Patricia Routledge

Having been awarded an OBE in 1993, Routledge was given a CBE in 2004. Additionally, she has won many Soap Opera Digest Awards, including one for Favorite Couple with Mark Derwin in 2000. 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 has won the "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series" Daytime Emmy in 1984, 1986, 1992, 1995, and 1996 (the most won by any daytime actress). 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. Viki also found out that she had two long-lost daughters: Megan (played by Jessica Tuck from 1989 through 1992) and Natalie (Melissa Archer); this is in addition to her other children, Kevin (most recently played by Dan Gauthier), Joey (Bruce Michael Hall), and Jessica (Bree Williamson). Routledge was last seen in the West End in 2004 in The Solid Gold Cadillac. She has also had to go through the process of many divorces (such that her full legal name is now Victoria Lord Riley Burke Riley Buchanan Buchanan Carpenter Davidson), the deaths of loved ones, breast cancer, stroke, and heart disease.

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. Victoria, who is known as "Viki", has had to live with Dissociative Identity Disorder (also known as DID). She has also played several real-life characters on television, including Barbara Pym and Hildegard of Bingen. Slezak's character has gone through many tragedies. In 1996, she took the lead in another long-running series, this time a drama, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. She portrays Victoria "Viki" Lord on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, a role she has depicted since March 17, 1971. 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"). She is the daughter of actor Walter Slezak.

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. Erika Slezak (born August 5, 1946 in Hollywood, California) is an American actress of Austrian descent. 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.