Wendy Craig

100 North East Heroes

Born: Sacriston, County Durham, June 20, 1934.

Wendy Craig began her career on the stage at a very young age and in the late 1950s began appearing in films like The Servant, with Dirk Bogarde, but it was in British sitcoms in the 1960s and 1970s that she became a household name.

She made the role of the scatty middle-class housewife her own, first in BBC's Not in Front of the Children and later in ITV's . . . And Mother Makes Three, in which she played newly-widowed Sally Harrison which later became . . . And Mother Makes Five, when Sally re-married.

It was as Ria Parkinson in Carla Lane's Butterflies that she reached the high point of her TV celebrity.

Craig played a flustered contemporary housewife facing a mid-life crisis opposite Geoffrey Palmer as her husband, and a young Nicholas Lyndhurst - later Rodney in Only Fools and Horses - as her son.

In the programme she debated ways to break out of the confinements of family life, chiefly through her contemplation of an affair with the smooth and wealthy businessman Leonard Dunn, played by Bruce Montague. In a bit of a departure, she took the title role in Nanny about the experiences of nanny Barbara Gray in the 1930s, caring for the children of the rich and well-connected.

It was Craig's idea - submitted and accepted under a pen name - which she said she got from flicking through the adverts in The Lady magazine.

Over the years she has won a clutch of awards including actress of the year, BBC personality of the year and the funniest woman on television.

She also won a gold disc for her recorded version of The Tales of Beatrix Potter and her Busy Mums cookbooks became best sellers.

Quote/fact: In her first professional engagement, legendary critic Kenneth Tynan described her as "One of the six best young actresses in the Western world".