Gillian Lewis

Gillian Lewis was an English character actress who, after a varied stage career in the 1950s and early '60s, appeared in a number of television drama series until the late 1970s. Her best known roles were probably as the runaway heiress Geraldine Melford in the original London production of Slade and Reynolds' musical Free as Air and, on television, as Drusilla Lamb, secretary to Mr. Rose in the detective series of that name.

Gillian Lewis was born in Tisbury, Wiltshire. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and then worked with the company, combining minor acting parts with the job of assistant stage manager. In 1953 she had a supporting role (Cousin Rosie) in Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds' Christmas musical The Merry Gentleman at the Theatre Royal, Bristol and the following year worked backstage at the Vaudeville Theatre in London when Slade and Reynolds' Salad Days transferred there from Bristol.

While working with the Ipswich Repertory Company, she met her future husband, the actor Peter Beton.

In 1957, after Slade and Reynolds had enjoyed considerable acclaim with Salad Days, Lewis and Patricia Bredin (who in the same year was the United Kingdom's first ever entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest) took the main female roles in their follow-up show, Free as Air, which opened at the Savoy Theatre in London on 6 June 1957 following an initial season in Manchester. Although this and other Slade musicals never quite matched the success of Salad Days,Free as Air, which was set on the fictional Channel Island of Terhou, ran for 417 performances, some critics regarding it as more slick and professional than its predecessor. A cast recording, which includes Lewis singing a solo number, "Nothing But Sea and Sky", duets with John Trevor ("Free as Air" and "I'd Like to Be Like You") and in a trio with Josephine Tewson and Gerald Harper ("Holiday Island"), was released on compact disc in 2007. One admirer has written that her "sometimes uncertain soprano voice" was "tenuous but perched on the edge of beauty". Like Lewis, both Harper and Tewson moved successfully into television in the 1960s. Peter Beton also appeared in Free as Air.

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