Mrs. Lovett

Mrs. Lovett
Mrs. Lovett as portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter
Portrayed by	Iris Darbyshire (1928 film) Stella Rho (1936 film) Angela Lansbury (1979 Broadway) Sheila Hancock (1980 West End) Dorothy Loudon (1980 Broadway) Beth Fowler (1989 Broadway) Julia McKenzie (1993 West End) Joanna Lumley (1998 TV movie) Patti LuPone (2000 concert, 2005 Broadway) Elaine Paige (2004 NYC Opera) Essie Davis (2006 TV movie) Helena Bonham Carter (2007 film) Judy Kaye (2007 Canada/U.S. tour) Imelda Staunton (2012 West End) Emma Thompson (2014 concert) Siobhán McCarthy (2014 London) Carolee Carmello (2017 Off-Broadway)
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Baker
Spouse(s)	Albert Lovett (deceased)

Mrs. Lovett is a fictional character appearing in many adaptations of the story Sweeney Todd. She is most commonly referred to as Nellie, although Margery, Maggie, Sarah, Shirley, Wilhemina and Claudetta are other names she has been given. First appearing in the penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls, it is debated if she was based on an actual person or not. The character also appears in modern media related to Sweeney Todd including the Stephen Sondheim musical and its 2007 film adaptation.

In every version of the story in which she appears, Mrs. Lovett is the business partner and accomplice of barber/serial killer Sweeney Todd; in some versions, she is also his lover. She makes and sells meat pies made from Todd's victims.

Usually, Mrs. Lovett is depicted as a childless widow, although in some depictions (but very rarely) Mr. Albert Lovett is shown. Before she goes into business with Todd, she is on the verge of poverty, with her premises being filthy and infested with vermin. In the musical, she laments her pies are the worst ones in London. While she feels no remorse about killing people and serving them as pies, she is sometimes shown to have a softer side to those in need; for example, she informally adopts the young orphan Tobias Ragg as her own, and considers taking in Todd's daughter Johanna as well.

Although Mrs. Lovett's character and role in the story are similar in each version, certain details vary according to the story's interpretation. In some versions, for example, Mrs. Lovett commits suicide when their crimes are discovered, while in others, Todd kills her himself or she is arrested and escapes execution by turning King's Evidence against Todd. Her physical appearance varies from a slim and alluring beauty, to a plump, homely lunatic. Her age is also differing in many adaptations; though it is never specifically stated in any versions, there are some (most noticeably in Sondheim's musical) where she is older than Todd, often by a difference of over fifteen years and others where she is around his age. Whether their relationship is platonic, romantic or merely sexual also varies according to interpretation.