Doreen Mantle

Doreen June Mantle was a South African-born British actress who played Jean Warboys in One Foot in the Grave. She appeared in many British television series since the 1960s, including The Duchess of Duke Street, The Wild House, Sam Saturday, Chalk, Casualty, The Bill, Doctors, Holby City, Lovejoy, Coronation Street and Jonathan Creek. She played lollipop lady Queenie in Jam & Jerusalem.

Early life

Doreen June Mantle was born on 22 June 1926, in Johannesburg, South Africa, to English parents Bernard and Hilda, who ran a hotel. When she was six weeks old, her parents moved back to Britain, but they returned to South Africa four years later after the birth of Mantle's brother Alan in 1930.
Mantle attended the University of the Witwatersrand. She acted with the university's dramatic society and appeared on the South African amateur stage and radio, before becoming a social worker. On a visit to London in 1949, she performed at the Gateway theatre. She married Graham Smith, an engine sales manager, in 1953. She moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 23, out of opposition to apartheid, settling in London with her husband.

Career

Mantle acted at Colchester repertory theatre before taking a break from the stage after the birth of her first son. After her return, she had a small role as a wedding guest at the Aldwych theatre in a 1967 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Jules Feiffer’s play Little Murders.
After a lean spell during which she worked as a London tourist guide, Mantle’s career was given a boost by William Trevor’s play Going Home at the King’s Head theatre club, Islington, in 1972. She continued to work extensively on the stage in such productions as My Fair Lady, Keep It in the Family, The Seagull and Hamlet. She also toured Britain in Billy Liar in the role of Florence Boothroyd and performed at the National Theatre in The Voysey Inheritance. In 1979, she was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Death of a Salesman. She also undertook radio work for BBC Radio 3 and BBC World Service. Mantle played the long suffering wife of the rabbi in BBC Radio 4's comedy series The Attractive Young Rabbi.
Mantle played Mrs Shaemen in Barbra Streisand's film version of Yentl.
In television many of Mantle's parts were one-offs, but she had a short run as Mrs Catchpole in the first series of The Duchess of Duke Street and played Karl Marx’s wife in the first two parts of the Eleanor Marx trilogy and Rita Sterne, mother of the detective in Sam Saturday.
Mantle would go on to find fame in her sixties, when in 1989 she was cast as the hapless and naive Jean Warboys, friend of Margaret and Victor Meldrew in David Renwick's sitcom One Foot in the Grave. She appeared in 18 episodes from 1990 until 2000. She would work with Renwick again, appearing in an episode of his comedy drama Love Soup in 2005.
She was a regular in the first two series of the sitcom Jam & Jerusalem, written by Jennifer Saunders, appearing in 12 episodes as Queenie, the school crossing attendant.
From 2010-11, Mantle briefly appeared in Coronation Street as Joy Fishwick, the mother of Colin Fishwick, who was secretly killed and his identity was stolen by John Stape. In a similar fashion to her son, Joy was killed; albeit accidentally, by John who was trying to compromise and muffle her screaming.
In early-2023, aged 96, she appeared on the clip show One Foot in the Grave - 30 Years Of Laughs, when along with other cast and crew members she took a look back at the show for which she became well known.

Personal life and death

Mantle married Graham Smith in 1953; they had two sons together, but later divorced. From the mid-1990s she was a resident of Highgate, London.
Mantle died at home in London on 9 August 2023, at the age of 97.

Filmography

Source, unless specified:

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1964–1965	Emergency Ward 10	Mrs Cox
1965	A Passage to India ''''	Mrs Fletcher
1966–1973	Love Story	Mrs Driver / Madge / Mrs Bryant
1967	Uncle Charles	American Wife
1969	Strange Report	Mrs Ogilive
1969	The Letter	Madame Joyce
1969–1973	Special Branch	Miss Mitchell / Mrs Harris
1972	Kate	Harriet Bates
1972	Six Days of Justice	Probation Officer
1972–1977	Crown Court	Vera Tilley / Mrs Verity Holt-Matthews
1973	Armchair 30	Miss Fanshaw
1973	Public Eye	Miss Barnwell
1973	Vienna 1900	Frau Arbesbacher
1973	The Song of Songs	Frau Czepanek
1974	Intimate Strangers	Dorothy
1974	Marked Personal	Mrs Hastings
1974–1979	Play for Today	Mary Hunter / Julia Branston / Mother
1976	The Duchess of Duke Street	Mrs Catchpole
1976	Billy Brand	Edna James
1977	Esther Waters	Mrs Randal
1977	Headmaster	Chairwoman
1977	Eleanor Marx	Frau Marx
1978	Secret Army	Mme. Desmarts
1979	Mystery!: Malice Aforethought	Hilda
1979	Thomas & Sarah	Mrs Ryder
1980	The Gentle Touch	Beryl King
1980	Ladykillers	Mrs Wheeler
1980	Pride and Prejudice	Mrs Reynolds
1980–1981	BBC2 Playhouse	Mrs Orpen / Margaret
1983	The Home Front	Medora
1984	Charlie	Maggie
1985	Summer Season	Matron
1985	Connie	Miss Greer
1987	Sunday Premiere	Mrs Venables
1987	Screenplay	Mother Monica
1990	Screen Two	Landlady
1990–2000	One Foot in the Grave	Mrs Warboys	18 episodes
1990–2002	Casualty	Renee Wainwright / Mrs Duffin
1991	Stanley and the Women	Lady Bailey
1992	Nice Town	Jean Thompson
1992	The Secret Agent	Mrs Waller
1992	Sam Saturday	Rita Sterne
1992	Mr Wakefield's Crusade	Chrissie
1992	Lovejoy	Vera
1994	Class Act	Hilda Skoric
1994	Peak Practice	Mary Eastman
1996	Testament: The Bible in Animation	Naomi
1996	Our Friends in the North	Mrs Wilson
1996	The Vet	Edie Davenport
1997	Chalk	Dr. Eleanor Gillespie
1997–1999	The Wild House	Granny
2000	Where the Heart Is	Miriam Stone
2001–2019	Doctors	Mrs Merriam / Winnie Carpenter / Doris Forsyth / Rose	Recurring roles
2003	The Bill	Anne Culshaw
2004	Doc Martin	Marianne Walker
2004	Shadow Play	Queen Victoria
2004–2009	Holby City	Simone Mannstein / Sylvia Wheeler
2005	Love Soup	Mavis Bledsoe
2005	Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky	Marion Chingford
2005	Hustle	Anne Foster
2006	Brief Encounters	Frances
2006–2008	Jam & Jerusalem	Queenie
2007	The Sarah Jane Adventures	Mrs Randall
2007	Holby Blue	Maureen Jessie
2008	Bonekickers	Mary Cunley
2009	The Queen	The Queen Mother
2010	Dirk Gently	Ruth Jordan
2010	Jonathan Creek	Mrs Gantry
2010–2011	Coronation Street	Joy Fishwick	10 episodes
2011	My Family	Lillian
2013–2014	The Mimic	Martin's Grandma / Martin's Nan
2015	Lewis	Joan
2018	Father Brown	Miss Tibby
2023	One Foot in the Grave - 30 Years Of Laughs	Herself/Mrs Warboys