Network, which has multiple initiatives such as TriForce Short Film Festival, WriterSlam UK, and MonologueSlam UK that help to provide opportunities to discover diverse talent including actors, writers, directors and producers. Some of these initiatives have been supported by Spotlight, Equity, Channel 4. C21 Media, ITV, Sky and BBC.- Margaret Tyzack was born on 9 September 1931 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for A Clockwork Orange (1971), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Match Point (2005). She was married to Alan R. Stephenson. She died on 25 June 2011 in Blackheath, London, England, UK.
- Husky-voiced East London-born actress Roberta Taylor came to fame on television as Hills family matriarch Irene Raymond on the popular soap EastEnders (1985) and as the indomitable, hard-drinking, yet very human Inspector Gina Gold, presiding over Sun Hill's uniformed police in The Bill (1984) from 2002 to 2008.
The actress was born out of wedlock to bus conductors Robert Alexander Archer and Winifred Roberts. Her father had a wife elsewhere and soon skedaddled. Roberta (nicknamed 'Robbie') was brought up by her mother, a formidable grandmother and several aunts (in 2005, she detailed her childhood in a memoir entitled 'Too Many Mothers'). Roberta initially trained as a dental nurse while studying drama at Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel. In 1966, she married Victor Taylor, a rope maker. The union ended in divorce nine years later.
On the advice of a friend, Roberta enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama on the same day her future second husband, the actor Peter Guinness, also auditioned. Upon her graduation in 1976, she began a lengthy association with the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow, acting in plays by Brecht (making her stage debut in The Seven Deadly Sins), Proust, Coward, Lermontov and Wilde. She also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Exchange in Manchester and at the West End. A return to the Citizen's in 2014 saw her in a revival of Hamlet as Gertrude, opposite Guinness (to whom she had been married since 1996) as Claudius. They also appeared together in The Bill in 2007, with Guinness in the part of married barrister Peter Harris with whom Roberta's Gina Gold has a brief affair.
Following her screen debut in 1979, Roberta's resume of guest appearances included, among others, episodes of Minder (1979), Father Brown (2013), Silent Witness (1996) and Luther (2010). She played the imperious and dogmatic philanthropist Mrs Pardiggle in BBC's superb adaptation of Bleak House (2005) and was last seen on TV as costume shop owner Gloria Fonteyn in several episodes of Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators (2018).
In November 2008, she published 'The Reinvention of Ivy Brown', a novel, set in London in 1963. It was followed in August 2023 by a volume of poems, titled 'Where I Am From'. Roberta Alexandra Mary Taylor died of pneumonia in the aftermath of a fall, on July 6 2024, aged 76. - Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Steve John Shepherd was born in 1973 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), EastEnders (1985) and This Life (1996). He has been married to Anna Wilson-Jones since February 2004. They have three children.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Andi was born in Stratford, East London and attended Sarah Bonnell Comprehensive School. She studied drama at Barking College of Technology where peers included Razaaq Adoti (Amistad (1997), Black Hawk Down (2001)), Sarah Webb, lead singer of acid jazz group D Influence and Idris Elba (Pacific Rim (2013), The Wire (2002)).
She later went on to study TV production at Ravensbourne College of Design after which she took several roles at TV post production companies. Andi also worked in TV broadcasting at Walt Disney Television International and was the technical ops manager at new media start up, Where-It's-At. After working as a post production supervisor on ITV soap Night & Day (2001) Andi retrained as an actor at The Academy Drama School in London. She made her stage debut in 2003 and went on to appear at several renowned fringe and off-West End venues including The Arts Theatre, Riverside Studios, Kings Head and Liverpool Everyman.
2005 saw her "powerful" (Time Out) performance in Medea and as jazz singer, Dolly Rathebe in Who Killed Mr Drum? Andi ended the year with a No. 1 tour of Dael Orlandersmith's Pulitzer nominated play, Yellowman which received critical praise.
Andi's TV debut was in long-running BBC soap EastEnders (1985).
In 2007 Andi began performing stand up comedy and in July of that year won the coveted Funny Women award at London's Comedy Store. She went on to be runner up at Hackney Empire New Act of The Year and Leicester Mercury Comedian of The Year. This launched a successful television career which saw Andi make regular appearances on popular panel shows including Mock the Week (2005) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks (1996). She has also made two appearances on Jack Dee Live at the Apollo (2004) as well as three sell out tours of her solo stand up shows, All The Single Ladies and Afroblighty.
She performed live, in front of a 15,000 strong audience at London's O2 arena for the Channel 4 Great Ormond Street Comedy Gala.
She made her feature debut in Swinging with the Finkels (2011) opposite Sherlock (2010) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) star Martin Freeman.
Andi is an accomplished writer (The One Lenny (2011) and Stand Up for the Week (2010) (in which she also appeared). Andi is also developing her own film and television projects.
She has written for Fox US and BBC TV and Radio and for several newspapers including The Times and The I and is a regular blogger.
In 2014 Andi wrote and produced Brit.i.am (2014), a crowd-sourced short film about Britishness which went on to win three awards and was officially selected for ten festivals. She recently completed her second short, The Grid (2015), a sci thriller starring newcomer Stony Blyden and Eastenders alumni Troy Titus-Adams.- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
David Essex was born on July 23, 1947 in Plaistow, London, England as David Albert Cook. He is an Singer, Performer and actor, for The Devil's Rejects (2005), That'll Be the Day (1973) and Stardust (1974). He has been married to Susan Hallam-Wright since September 20, 2010. He was previously married to Carlotta Christy and Maureen Neal.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jade Ewen was born on 24 January 1988 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for End of a Gun (2016), Myths (2009) and Out There (2003).- Ron Pember was born on 11 April 1934 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Invisible Man (1984), American Playhouse (1980) and Secret Army (1977). He was married to Yvonne Tylee. He died on 8 March 2022 in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, UK.
- Actress
- Producer
Petra Letang was born in 1979 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for EastEnders (1985), Holby City (1999) and The Naked Poet (2016).- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Trevor Bond was born on 5 February 1934 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He was a producer and director, known for Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963) and The Great Riviera Bank Robbery (1979). He died on 11 February 2023 in Naples, Florida, USA.- Music Department
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Not to be confused with 1960s American actress, Sandra Joan Kerr, the English folk-singer, was born in Plaistow, East London, on Valentine's Day in 1942. Sandra first came to prominence in the early 1960s as a member of the Critics' Group, a London-based collective of young folk musicians who performed as resident singers at the folk club run by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, part of whose aim was to offer constructive criticism to each other in song-writing. Another group member was John Faulkner, with whom Sandra had a professional and personal relationship for several years, though, somewhat ironically, they are probably better known to a mass audience for writing music and providing character voices for the now cult children's television puppet series, 'Bagpuss'. After Sandra and John separated in the mid-1970s she lived with the now sadly deceased Northumbrian bagpipe-player Ron Elliott, and their daughter Nancy was born in 1975. Whilst Nancy was growing up Sandra concentrated on radio work, providing music and voices for the children's shows 'The Music Box' and 'The Listening Corner' but never really abandoned live music - she is an accomplished exponent of the guitar, concertina, dulcimer and autoharp. and, when Nancy reached adulthood, Sandra performed and recorded with her daughter, also a musician, and Nancy's multi-instrumentalist partner, the Australian James Fagan. Sandra has also recorded with the folk-rock group the Oyster Band and been instrumental in the running of two choirs, the male group Voice Male and the women's choir Wercasfolk. She has also worked as a teacher of vocal and instrumental techniques at both Newcastle and London universities.- Visual Effects
- Editorial Department
- Additional Crew
Timothy P. Jones was born in east London. He graduated high school in Livingston, New Jersey, and Goddard College in Vermont.
His first short film 'Lazy Boy' was nominated for a Student Academy Award (New England Region) in 1987. He later directed a feature film, 'First Takes' in 1994.
In addition to film Timothy directed two off-Broadway plays, 'Never Swim Alone' and 'See Bob Run'.
His direction won the 1999 New York City Fringe Festival prize for 'Overall Excellence' and his play 'Take' won the 'Best Performance' award at the 2001 New York City Fringe Festival.
In the July 2000 issue of 'Digital Video Magazine' Timothy wrote a cover/feature article about one of the first Digital Intermediate projects ever made, 'Urbania' (2000)
Timothy is also a graduate of the Sundance Writer's Lab and the The Association Equinoxe Writer's Lab.
He lives in London.
He supports West Ham United.- David Amess was born on 26 March 1952 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He was married to Julia Monica Margaret Arnold. He died on 15 October 2021 in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, UK.
- Bert Wickstead was born on 23 April 1923 in Plaistow, East London. He was married to Jean Simonette and Ella White. He died on 19 March 2001.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Bertha Willmott was born on 16 September 1894 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Millions Like Us (1943) and The Good Old Days (1953). She died on 3 June 1973 in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, UK.- Martin Peters was born on 8 November 1943 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Renford Rejects (1998), The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything (1999) and 1966 FIFA World Cup (1966). He was married to Kathleen Peters. He died on 21 December 2019 in England, UK.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Norman Newell was born on 25 January 1919 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He was a composer, known for The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), A Dog's Life (1962) and The Dream Maker (1963). He died on 1 December 2004 in Rustington, West Sussex, England, UK.- Visual Effects
- Additional Crew
Alec East was born on 25 July 1968 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. Alec is known for Die Another Day (2002), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and 1408 (2007).- Maggie Stratton was born on 6 June 1927 in Plaistow District, Essex, England, UK. She was a producer, known for Almost Home (1972) and Origins: A History of Canada (1988). She died on 19 June 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Stanley Reed was born on 21 January 1911 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Winstanley (1975) and Woke Up This Mornin' in the Arkansas Delta (2015). He died on 4 May 1996 in London, England, UK.
- Bert Tann was born on 4 May 1914 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. He died on 7 July 1972 in Bristol, England, UK.