Actress. Though best known in her later years as Penny of the BBC hit “As Time Goes By”, her forte was the stage, where she made herself a comedic staple of the West End over a long career. After arriving in England at age one, she took her bow as a singer and dancer with Sadler’s Wells at 14. She was to have a 10 year run with the company (narrowly missing capture by the Germans on a ballet tour of Holland in 1940, and later performing for British troops in 1944 Paris) before making a notable showing dancing the Spirit of Norway in a 1946 production of Grieg’s “The Song of Norway” at the Palace Theatre and Venus for Covent Garden Opera in Bliss’ “The Olympians” in 1949.  Fraser made her silver screen debut in 1948’s “The Dancing Years”, and was to return occasionally over the years, but always preferred live theatre. In the early 1950s, she was to win acclaim in musical revue; she sang and danced in Laurier Lister’s 1951 “Penny Plain”, as well as in “Fresh Airs”, and in “Airs on a Shoestring” which ran at the Royal Court from 1953 until 1955. Returning to straight theatre,  Fraser had major successes as Poppy Fenton in “The Big Tickle” and as Mrs. Squeamish in a production of “The Country Wife” which played at both the Royal Court and the Adelphi. After a 1958 turn with the Royal Ballet as the Ugly Sister in “Cinderella”, Miss Fraser joined the Old Vic in 1959, and won acclaim as Audrey in “As You Like It”, Mistress Page in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and others of The Bard’s works. From the early 1960s into the 1980s, she proved the West End’s leading comedienne; she was the Red Queen in “Thru The Looking Glass”, a noted ‘peculiar aunt’ in “Bell, Book, and Candle”, the much respected Grand Dame of 1974’s “Bloomsbury”, and an obtuse mother of such renown that “No Sex Please, We’re British” was reprised multiple times in several venues.  Fraser even managed to virtually steal the show in a 1964 Drury Lane showing of “Camelot” with the relatively small role of the witch Morgan le Fey. She was to appear on the small screen in various fare, such as “The Good Life” and “Benny Hill”, before landing the part of Penny in “As Time Goes By”, which ran from 1992 thru 2005. Miss Fraser married twice; her union with author Douglas Sutherland ended in divorce, and Roger Lubbock predeceased her. Of her type-casting, she said: “If you are labled as a comedy actress, you are never taken seriously…”. (bio by: Bob Hufford)