Janet Brown (Janet Brown)

Janet Brown

Actress. Though she had a long and respected career on the British stage and television she shall undoubtedly be remembered for an uncanny ability to impersonate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Educated in her hometown she took to the stage early and during World War II worked entertaining the troops. Janet made her silver screen bow in 1949’s “Floodtide” and earned praise in the 1953 “Folly to Be Wise” but was to make her greatest mark on stage, television, and radio. She appeared on a number of BBC productions of the 1950s and 1960s earning high marks on “The Goon Show” and later having her own radio series “Janet and Company”. With the increasing popularity of impressions in the 1970s she was much in demand but when Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, and Prime Minister in 1979, Janet had found her niche. She was to portray the Iron Lady numerous times on stage and television including in the 1981 James Bond feature “For Your Eyes Only” though her most famous skit took place in a lounge at New York’s JFK Airport when she embarrassed comic Joan Rivers, who had made a career of Thatcher-bashing, in a hidden camera sequence. When Mrs. Thatcher, with whom she had become friends, left power Janet continued her career and remained active well into her 80s. Last seen on the West End stage in 2007’s “The Country Wife”, she died in an East Sussex nursing home.

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Born

  • December, 14, 1923
  • South Lanarkshire, Scotland

Died

  • May, 27, 2011
  • East Sussex, England

Cemetery

  • Danehill Cemetery
  • East Sussex, England

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