Annette Crosbie

Annette Crosbie OBE (born 12 February 1934) is a Scottish actor. She is best known for her role as Margaret Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave (1990–2000). She twice won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress, for The Six Wives of Henry VIII in 1971 and Edward the Seventh. In 1976, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the 1976 film The Slipper and the Rose and she won the award for Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards for the same role. Her other film appearances include The Pope Must Die (1991), Shooting Fish (1997), The Debt Collector (1999), Calendar Girls (2003) and Into the Woods (2014). Crosbie was born in Gorebridge, Midlothian, Scotland, to Presbyterian parents who disapproved of her becoming an actress. Nevertheless, she joined the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School while still in her teens. She began her career with the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre Company in 1956. She was educated at Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh. Her big break came in 1970 when she was cast as Catherine of Aragon in the BBC television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, for which she won the 1971 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. In 1973, she starred alongside Vanessa Redgrave in the BBC serial A Picture of Katherine Mansfield. In 1975, Crosbie made a similar impact as another queen, Queen Victoria, in the ITV period drama Edward the Seventh, for which she won the 1976 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. She played Cinderella's fairy godmother in The Slipper and the Rose, which was chosen as the Royal Film Première for 1976. In that film, Crosbie sang the Sherman Brothers' song, "Suddenly It Happens". Crosbie voiced the character of Galadriel in Ralph Bakshi's animated movie, The Lord of the Rings, filmed in 1978. In 1980, she played the abbess in Hawk the Slayer. In 1986, she appeared as the vicar's wife in Paradise Postponed.