Joyce Grant

Joyce Grant (23 January 1924 – 11 July 2006) was a UK-based South African actress.

Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, she was encouraged by her father to come to London to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

She returned to South Africa to begin her acting career. Her performances included "Lola" in William Inge's Come Back Little Sheba and as "Laura Wingfield" in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

At the end of the 1950s she returned to London permanently. In Jack Pulman's The Happy Apple, her singing voice nightly brought the house down with her rendering of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

She appeared in Something’s Afoot, The Club, Deathtrap and Tonight at Eight-thirty. She appeared in the TV musical Pickwick for the BBC in 1969 and played opposite Frankie Howerd on Broadway in Rockefeller and the Red Indians. In 1980 she appeared in the first episode of Hi-de-Hi! playing the mother of Jeffrey Fairbrother. In 1988, she played Aunt Em/Glinda in the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Wizard of Oz and Mother Superior in Black Adder S1E3-The Archbishop.

After retiring from the stage she became a "buddy" to HIV+ patients at the Lighthouse in London.

During the last nine years of her life she was determined, despite ill health, to broaden her outlook and took various courses at the City Literary Institute and at the University of the Third Age. She lived with her companion of many years, Jean Ridge.

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