"I've looked forward to being older because you will have that many more miles covered. We mustn't be led into thinking getting old is bad. Growing old is good."
Sharing a birthday as she does with a bizarre mix of names such as Una Stubbs, the Duke of Wellington, Wes Anderson, Calamity Jane, Judy Collins, Romaine Brooks, Glenn Ford, Rita Coolidge, Danielle Darrieux, Bernard Butler, Shirley Horn and Ray Parker Jr. - the one-and-only Joanna Lumley is 75 years old today!
Model, dancer, Ken Barlow's girlfriend "Elaine Perkins " in Coronation Street, "Bond Girl" (in On Her Majesty's Secret Service), "Hammer Horror Girl" (in The Satanic Rites of Dracula), "Sapphire" in Sapphire & Steel, "Purdey" in The New Avengers, the former school friend turned high-class prostitute in Shirley Valentine, "Donna Sinclair" in Dr Willoughby...and, of course, "Patsy Stone" in Absolutely Fabulous - she's done it all!
Nowadays, she has cemented her "national treasure" stakes by not only standing up for the Gurkhas who were being denied British citizenship, but also by stepping into the well-trodden footsteps of Michael Palin, Simon Reeve, Michael Portillo and the rest with several TV series of travelogues (she's done Russia, the Caribbean, the Silk Route, Greece, Japan and India and we're currently watching her tour of Britain).
Naturally, we adore her.
All hail, Joanna Lamond Lumley OBE FRGS (born 1st May 1946)!
Read my tribute to her on her 70th - amd much more over at my other blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle.
Goodness, do I adore me some Joanne Lumley.
ReplyDeleteJust saw her in an episode of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple last night.
She brings a touch of class to everything in which she appears. Jx
DeleteHappy birthday, Pats!
ReplyDeleteBlimey! I've just discovered that the fabulous Ms Lumley voiced Ermintrude in The Magic Roundabout (the terrible, terrible film, not the old tv series it's based on)!
She was also the voice of AOL - "You've got mail!" - when it was briefly the most popular browser/email service in the UK in the 1990s. She must have hated speaking that mangled American grammar. Jx
Deletebeautiful woman!
ReplyDeleteShe is impressive even at her age - such cheekbones... Jx
DeleteHow wonderful. And I adore her quote re: aging. Yes! Now, if only we got free flyer points for all that accumulated mileage!
ReplyDeleteI'd have enough points to circumnavigate the globe! Jx
DeleteAn extraordinary career and an extraordinary person.
ReplyDeleteI love her to bits.
Born fabulous! Jx
DeleteWe met a couple of times in London though I doubt she'd recall me! I remember at a funeral some cameraman shoved his camera at her and she blocked it and told him very firmly "this is NOT about me.Please show respect."
ReplyDeleteGood grief! People are shocking. I'm surprised she didn't give them "a Purdey karate chop". Jx
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