Roberta Taylor
Encyclopedia
Roberta Taylor is an English
actress and author
. She is probably best known for her roles of Irene Raymond
in EastEnders
(1997–2000), and Inspector
Gina Gold in The Bill
(2002–2008).
's A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) entitled A Waste of Time, in which Rupert Everett
and Gary Oldman
were also in the cast. She was also seen in Noel Coward
's Design for Living
, Oscar Wilde
's A Woman of No Importance
and An Ideal Husband
. She was the Princess Kosmonopolis in Tennessee Williams
' Sweet Bird of Youth
in 1992, and in 1995 played the Nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
at the Lyric Hammersmith
.
She has also appeared in episodes of the television series Doctors
, Sharman
, Holby City
, Silent Witness
and Inspector Morse
. She has appeared as a guest on The Paul O'Grady Show
and in the films The Witches (1990) and Tom & Viv
(1994).
In 2005 she played Mrs Pardiggle in the BBC
's drama serial adaptation of Charles Dickens
' Bleak House. In 2009, she starred as the long-suffering Phoebe Rice in John Osborne
's play The Entertainer
at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. In 2011 she will appear in the West End
revival of Pygmalion
, alongside Rupert Everett
, Kara Tointon
and Dame Diana Rigg.
Roberta then joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, where she met fellow actor Peter Guinness
. Peter and Roberta married in September 1996 and Peter ironically appeared in a few episodes of The Bill as her lover in 2007. The couple resides in London.
Roberta has been arachnophobic
since the age of 12. She is also very close friends with her former co-star Alex Walkinshaw
, who sees her as a second mother to him, and she is even grandmother by proxy to his two children, Flora and Jack.
She also came out in support of the Labour Party (UK)
for the 2010 general election, appearing in an election broadcast with fellow EastEnders actor Ross Kemp
and hosting the silent auction at the Labour Party Women's Dinner on 6 December 2010 at Hotel Russell in London.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actress and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. She is probably best known for her roles of Irene Raymond
Irene Raymond
Irene Constance Ethel Raymond is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Roberta Taylor. Introduced in 1997 as the matriarch of the Hills family, Irene remained in the serial until 2000, when the actress opted to leave...
in EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
(1997–2000), and Inspector
Inspector
Inspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...
Gina Gold in The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
(2002–2008).
Career
Taylor worked in the theatre and appeared at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre from 1980 to 1992. During that period, she played La Duchesse de Guermantes in a stage adaptation of Marcel ProustMarcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
's A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) entitled A Waste of Time, in which Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...
and Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...
were also in the cast. She was also seen in Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Design for Living
Design for Living
Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's A Woman of No Importance
A Woman of No Importance
A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. It is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy...
and An Ideal Husband
An Ideal Husband
An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedic stage play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour...
. She was the Princess Kosmonopolis in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Princess Kosmonopolis , whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies...
in 1992, and in 1995 played the Nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
at the Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
.
She has also appeared in episodes of the television series Doctors
Doctors (BBC Soap Opera)
Doctors is a British daytime television soap opera, set in the fictional Midland town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the City of Birmingham. It was created by Chris Murray; Mal Young drove its development, and Carson Black was the original producer. The first episode was broadcast on...
, Sharman
Sharman (TV series)
Sharman is a television series starring Clive Owen, based on the "Nick Sharman" books written by London based author Mark Timlin.-Cast and characters:...
, Holby City
Holby City
Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...
, Silent Witness
Silent Witness
Silent Witness is a BBC crime thriller series focusing on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. First broadcast in February 1996, the series is still airing to the present day, with a fifteenth series expected to air in January 2012. The series was...
and Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse (TV series)
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....
. She has appeared as a guest on The Paul O'Grady Show
The Paul O'Grady Show
The Paul O'Grady Show was a BAFTA award-winning British comedy chat show hosted by Birkenhead-born comedian Paul O'Grady. The format was originally devised by Granada Television and was broadcast on ITV before moving to Channel 4...
and in the films The Witches (1990) and Tom & Viv
Tom & Viv
Tom & Viv is a 1984 play by British playwright, Michael Hastings, which tells the story of the relationship between the American poet, T. S. Eliot, and his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot...
(1994).
In 2005 she played Mrs Pardiggle in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's drama serial adaptation of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
' Bleak House. In 2009, she starred as the long-suffering Phoebe Rice in John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
's play The Entertainer
The Entertainer (play)
The Entertainer is a three act play by John Osborne, first produced in 1957. His first play, Look Back in Anger, had attracted mixed notices but a great deal of publicity. Having depicted an "angry young man" in the earlier play, Osborne wrote, at Laurence Olivier's request,about an angry middle...
at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. In 2011 she will appear in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
revival of Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
, alongside Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...
, Kara Tointon
Kara Tointon
Kara Louise Tointon is a British actress, best known for playing Dawn Swann in BBC soap opera EastEnders. Tointon was the 2010 winner of BBC television series Strictly Come Dancing.-Early life:...
and Dame Diana Rigg.
Personal life
At the age of 18, Roberta married her childhood sweetheart, whose identity she has always kept hidden and later gave birth to their son Elliot. By the time she was 24, the marriage was already breaking apart and the couple finally divorced in the early 70's.Roberta then joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, where she met fellow actor Peter Guinness
Peter Guinness (actor)
Peter Guinness is a British film, television and theatre actor.-Career:He has appeared in over fifty television productions and over ten films...
. Peter and Roberta married in September 1996 and Peter ironically appeared in a few episodes of The Bill as her lover in 2007. The couple resides in London.
Roberta has been arachnophobic
Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia or arachnephobia is a specific phobia, the fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions. It is a manifestation of zoophobia, among the most common of all phobias. The reactions of arachnophobics often seem irrational to others...
since the age of 12. She is also very close friends with her former co-star Alex Walkinshaw
Alex Walkinshaw
Alex Newcombe Walkinshaw is an English actor best known for playing the role of Inspector Dale "Smithy" Smith in ITV's long running police procedural series, The Bill.-Early life and career:...
, who sees her as a second mother to him, and she is even grandmother by proxy to his two children, Flora and Jack.
She also came out in support of the Labour Party (UK)
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
for the 2010 general election, appearing in an election broadcast with fellow EastEnders actor Ross Kemp
Ross Kemp
Ross James Kemp is a BAFTA award-winning British actor, author and journalist, who rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders...
and hosting the silent auction at the Labour Party Women's Dinner on 6 December 2010 at Hotel Russell in London.
Filmography
- The BillThe BillThe Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
....Inspector Gina Gold (2002–2008) - Bleak House ....Mrs Pardiggle (2005)
- M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team ....Inspector Gina Gold (2003)
- Holby CityHolby CityHolby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...
....Karen Lake (2002) - Doctors ....Rachel Whiting (2001)
- EastEndersEastEndersEastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
....Irene Raymond (1997–2000) - The Passion ....Jane (1999)
- The KnockThe KnockThe Knock was a primetime UK drama series, created by Anita Bronson and broadcast on ITV from 1994 to 2000, which portrayed the activities of customs officers from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise....
....Ms Gardiner (1997) - Silent WitnessSilent WitnessSilent Witness is a BBC crime thriller series focusing on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. First broadcast in February 1996, the series is still airing to the present day, with a fifteenth series expected to air in January 2012. The series was...
....Dr de Groot (1997) - SharmanSharman (TV series)Sharman is a television series starring Clive Owen, based on the "Nick Sharman" books written by London based author Mark Timlin.-Cast and characters:...
....Aggie (1996) - DangerfieldDangerfield (TV series)Dangerfield is a British drama series about a small town doctor / police surgeon, which ran for 6 series, between 1995 and 1999. Originally Nigel Le Vaillant played the central role , but this character later left the series, the focus switching to his replacement, played by Nigel Havers.The BBC...
....Mrs Weatherall (1995) - The TurnaroundThe Turnaround- Track listing :# "The Turnaround" - 8:15# "East of the Village" - 6:44# "The Good Life" - 5:08# "Straight Ahead" - 7:02# "My Sin" - 6:53...
....Aggie (1995) - Tom and Viv ....Ottoline Morrell (1994)
- In Suspicious Circumstances ....Violette Kaye (1994)
- MinderMinder (TV series)Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...
.... Pat Norris (1991) - The Witches ....Chef Witch (1990)
- One Way Out ....Athene (1989)
- Inspector MorseInspector Morse (TV series)Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....
....Sheila Williams (1987) - Wolcott ....Mrs Godden (1981)
- Lady Killers ....Roberta Martin (1980)