Helen Fraser (actress)

Helen Fraser (born Helen Margaret Stronach; born 15 June 1942) is a retired English actress, who has appeared in many television series since the early 1960s.^[1] For international audiences, she may be best known for her roles in Billy Liar (1963) and Repulsion (1965).^[2] She is also well known in Britain for portraying the role of miserable warder Sylvia Hollamby in the prison drama series Bad Girls .^[3] She appeared in the series from the first episode in 1999 until the last in 2006.^[1]

She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alongside Tom Courtenay and John Thaw, among others.^[4] She gained her breakthrough role alongside Courtenay in Billy Liar (1963).^[5] They later played the parents of character Dave Best in the Christmas special of The Royle Family (2008).^[6]

She is best known to television viewers for her long-running role in the ITV women's prison drama Bad Girls as unpleasant prison officer Sylvia Hollamby ^[7] from the first episode in 1999 to the last in 2006.^[1] She reprised the role in the West End production of Bad Girls: The Musical in 2007.^[6]

She made her TV debut in the early 1960s and her credits include Z-Cars , Dixon of Dock Green , The Likely Lads , Doctor in Charge , The Dustbinmen , On the Buses , Rising Damp , Tales of the Unexpected , Duty Free , One Foot in the Grave and Casualty .^[8] She also worked on TV with comedians like Dick Emery and the Two Ronnies in the 1970s.^[6]

She has also appeared on stage, including with the Royal National Theatre, in the West End and in regional theatres across the country.^[9] In 2009 and 2010, she toured the UK as Mrs Fisher in a stage version of Billy Liar .^[3] In 2011, she joined the tour of Calendar Girls .^[10]

Fraser has appeared in the ITV soap Coronation Street twice – in 1998 as Magenta Savannah and again in 2013 as Doris Babbage.^{[11] [12] [13]}

In 2015, she appeared in an episode of the BBC daytime soap Doctors .^[14]

In 1964, she married the recording engineer Peter Handford; the couple had met on the set of Billy Liar.^[3] Handford died in 2007.^[15] Fraser lives in Eye, Suffolk.^[16]

• Helen Fraser at IMDb
• Image & voice sample Archived 29 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine

• 1942 births
• Living people
• Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• English stage actresses
• English film actresses
• English television actresses
• Actresses from Oldham
• People from Eye, Suffolk
• Actresses from Suffolk
• 20th-century English actresses
• 21st-century English actresses
• English soap opera actresses
• Actors from Mid Suffolk District

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
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