Judy Parfitt Movies and Career Information

Judith C. C. Parfitt, known as Judy Parfitt (born 7 November 1935) is a BAFTA-nominated English theatre, film and television actress who began her career on stage in 1954. Parfitt was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, the daughter of Catherine Josephine (née Caulton) and Lawrence Hamilton Parfitt. As a teenager, she attended Notre Dame High School for Girls in Sheffield and then she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Parfitt has had a successful theatrical career as well as numerous TV and film appearances; in 1981 she created the role of Eleanor in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Peter Nichols' Passion Play. In 1987, she played the mother of Clive Durham for Merchant Ivory's Maurice. In 1995, she portrayed Kathy Bates' former, domineering employer in Dolores Claiborne, who is dying in present-time, but is seen as a vibrant, glowing woman in flashback sequences. Two of her most notable past roles are Mildred Layton in The Jewel in the Crown (1984) (for which she received her first BAFTA nomination), and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in 1980's TV serial version of Pride and Prejudice. She has appeared in some American films and television shows, most notably as