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Shirley Stelfox

Shirley Rosemary Stelfox (11 April 1941 – 7 December 2015) was an English actress, known for her portrayal of the character Edna Birch, a moralising busybody in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale, and as Rose, the vampy sister of the snobby and overbearing Hyacinth Bucket in the first series of the comedy series Keeping Up Appearances.

Stelfox was born in Dukinfield, Cheshire, on 11 April 1941. She suffered from bilateral amblyopia, which left her short-sighted. While she was still at Lakes Road Secondary School in Dukinfield she appeared in pantomimes at the Old Chapel in the town, and in other productions.^[1]She then studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where her classmates included Edward Fox, John Thaw and Sarah Miles.^[2]

After the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Stelfox started on BBC Television in The Case Before You, a play in which she appeared as a 15 year old arsonist. In December 1960 she appeared in her first episode of Coronation Street. She later played many different characters in the soap opera, including, in 1983, the owner of a dating agency whose customers include the longrunning character Jack Duckworth (Bill Tarmey).

She played Hyacinth Bucket's sister Rose in the first series of Keeping Up Appearances, but was replaced by Mary Millar.^[3] She appeared in several other well-known television series, including Wicked Women (1970),^[4] Making Out, Heartbeat, Common as Muck, Juliet Bravo, The Bill, Crossroads, Inspector Morse, Grange Hill and Albion Market. She appeared Brookside as Madge Richmond (1986–1987), and in 1999 she appeared in two episodes of EastEnders as Jane Healy.

Among many other one-off parts, she played Alice Hobson in Hobson’s Choice (1967), Helen in Civvies (1992), Julie Clegg in Three Seven Eleven (1993–1994), Jean in Common as Muck (1994) and Mrs Nolan in Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married (1999–2000).^[1] She also played the mother of Julie Walters and Victoria Wood in the TV film Pat and Margaret (1994).

Her best-known film role was as the "$2.00 Prostitute" in Nineteen Eighty-Four, a film adaptation of George Orwell's novel. She played another prostitute in Terry Jones's comedy Personal Services (1987).

On the West End stage Stelfox played Sue Lawson in Not Now, Darling (Strand Theatre, 1968) and Phoebe in Toad of Toad Hall (Duke of York's Theatre, 1970).^[1] She starred in Stand Up Sweetie Pie, directed by June Brown, which premiered in 1993 at the Nottingham Playhouse.^[5] She played Regan in King Lear at the Ludlow Festival in 1972 and at the Connaught Theatre. She also played Lady Macbeth in 1973, Yelena in Uncle Vanya in 1974 and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1978. ^[6]

Stelfox was married to Keith Edmundson for three years. She had a daughter, Helena, from this marriage. She married her fellow actor Don Henderson in 1979 and they were together until his death from throat cancer in 1997.^[7] They lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, where she helped to bring up Henderson's two children from his first marriage. She moved to Nottinghamshire after Henderson's death.

Stelfox died on 7 December 2015, aged 74, four weeks after she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.^[8]

• Shirley StelfoxatIMDb
• Shirley Stelfox at the British Film Institute