Sheila Hancock

Sheila Hancock's first big television role was as Carol in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade in the early 1960s. She also played the lead roles in the sitcoms The Bed-Sit Girl, Mr Digby Darling and Now Take My Wife. Her other television credits include Doctor Who, Kavanagh QC (opposite her husband, John Thaw), EastEnders, Gone to the Dogs (TV series) The Russian Bride, Brighton Belles, Bedtime, Fortysomething, Bleak House, New Tricks and The Catherine Tate Show. In 2008, she played the part of a terminally ill patient who's travelled to Switzerland to have an assisted suicide in one of The Last Word monologues for the BBC. In 2009, she played Liz in The Rain Has Stopped, part of the BBC daytime mini-series Moving On.

She was married to actors Alec Ross and John Thaw.