Margaret John
Encyclopedia
Margaret John was a Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

, BAFTA award-winning actress, best known for her role as Doris in Gavin & Stacey
Gavin & Stacey
Gavin & Stacey is a British comedy television series. A romantic comedy-drama, the show follows the long-distance relationship of Gavin from Billericay in Essex, England, and Stacey from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. The writers of the show, actors James Corden and Ruth Jones, also...

. She has been described, by fellow actress Ruth Jones
Ruth Jones
Ruth Jones is a Welsh TV actress and writer. She starred in and co-wrote the multi-award winning TV comedy Gavin & Stacey and has appeared in many other successful comedies over recent years...

, as "an absolute national treasure
National treasure
The idea of national treasure, like national epics and national anthems, is part of the language of Romantic nationalism, which arose in the late 18th century and 19th centuries. Nationalism is an ideology which supports the nation as the fundamental unit of human social life, which includes shared...

".

Early life

Born in Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...

, as a child she wanted to be a nurse or veterinarian
Veterinarian
A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....

, but she could not stand the sight of blood
Blood phobia
Blood phobia is the extreme and irrational fear of blood. Acute cases of this fear can cause physical reactions that are uncommon in most other fears, specifically vasovagal syncope . Similar reactions can also occur with trypanophobia and traumatophobia...

. She occasionally acted at school with her sister Mair. Spotted while acting in a chapel pagent competition, after an audition John trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art is a leading British drama school in west London. LAMDA's president is Timothy West and its new principal is Joanna Read, who recently succeeded Peter James...

, graduating in 1950.

Career

Margaret John's first public appearances were at Swansea's Grand Theatre, where she had small parts in weekly repertoire. Not being a fluent Welsh speaker, she found some productions in Welsh at times challenging. After appearances on radio and in the theatre, she made her television debut in 1956 in a Welsh language drama. Her television roles included appearances on episodes of The First Lady
The First Lady (TV series)
The First Lady is a British television series produced by the BBC in 1968 and 1969.The series starred Thora Hird as crusading local councillor Sarah Danby and was set around the fictional borough of Furness in Lancashire...

, The Troubleshooters, Softly, Softly
Softly, Softly (TV series)
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...

, The Mike Yarwood Show
Mike Yarwood
Mike Yarwood, OBE is an English impressionist and comedian. He was one of Britain's top-rated entertainers, regularly appearing on television from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s. He left Bredbury Secondary Modern School in 1956 and worked as a messenger and then salesman at a garment warehouse...

, Doomwatch
Doomwatch
Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC One between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist , responsible for investigating and combating various...

, Blake's 7
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...

, Secret Army
Secret Army (TV series)
Secret Army is a television drama series made by the BBC and the Belgian national broadcaster BRT created by Gerard Glaister. The series chronicled the history of a Belgian resistance movement during the Second World War dedicated to returning Allied airmen, usually having been shot down by the...

, Lovejoy
Lovejoy
Lovejoy is a TV series about the adventures of Lovejoy, a British antiques dealer and faker based in East Anglia, a less than scrupulous yet likeable rogue. The episodes were based on a series of picaresque novels by John Grant...

, My Family, High Hopes
High Hopes (TV series)
High Hopes is a sitcom made in Wales, produced and directed by Gareth Gwenlan for BBC Wales and is set in a fictional area of the South Wales Valleys called Cwm-Pen-Ôl...

, The District Nurse
The District Nurse
The District Nurse is a British television series, produced by BBC Wales and shown on BBC One between 1984 and 1987.The series was a period drama created by Julia Smith and Tony Holland and starred Nerys Hughes as Megan Roberts, the titular district nurse fighting to improve living conditions for...

, Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

, and Doctors. On Radio 4, she appeared on Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting
Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting
Linda Smith’s A Brief History of Timewasting was a BBC Radio 4 situation comedy series written by and starring the late Linda Smith. It ran for two series of six episodes each from July 2001 until July 2002....

and played Mrs Stone, the school secretary, in the original ten series of King Street Junior
King Street Junior
King Street Junior was a Radio Comedy about a junior school aired by the BBC from March 1985 to November 1998. A continuation of the series renamed King Street Junior Revisited started in 2002 and continued until 2005...

from 1985 to 1998.

In a career that spanned more than fifty years, she appeared in such television programmes including: Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

, Dixon of Dock Green
Dixon of Dock Green
Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series that ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.-Overview:...

, Z-Cars
Z-Cars
Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

, Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, Little Britain
Little Britain
Little Britain is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was first broadcast on BBC radio and then turned into a television show. It was written by comic duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas...

, Emmerdale
Emmerdale
Emmerdale, is a long-running British soap opera set in Emmerdale , a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale was first broadcast on 16 October 1972...

, Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...

, Crossroads, Gavin and Stacey and The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of twenty television episodes for BBC Three and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the...

.

In the early 1980s, she enjoyed a long run on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

's daily soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Crossroads as doctors' receptionist Marian Owen. But between 2007 and 2010, she portrayed the suggestive neighbour Doris, cannabis-smoking, raunchy and much given to toyboys, in the BBC comedy series
Gavin & Stacey
Gavin & Stacey
Gavin & Stacey is a British comedy television series. A romantic comedy-drama, the show follows the long-distance relationship of Gavin from Billericay in Essex, England, and Stacey from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. The writers of the show, actors James Corden and Ruth Jones, also...

.

At the 18th BAFTA Cymru Film, Television and Interactive Media Awards on 17 May 2009, at the Wales Millennium Centre
Wales Millennium Centre
Wales Millennium Centre is an arts centre located in the Cardiff Bay area of Cardiff, Wales. The site covers a total area of . Phase 1 of the building was opened during the weekend of the 26–28 November 2004 and phase 2 opened on 22 January 2009 with an inaugural concert...

 in Cardiff Bay
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff Bay is the area created by the Cardiff Barrage in South Cardiff, the capital of Wales. The regeneration of Cardiff Bay is now widely regarded as one of the most successful regeneration projects in the United Kingdom. The Bay is supplied by two rivers to form a freshwater lake round the...

, in a ceremony hosted by Gethin Jones
Gethin Jones
Gethin Clifford Jones is a Welsh television presenter who has co-presented the BBC children's programme Blue Peter....

, John was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

In September 2009, John appeared in the graphic short film
Cow by director Peter Watkins Hughes warning of the dangers of texting while driving
Texting while driving
Texting while driving is the act of composing, sending, reading text messages, email, or making other similar use of the web on a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle. The practice has been viewed by many people and authorities as dangerous. It has also been ruled as the cause of some motor...

.

Also in 2009, John appeared in
The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler which ran at the Off Broadway Westside Theatre after a limited run at AFRICA in 1996. Ensler originally starred in the production which was produced by David Stone, Nina Essman, Dan Markley, The Araca Group, Willa Shalit, Mike Skipper...

, before which her last theatre production was in the 1980s in Medea
Medea
Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...

at London's Young Vic Theatre, opposite Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London...

. John appeared on stage in
Calendar Girls
Calendar Girls
Calendar Girls is a 2003 comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Buena Vista International and Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi based on a true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia...

at the Wales Millennium Centre from 27 July to 7 August 2010 and at Venue Cymru
Venue Cymru
Venue Cymru is a large arts venue in Llandudno, Conwy county borough, north Wales, incorporating a 1,500 seat theatre, restaurant, conference centre and arena. The venue was previously known as the North Wales Theatre and the North Wales Conference Centre....

, Llandudno
Llandudno
Llandudno is a seaside resort and town in Conwy County Borough, Wales. In the 2001 UK census it had a population of 20,090 including that of Penrhyn Bay and Penrhynside, which are within the Llandudno Community...

 from 9 to 14 August 2010, alongside fellow Welsh actress Ruth Madoc
Ruth Madoc
Ruth Madoc is a British actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Gladys Pugh in the 1980s BBC television comedy Hi-de-Hi!, and as Daffyd Thomas's mother in the second series of Little Britain.-Early life:...

, playing Lady Cravenshire, the judge of the WI's cake competition.
She also starred in the 2009 low-budget film
A Bit of Tom Jones?
A Bit of Tom Jones?
A Bit of Tom Jones? is a 2009 feature film written, produced and directed by Peter Watkins-Hughes. It was shot on location in Tredegar, Wales, and filmed in the summer of 2007...

, a bawdy farce about the Welsh singer
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

's penis.

In March 2010 she appeared in the BBC1 Wales programme
Margaret John - National Treasure, which featured clips from the last 50 years of television and special guest interviews with, amongst others, Ruth Jones
Ruth Jones
Ruth Jones is a Welsh TV actress and writer. She starred in and co-wrote the multi-award winning TV comedy Gavin & Stacey and has appeared in many other successful comedies over recent years...

, Eve Myles
Eve Myles
Eve Myles is an award winning Welsh actress of stage and screen. She is best known to Welsh audiences for her portrayal of Ceri Owen in the BBC Wales drama Belonging, and to audiences worldwide for her role as Gwen Cooper in the science fiction show Torchwood, a spin-off from Doctor Who.-Personal...

 and Joanna Page
Joanna Page
Joanna Louise Page is a Welsh actress, best known for playing Stacey in the television series, Gavin and Stacey.-Early and personal life:...

. The programme was broadcast again, in tribute to John, on 5 February 2011.
She also featured in a short BBC video in which she cooked Welsh cakes for St. David's Day.

Her last appearance on screen was in the new HBO drama
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones (TV series)
Game of Thrones is an American medieval fantasy television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Based on author George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, the first of which is called A Game of Thrones, the television series debuted in...

 on 8 May 2011.
She also had still been busy working in the previous month.

Personal life

Aged 48, she married Ben, a viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

 player who performed with both the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

 and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

. He died aged 39, three years after they married, and she did not remarry. They had no children.

An obsessive jigsaw
Jigsaw puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces.Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture...

 fan and solitaire
Solitaire
Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself or with other people. The solitaire card game Klondike is often known as simply Solitaire....

 player, she regularly worked for many charities, including: Sport Relief
Sport Relief
Sport Relief is a biennial charity event from Comic Relief, in association with BBC Sport, which brings together the worlds of sport and entertainment to raise money to help vulnerable people in both the UK and the world's poorest countries...

; Children in Need
Children in Need
Children in Need is an annual British charity appeal organised by the BBC. Since 1980 it has raised over £500 million. The highlight of the Children in Need appeal is an annual telethon, held in November. A teddy bear named "Pudsey Bear" fronts the campaign, while Terry Wogan is a long...

; Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...

, the PDSA
PDSA
The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals is a veterinary charity in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1917 by Maria Dickin to provide care for sick and injured animals of the poor...

 and the George Thomas Hospice
George Thomas
George Thomas may refer to:*George Thomas, 1st Viscount Tonypandy , British Labour Party politician, Speaker of the House of Commons*George Thomas , American baseball player*George Thomas...

. She was also the face of the National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...

 AdvantAGE campaign, created to provide opportunities for old people.

Death

Margaret John died in hospital in her home town of Swansea on 2 February 2011 after a short illness of Pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

.

Selected film and television appearances

  • 1960: How Green Was My Valley
    How Green Was My Valley
    How Green Was My Valley is a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, telling the story through narration of the main character, of his Welsh family and the mining community in which they live. The author had claimed to have based the book on his own knowledge of the Gilfach Goch area, but this was proven...

    - Bronwen
  • 1967: Z-Cars
    Z-Cars
    Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

    (episode: "When Did You Last See Your Father?") - Betty Nutall
  • 1968: Doctor Who
    Doctor Who
    Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

    - Megan Jones, director of Euro Sea Gas, "Fury from the Deep
    Fury from the Deep
    Fury from the Deep is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in six weekly parts from 16 March to 20 April 1968...

    "
  • 1973: Seven of One, "I'll Fly You for a Quid" - Mrs Owen
  • 1977: Last of the Summer Wine
    Last of the Summer Wine
    Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...

    (episode #26: "Who Made a Bit of a Splash in Wales Then?") - Foggy's ladyfriend
  • 1978–1984: Crossroads - Marian Owen
  • 1978: Blake's 7
    Blake's 7
    Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...

    (episode: "The Way Back") - Arbiter
  • 1999–2008: High Hopes
    High Hopes
    As a song title, "High Hopes" may refer to: * "High Hopes" , a song from the 1959 movie A Hole in the Head, popularized by Frank Sinatra* "High Hopes" , a 1982 song by The SOS Band...

    - Mrs Elsie Hepplewhite
  • 2005: The Mighty Boosh
    The Mighty Boosh
    The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of twenty television episodes for BBC Three and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the...

    (episode: "Nanageddon") - Nanatoo
  • 2006: Doctor Who
    Doctor Who
    Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

    (episode: "The Idiot's Lantern
    The Idiot's Lantern
    "The Idiot's Lantern" is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 27 May 2006.-Plot:...

    ") - Granny Connolly
  • 2007–2010: Gavin and Stacey - Doris
  • 2007: Run Fatboy Run
    Run Fatboy Run
    Run Fatboy Run is a 2007 British comedy film directed by David Schwimmer, written by Michael Ian Black and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg, Dylan Moran, Thandie Newton, Harish Patel, India de Beaufort, and Hank Azaria...

    - Libby's Grandmother
  • 2009: A Bit of Tom Jones?
    A Bit of Tom Jones?
    A Bit of Tom Jones? is a 2009 feature film written, produced and directed by Peter Watkins-Hughes. It was shot on location in Tredegar, Wales, and filmed in the summer of 2007...

  • 2010: Skins
    Skins (TV series)
    Skins is a BAFTA award-winning British teen drama that follows a group of teenagers in Bristol, South West England, through the two years of college. The controversial plot line explores issues such as dysfunctional families, mental illness , adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and death...

    - Eunice
  • 2011: Game of Thrones
    Game of Thrones (TV series)
    Game of Thrones is an American medieval fantasy television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Based on author George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, the first of which is called A Game of Thrones, the television series debuted in...

    - Old Nan

External links

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