English actress Wendy Richard is known primarily by British audiences for her work in several popular and long-running television series. However, with the advent of cable and an increasing interest in British television by American viewers, stars such as Richard are becoming household names across the globe.
Wendy Emerton was born July 20, 1943, in Middlesbrough, Cleveland, England. Receiving her initial education in Rickmansworth at the Royal Masonic School for Girls, Richard went on to study at the Italia Conti Academy. The academy was a stage school, and it was here Richard developed and honed her acting skills.
Her screen debut came in 1960 with Sammy Meets the Girls, opposite Sammy Davis Jr. and Mandy Rice Davies. She bounced around television, finding recurring roles on series such as Harpers West One and Hugh and I. However, it wasn’t until 1965 that her popularity really began to take off.
In this year, she took the role of Joyce Harker in a new British soap opera known as The Newcomers. Richard was just one among a large cast, but she did have the opportunity to work beside prolific and talented actors such as Jenny Agutter and Chris Sullivan.
When Richard left The Newcomers, she took a wide variety of jobs. Her work throughout the latter half of the 1960s and through the early 70s was not unified in terms of medium or genre, working in both television and film and taking roles equally as often in drama as she did in comedy. Some notable roles during this time include The Making of Jericho in 1966, a drama costarring Pauline Collins, No Blade of Grass in 1970, a sci-fi drama about the end of the world, and a four-episode appearance on the war comedy television series Dad’s Army, with Arthur Lowe and James Beck.
After working in the entertainment industry for over a decade, truly steady work still eluded Richard. Therefore, when she landed the role of the heavily cockney accented Miss Shirley Brahms on the new sitcom Are You Being Served?, it proved to be just what her career needed. Although she was unaware of it at the time, Are You Being Served? would go on to become wildly successful, running continuously from 1972 to 1985. Her co-stars included Mollie Sugden, John Inman, Frank Thornton, and Nicholas Smith.
When the show finally came to a close, Richard made the transition to another as of yet unknown television series entitled EastEnders. The quintessential soap opera, Richard had no way of knowing her role as Pauline Fowler would last twenty-two years and solidify herself as one of Britain’s most recognizable and loved television stars.
After declaring her intention to leave the show in mid-2006, Richard’s character was killed off during the Christmas season.
From 1992 through 1993, Richard also appeared in the Are You Being Served? continuation, Grace & Favour. Now running a rural hotel rather than working in the Grace Brothers department store, almost the entirety of the original cast returned for this short-lived sequel.
In her personal life, Richard was diagnosed with breast cancer in the early 1990s. After years of various treatments and remissions, she was finally declared cancer free in 2005. Richard maintains her battle with cancer played no part in her decision to leave EastEnders.
She currently lives in Marylebone with her partner of eleven years, John Burns.
YUDDY
