Patricia Routledge

Having been awarded an OBE in 1993, Routledge was given a CBE in 2004. She also had a role in the TV series As Time Goes By. Some Harry Potter fans have suggested Routledge for the role of Dolores Umbridge for the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2006 or 2007). She is most remembered as a regular in the Carry On films. In the United States, in addition to her Tony Award-winning role in Darling of the Day, she appeared in a number of short-lived musicals including the legendary 1976 flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Irene Joan Marian Sims (born May 9, 1930, in Laindon, Essex - June 28, 2001) was a British actress. Routledge was last seen in the West End in 2004 in The Solid Gold Cadillac.

A recent BBC radio dramatisation of Carole Hayman's "Ladies of Letters" sees Patricia playing pensioner Vera Small in a two-hander with Prunella Scales (as Irene Spencer), a gentle, quintessentially British comedy where the two ladies exchange letters (more recently e-mails) full of acerbic comment and ironic asides. She has also played several real-life characters on television, including Barbara Pym and Hildegard of Bingen. In 1996, she took the lead in another long-running series, this time a drama, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. It was in 1990 that she first played the comic role of Hyacinth Bucket, an originally working-class woman with social pretensions (for example, she insists on pronouncing her surname "Bouquet").

Her numerous television appearances, including roles in Coronation Street and several BBC drama serials, failed to make her a household name until the 1980s, when she appeared, amongst other things, in Victoria Wood's comedy series, and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series of short plays. Around this time, she also acted alongside Sidney Poitier in the film To Sir, With Love. Her appearance in Darling of the Day won her a Tony Award in 1968 (she shared the honor that year with Leslie Uggams, who also won for Hallelujah, Baby!). She appeared in many stage productions, including musicals, and made her Broadway debut in 1966.

She was born at Birkenhead in Cheshire, and educated at the University of Liverpool, going on to act at the Liverpool Playhouse. She went on to study at the Bristol Old Vic's theatre school. Patricia Routledge (born 17 February 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances.