Anna Quayle, known for appearing in a number of TV shows and films, has died at the age of 86 after suffering from Lewy body dementia.
Her family confirmed the actress passed away on August 16.
Dubbed “Broadway’s new comedy queen” in the US, the star gained a cult status thanks to her performances on stage and in both television programmes and movies.
Born in Warwickshire to actor Douglas Quayle in 1932, she made her stage debut at the age of three and took on numerous acting gigs throughout her childhood, before graduating from RADA with fellow thespians Glenda Jackson and Jack Hedley in 1956.
Quayle's reputation bolstered when she first appeared in And Another Thing during the 1960s and was seen in Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse’s seven ages of man musical, Stop the World – I Want to Get Off at the Queen’s Theatre.
Staking her claim in live performances, her West End success and Critics’ Circle award took her to the bright lights of Broadway for the first and only time, where she won a Tony award, and to South Africa in the show’s 1964 tour.
During the same year she had a starring role in the Beatles’ first film, A Hard Day’s Night, and four years later she portrayed Baroness Bomburst, the ‘Chu-Chi Face’ wife of Gert Fröbe, in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Her other film credit include playing opposite Tony Curtis in Drop Dead Darling in1966, the James Bond spoof Casino Royale in 1967 and the 1972 Frankie Howerd Vehicle Up the Chastity Belt.
During her time in the limelight, performing arts magazine The Stage dubbed her as “the most original of comediennes. Her beautifully refined tones are a joy and every appearance eagerly anticipated”.
She starred in 85 episodes of Grange Hill from 1990 until 1994, and appeared in other small screen shows such as: The Sooty Show, Brideshead Revisited, and The Avengers.
In 1976 she married Donald Baker and she had one daughter, Katy.
In 2012, Quayle was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia
- Family
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