I was born ten minutes after my paternal twin sister,Geraldine, at home in Hampstead, London in 1943. My father was a clerk in the Army and my mother took us and our brother to the country in Waterford, Ireland to where she grew up until the war was over. We returned in 1946 to Hampstead where I still live.
I was training to be a school teacher when I met my first husband, Tom Kempinski, who was an actor with the National Theatre at the time. He convinced me that I could be an actress. I loved dancing and the theatre. Both my parents were musical. My sister and I were encouraged to entertain at family gatherings We produced a play for our school friends when we were 10 years old.
As many had done before me, I started by getting work as a model and it wasn’t long before my picture was shown to the producer of ‘The Saint’ who gave me the role of ‘Daisy’ in the first series. This was the first of many different parts and for several years I worked for BBC TV in numerous soaps, plays, series and comedy shows. I was a regular in five series with Spike Milligan.
It was Oscar Lewenstien who, having seen me at The Ambiance Theatre gave me my first West End play ‘The Giveaway’ by Anne Jellicoe, directed by Richard Eyre in 1969. I appeared in several Brian Rix farces on stage and TV. One of these was’She’s Done it Again’ in which I played the juvenile lead for 9 months at The Garrick Theatre in the West End ; at the same time I was working with Roland Reese and Patrick Dromgoole at The Ambiance Theatre in Queensway doing some of the most innovative fringe theatre and a season of American political drama. My husband was working with Peter Brook in Paris during the ‘uprising’ of ’68 ; in fact we were both appearing in ‘cutting edge’ theatre at this culturally rich period. Television drama was pretty ‘hot’ at the time also and I was lucky enough to be involved in some of it eg The Wednesday Play, Armchair Theatre and 30 Minute Theatre, the latter went out ‘live’ as did some of the series I appeared in! Then followed leading parts in ‘Fox’ with Peter Vaughn, “Black & Blue – Middle of the Road Show” with Anthony Hopkins .and ‘Knife Edge’ for Granada TV. I retired soon after this .
I quite unexpectedly shot into the limelight with my very first film role in 'Goldfinger' in 1964 when I was only 20 years old. Eon films had wanted me to be the body for the iconic titles sequence and I agreed if they gave me a part in the film (Dink). An offer of a two year contract to publicise the film followed but I turned this down on the grounds that I would find it difficult to 'live down' such publicity as I wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. As it transpired I couldn't 'live it down' anyway and to this day get regular fan-mail from Bond fans! I also get lots of mail still from my appearances in six 'Carry On' films and repeats of tv shows.
The rest of my work, some of which I'm most proud of , includes some 380 television productions; West End plays; innovatory fringe theatre at the Ambiance in the 60's; 'serious' films like "Trois Chambres a Manhattan" directed by Marcel Carne.
I gave up acting in the late 80's to focus on homemaking and caring for my two sons and in the early 90's I moved to the Alpujarras in Andalucia, Spain where I brought to life an old farmhouse, which is completely self-sufficient , and began to draw and paint. In 2006 I held an exhibition of a series of photomontages made from original black & white portraits taken of me during my career as an actress.