Frances Speedie
Frances Speedie is an actress, known for Hard Shoulder (2012), The Kid (2010) and Black Smoke Rising (2012).
Frances Sternhagen
Raised in Washington, D.C., the great-granddaughter (on her father's side) of German immigrants, Frances Hussey Sternhagen taught acting, singing and dancing to schoolchildren before first performing herself with the Arena Stage Group. Since then, she has been seen in numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. She has been nominated five times for a Tony Award (winning once for her performance in "The Good Doctor"). Other shows in which she appeared include "Equus", "On Golden Pond", "Angel", and "You Can't Take it With You". Among many other appearances Off-Broadway, including the original production of "On Golden Pond", Sternhagen delighted Off-Broadway audiences for over two years with her feisty portrayal of the title character in "Driving Miss Daisy". Her film debut was in Up the Down Staircase (1967). Since then her credits have included Fedora (1978), Starting Over (1979), Outland (1981) and Communion (1989). She appeared on the long-running television series Cheers (1982) as Esther Clavin, mother of John Ratzenberger's character, the pedagogic know-it-all mailman Cliff Clavin. She played wealthy philanthropist and society matron Millicent Carter, the grandmother of John Carter (Noah Wyle) on ER (1994). She also appeared in episodes of Sex and the City (1998) and Becker (1998).
Frances Tomelty
Frances Tomelty was born on October 6, 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is an actress, known for The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006), Bullshot (1983) and Vanity Fair (1998). She was previously married to Sting.
Frances Townend
Frances Townend is an actress and producer, known for Impulse (2018), Fear Thy Neighbor (2014) and The End of Sex (2022).
Frances Turner
Frances Turner is an actress, known for The Man in the High Castle (2015), New Amsterdam (2018) and Quantico (2015).
Frances Wang-Ward
Frances Wang-Ward is an actress and producer, known for Crash Zone (1999), Lowdown (2010) and Followers.
Frances Watson
Frances Watson is an actor, known for Popcorn & Chocolate (2017), The Importance of Sex Education (2016) and The AXI: The Avengers of Extreme Illusions (2011).
Frances White
Frances White was born on 1 November 1938 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for I, Claudius (1976), May to December (1989) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971).
Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour (born 30 July 1944) is an English actress, known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the television sitcom Rising Damp from 1974 until 1978. She is a Tony Award winner and three-time Olivier Award winner. She performed as Mrs. Lintott in the play The History Boys in London and on Broadway, winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She reprised the role in the 2006 film. Her other film roles include Madame Olympe Maxime in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010). Other television roles include Emma Porlock in the Dennis Potter serial Cold Lazarus (1996), Headmistress Margaret Baron in BBC sitcom Big School and Violet Crosby in the sitcom Vicious. De la Tour was born in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, to Moyra (née Fessas) and Charles de la Tour. The name was also spelt De Lautour, and it was in this form that her birth was registered in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the third quarter of 1944. She has French, Greek, and Irish ancestry. She was educated at London's Lycée Français and the Drama Centre London. She is the sister of actor and screenwriter Andy de la Tour. She has a son and a daughter. An episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, first broadcast on 22 October 2015, revealed De La Tour to be a descendant of the aristocratic Delaval family. After leaving drama school, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1965. Over the next six years, she played many small roles with the RSC in a variety of plays, gradually building up to larger parts such as Hoyden in The Relapse and culminating in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which she played Helena as a comic "tour de force". In the 1970s, she worked steadily both on the stage and on television. Some of her notable appearances were Rosalind in As You Like It at the Playhouse, Oxford in 1975 and Isabella in The White Devil at the Old Vic in 1976. She enjoyed a collaboration with Stepney's Half Moon Theatre, appearing in the London première of Dario Fo's We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay (1978), Eleanor Marx's Landscape of Exile (1979), and in the title role of Hamlet (1980). In 1980, she played Stephanie, the violinist with MS in Duet for One, a play written for her by Kempinski, for which she won the Olivier for Best Actress. She played Sonya in Uncle Vanya opposite Donald Sinden at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1982. Her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten won her another Olivier for Best Actress in 1983. She joined the Royal National Theatre for the title role in Saint Joan in 1984 and appeared there in Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1986. She again won the Olivier, this time for Best Supporting Actress for Martin Sherman's play about Isadora Duncan, When She Danced, with Vanessa Redgrave at the Globe Theatre in 1991 and played Leo in Les Parents terribles at the Royal National Theatre in 1994, earning another Olivier nomination. In 1994, de la Tour co-starred with Maggie Smith in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women at the Wyndham's and with Alan Howard in Albee's The Play About the Baby at the Almeida in 1998. In 1999, she returned to the RSC to play Cleopatra opposite Alan Bates in Antony and Cleopatra, in which she did a nude walk across the stage. In 2004, she played Mrs. Lintott in Alan Bennett's The History Boys at the National and later on Broadway, winning both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She would also later appear in the film version. In December 2005, she appeared in the London production of the highly acclaimed anti-Iraq war one-woman play Peace Mom by Dario Fo, based on the writings of Cindy Sheehan. In 2007, she appeared in a West End revival of the farce Boeing-Boeing. In 2009, she appeared in Alan Bennett's new play The Habit of Art at the National. In 2012, she returned to the National in her third Bennett premiere, People. Her many television appearances during the 1980s and 1990s include the 1980 miniseries Flickers opposite Bob Hoskins, the TV version of Duet for One, for which she received a BAFTA nomination, the series A Kind of Living (1988-89), Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus (1996), and Tom Jones (1997). Of all her TV roles, however, she is best known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire television comedy Rising Damp, from 1974 to 1978. De la Tour told Richard Webber, who penned a 2001 book about the series, that Ruth Jones "was an interesting character to play. We laughed a lot on set, but comedy is a serious business, and Leonard took it particularly seriously, and rightly so. Comedy, which is so much down to timing, is exhausting work. But it was a happy time." Upon reprising her Rising Damp role in the 1980 film version, she won Best Actress at the Evening Standard Film Awards. In the mid-1980s, de la Tour was considered, along with Joanna Lumley and Dawn French, as a replacement for Colin Baker on Doctor Who. The idea was scrapped and the job was given to Sylvester McCoy. In 2003, de la Tour played a terminally ill lesbian in the film Love Actually with the actress Anne Reid, although their scenes were cut from the film and appear only on some DVD releases as a bonus feature. In 2005, she portrayed Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a role she reprised in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1. Notable television roles during this time include Agatha Christie's Poirot: Death on the Nile (2004), Waking the Dead (2004), the black comedy Sensitive Skin (2005), with Joanna Lumley and Denis Lawson, Agatha Christie's Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) and New Tricks as a rather morbid Egyptologist, also in 2006. She was nominated for the 2006 BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role for her work on the film version of The History Boys. She later appeared in several well-received films, including Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland as Aunt Imogene, a delusional aunt of Alice's, opposite Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Mia Wasikowska and a supporting role in the film The Book of Eli, directed by the Hughes brothers. In 2012, she appeared in the film Hugo. Until 2012, she was also a patron for the performing arts group Theatretrain. From 2013 to 2016, de la Tour played the role of Violet Crosby in ITV sitcom Vicious (2013) with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. From 2013 to 2014, she portrayed headmistress Ms Baron in the BBC One sitcom Big School. In April 2016, she joined the second series of _Outlander_as Mother Hildegarde.
Frances-Anne Solomon
A trailblazer in the film and television industry, Frances-Anne Solomon was born in England of Trinidadian parents. She was raised and educated in the Caribbean and Canada before moving to Great Britain where she built a successful career in the 1990's with the BBC as a TV Drama Producer and Executive Producer. Productions included Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998) by John Maybury and Speak Like a Child (1998) by John Akomfrah, both of which she executive produced for the BBC. She also produced and directed films and television programs through her production company Leda Serene Films. Solomon moved to Toronto in 2000 where she continued to create, write, direct and producer her own projects. Her film A Winter Tale (2007) received many prestigious international awards, including Best Diaspora Film in The Paul Robeson Category at FESPACO 2009. Other directing credits include the feature film Peggy Su! (1997), What My Mother Told Me (1995), Bideshi (1995); and documentaries Literature Alive (2005) and I Is a Long Memoried Woman (1990). She produced the multi-award winning feature Kingston Paradise (2013) and was the Co-creator, Producer and Director of Lord Have Mercy! (2003) - Canada's hit Caribbean sitcom that aired on Vision TV, Toronto1, Showcase and APTN and starred comedian/actor Russell Peters. The show received two Gemini nominations. Her latest feature film HERO Inspired by the Extraordinary Life & Times of Mr. Ulric Cross (2019) began its World Tour on February 28th, 2019 and has been receiving critical acclaim. HERO opened the CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, New York African Film Festival's Opening Night of Film At Lincoln, DC Caribbean Film Festival and premiered at the Durban International Film Festival. It is currently on Showtime in the US. She is the founder and CEO of the CaribbeanTales Media Group, which produces, exhibits and distributes Caribbean-themed content, including the CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution, and CaribbeanTales-TV, as well as CineFAM that promotes bold original filmstrips by women of colour creators, and now the Windrush Caribbean Film Festival based in the UK. Solomon is a a Director member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of Canada.