Angela Bruce

Biography

Angela Bruce (born 1951) is an English actress, noted for her television work.

Bruce was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire to a West Indian father and white mother, but was put up for adoption aged three, and brought up in Craghead, County Durham. She made her screen debut in the 1973 film Man at the Top. Her regular or recurring roles in several TV series include Sandra Ling in Angels, Janice Stubbs in Coronation Street and reporter Chrissie Stuart in Press Gang. In 1980, she appeared in the “Charlie Boy” episode of Hammer House of Horror. She is also recognisable to sci-fi fans for her performance as Brigadier Winifred Bambera in the 1989 Doctor Who serial Battlefield, as well as her portrayal of Dayna Mellanby in the Blake’s 7 audio drama The Syndeton Experiment. On the London stage, she was the second actress to play Magenta in the original stage production of The Rocky Horror Show, succeeding Patricia Quinn.

Her other notable credits include Red Dwarf (as Debb Lister, a female counterpart of Dave Lister in a parallel universe), Prime Suspect and Only Fools and Horses in which she played Councillor Murray. She also appeared as lesbian prison officer Mandy Goodhue in the popular ITV1 prison drama series Bad Girls—this was the second time she had appeared in a British women’s prison drama series, having played tough inmate Bobbie in an episode of Within These Walls titled “The Good Life”. Another notable role was (fictional) British Foreign Secretary Ruth Chambers in the BAFTA award-winning BBC One series Spooks.

Bruce played Gina in the film Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War in 2002. In 2008, she guest-starred in the Sapphire and Steel audio dramas Second Sight and Zero.

She guest-starred in Death in Paradise in 2017, as Ernestine Gray.