AS SEEN ON TV: ELEANOR BRON

ELEANOR BRON

AS SEEN IN:
"Not Only, But Always"

AS PLAYED BY:
Josephine Davison

Eleanor Bron (born 14 March 1938) is an English stage, film and television actress and author.

Eleanor Bron's earliest work for television included appearances on 'Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life' and in particular 'BBC-3', where she performed in sketches with John Fortune; they had already worked together at Peter Cook's Establishment Club. Later, her work included such programmes as 'Where Was Spring?' and 'My Father Knew Lloyd George'.

She collaborated with novelist and playwright Michael Frayn on the BBC programmes 'Beyond a Joke' (1972) and 'Making Faces' (1975).

She appeared in a 1982 episode ("Equal Opportunities") of the BBC series 'Yes Minister', playing a senior civil servant in Jim Hacker's Department. Hacker plans to promote her to strike a blow for equal opportunities.

Bron appeared in a brief scene in the BBC science fiction television series 'Doctor Who' serial "City of Death" alongside John Cleese as art critics in Denise Rene's art gallery in Paris. The pair are admiring the TARDIS, thinking it to be a piece of art, when the Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward) and Duggan (Tom Chadbon) rush into it and it dematerialises. Bron's character, believing this to be part of the work, states that it is "Exquisite, absolutely exquisite!"

She also appeared as an art critic in a parody of an Andy Warhol documentary on the BBC sketch comedy show 'French and Saunders'.

Later, she had a more substantial guest role in another 'Doctor Who' television serial, 1985's "Revelation of the Daleks". She has more recently also appeared in an audio drama based on 'Doctor Who' by Big Finish Productions, ("Loups-Garoux"), in which she plays the part of wealthy heiress Ileana de Santos.

She plays, through flashback, the recurring character of Patsy's mother in the sitcom, 'Absolutely Fabulous', an exuberantly horrible woman who "scattered bastard babies across Europe like a garden sprinkler". After giving birth, she would always say "Now take it away! And bring me another lover."

BCnU!