A tall, blonde British player who especially shines in sharp-tongued comedy, Joanna Lumley gained mid-life fame in the wildly successful Britcom "Absolutely Fabulous". This statuesque actress was a model and has appeared in such stage productions as "Othello", "Private Lives", "Hedda Gabler", "An Ideal Husband" and "The Letter". She made an inauspicious film debut in 1969 with ornamental roles in "Some Girls Do" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (as the English girl). Larger roles followed but they tended to showcase her attributes more than her talents. The mild English sex romp "The Games That Lovers Play" (1970) was a case in point. Lumley's feature credits also include the final weary installment of the Hammer Dracula series, "The Satanic Rites of Dracula/Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride" (1973; released in the USA in 1978) and Blake Edwards' first two post-Peter Sellers "Pink Panther" movies, "The Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982) and "The Curse of the Pink Panther" (1983).

Her film career finally heated up a bit in 1989 with a supporting part as a schoolmate of Pauline Collins' "Shirley Valentine". Lumley's "AbFab" fame brought her good roles as a corset-collector in John Schlesinger's "Cold Comfort Farm" and a blue-blood in "Innocent Lies" (both 1995), and an evil auntie in "James and the Giant Peach" (1996). In "Prince Valiant" (1997), she was cast as the colorful Morgane Le Fay.

Lumley's career has been better served by TV; in 1973, she joined the cast of the hit English serial "Coronation Street" before heading to the USA as co-star in the revival "The New Avengers" (CBS, 1978-79). She kept active in British productions with appearances in miniseries and guest spots on "Steptoe and Son", "Lovejoy", the ATV sci-fi series "Sapphire & Steele" (with David McCallum, 1979-1982) and "French and Saunders." The latter afforded Lumley a major career boost when Jennifer Saunders cast her as Patsy Stone in the British comedy hit, "Absolutely Fabulous" (1992-95; aired in the USA on Comedy Central in 1994-95). This drug-abusing, hard-drinking fashion editor and best friend to the equally health-conscious Edina Monsoon (memorably played by Saunders) was one of the most lovably vile--and funniest--characters to hit the air waves in years. They reappeared in a TV-movie, "Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout" (shown in the USA in 1997 on Comedy Central). More recently, she starred opposite Ben Kingsley as the pie-baking Mrs. Lovett in the Showtime original "The Tale of Sweeney Todd" (1998).