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Dora Bryan

Dora Bryan

Acting

Biography

Dora May Bryan OBE was an English actress of stage, film and television. Born Dora May Broadbent, her career began in pantomime as a child actor. In World War II she joined the ENSA in Italy to entertain British troops.  After having established herself as a versatile stage actress, covering everything from drama and comedy to musicals, she started to appear in film in the late 1940s, and in 1968 she even had her own TV series, "According to Dora". At one point in her career she was Britain's highest-paid star. She was active on stage until the mid 1990s and continued to work in film and television until 2005, when she finally had to give up the acting profession as she could no longer remember her lines.  Her autobiography According To Dora was published in 1987. In 1996, she was awarded an OBE in recognition of her services to acting and the same year she was also awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for her role in the West End production of the Harold Pinter play "The Birthday Party". She was married to British cricket player Bill Lawton from 1954 to his death in 2008. She lived in a nursing home in Hove, outside Brighton, until her death in 2014. 

Known For

Casualty
6.2

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

Casualty

1986
Heartbeat
7.2

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Heartbeat

1992
Doctors
4.8

Set in the fictional Midlands town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the city of Birmingham, this soap opera follows the staff and families of a doctor's surgery.

Doctors

2000
Last of the Summer Wine
7.1

Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.

Last of the Summer Wine

1973
Absolutely Fabulous
7.5

Set in the world of fashion and PR, immature fun-loving mother Edina Monsoon and her best friend Patsy drive Eddie's sensible daughter, Saffron, up the wall with their constant drug abuse and outrageous selfishness. Numerous in-jokes and heavy doses of cruel humour have made this series a cult hit in the UK and abroad.

Absolutely Fabulous

1992
The Sooty Show
6.4

The Sooty Show is a British children's Puppet series which aired on the BBC from 1955 to 1967 and ITV from 1968 to 1992. It follows the adventures and comedic day to day life of puppets Sooty, Sweep and Soo with their owner Harry Corbett, and in later years, his son Matthew.

The Sooty Show

1955
An Audience with...
5.3

An Audience with... is a British entertainment television show produced by London Weekend Television, in which a host, usually a singer or comedian, performs for an invited audience of celebrity guests, interspersed with questions from the audience, in a light hearted revue/tribute style.

An Audience with...

1978
Performance
6.3

An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.

Performance

1991
World in Action
7.0

World in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.

World in Action

1963
dinnerladies
7.4

Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.

dinnerladies

1998
Frank Stubbs Promotes
7.5

Frank Stubbs (Timothy Spall) is a down-at-heel ticket tout with grand ideas. He has an ambition to become a 'high class' promoter of famous and talented performers. In reality, his ambitions tend to outstrip his capabilities.

Frank Stubbs Promotes

1993
Theatre Night
N/A

A BBC television series of forty-five-minute excerpts from stage plays running in London.

Theatre Night

1957
Virtual Murder
7.0

Eccentric psychology professor Dr John Cornelius solves technologically-charged crimes with his partner Samantha Valentine, police contact Inspector Cadogan, and his HOD Professor Owen Griffiths.

Virtual Murder

1992
On the Up
6.3

On the Up is a British sitcom written by Bob Larbey about a self-made millionaire and his staff of domestic helpers who he treats like family, much to the annoyance of his upper class wife. The show ran for three series, from 1990 to 1992.

On the Up

1990
Hippies
7.3

Hippies is a 1999 BBC Two comedy miniseries created by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, and written by Mathews. The six-episode series stars Simon Pegg, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sally Phillips, and Darren Boyd as four wannabe hippies in 1969 swinging London, who run a counterculture magazine and strive to be as trendy as society will allow... even if they fail at every turn.

Hippies

1999
MirrorMask
6.4

In a fantasy world of opposing kingdoms, a 15-year old girl must find the fabled MirrorMask in order to save the kingdom and get home.

MirrorMask

2005
The Fallen Idol
7.2

Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, hero-worships his father's butler Baines. His perception of the man changes when he accidentally discovers the secret that Baines keeps and witnesses the consequences that adults' lies can cause.

The Fallen Idol

1948
A Taste of Honey
7.0

While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.

A Taste of Honey

1961
The Cockleshell Heroes
5.9

During WW2, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a team of kayakers to attack them.

The Cockleshell Heroes

1955
The Blue Lamp
6.6

P.C. George Dixon is a long-serving traditional copper who is due to retire shortly. He takes a new recruit under his aegis and introduces him to the easy-going night beat. Dixon is a classic ordinary hero but also anachronistic, unprepared and unable to answer the violence of the 1950s.

The Blue Lamp

1950