Paula Wilcox
Paula Wilcox is an English actress. She played Chrissy Plummer in the ITV sitcom Man About the House from 1973 to 1976, and also had roles in TV shows such as The Lovers, Miss Jones and Son, The Queen’s Nose, The Smoking Room, Emmerdale, Mount Pleasant, Boomers, Upstart Crow and Girlfriends. From 2020 to 2023, Wilcox appeared as Elaine Jones in Coronation Street.
Early life
Wilcox was born in Manchester on 13 December 1949 to Joseph and Mary Wilcox.Career
Wilcox joined the National Youth Theatre aged seventeen. She was offered her first starring television role in The Lovers, a Granada sitcom produced for the ITV network, largely written by Jack Rosenthal and co-starring Richard Beckinsale. There were two series of The Lovers, plus a feature film. She appeared in an episode of The Benny Hill Show broadcast on 23 February 1972.Wilcox was cast in one of the lead roles of Man About the House as Chrissy Plummer, who was regularly in a flirtatious battle of wits with her male flatmate Robin, played by Richard O'Sullivan. The series ran for six series and the main cast also featured in the Man [About the House (film)|spin-off feature film]. Her follow-up role was as the eponymous single mother in Miss Jones and Son.
In 1991, Wilcox returned to situation comedy as Ros West in a Yorkshire Television sitcom called Fiddlers Three opposite Peter Davison, before playing the character of Ivy Sandford in the pilot of Frank Skinner's Blue Heaven on Channel 4 in 1992; the show then went on to become a series. She appeared in several series of The Queen’s Nose, and also played small roles in the films The Higher Mortals and the Woody Allen movie Scoop.
She was cast as Lilian in the BBC Three sitcom The Smoking Room which ran from 2004 to 2005.
On 27 October 2006, Wilcox appeared in the Only Fools and Horses spin-off The [Green Green Grass] as Marlene's sister. She has also played another character in the Only Fools and Horses universe, appearing in two episodes of Rock and Chips, playing Edward “Grandad” Trotter's estranged wife Violet. In 2007, Wilcox joined the cast of Emmerdale as Hilary Potts, mother of the vicar's wife, Laurel Thomas.
In 2008, Wilcox portrayed Bette Davis in a play, Whatever Happened to the Cotton Dress Girl?. In 2010, she portrayed a mother of a gay son in the play Canary.
In November that year, Wilcox took the leading role as a Liverpudlian private eye in Following from the Front, a BBC radio play first broadcast in November 2010 and again in January 2015
Wilcox played Pauline Johnson in the Sky One sitcom series Mount Pleasant from 2011 to 2017.
In addition to her other work, Wilcox has made guest appearances in programmes such as Footballers' Wives, Holby City and Down to Earth.
From 2014 to 2016, she had a starring role in the comedy series Boomers. In 2015, she had a role in an episode of Still Open All Hours.
In 2017, Wilcox filmed series 3 of Upstart Crow, the Shakespearean sitcom starring David Mitchell and penned by Ben Elton.
That year, Wilcox filmed the last episode of Mount Pleasant after seven years.
Wilcox's theatre credits include Chris Hannan's play What Shadows about Enoch Powell's famous "Rivers of Blood" speech on immigration. This was performed at the Birmingham Rep, Edinburgh Lyceum and the Park Theatre, London in 2016 and 2017.
Other theatrical work by Wilcox includes Great Expectations ; Canary ; Dreams of Violence and La Cage aux Folles.
Wilcox has also performed radio and voiceover work, and read the audiobook Three Things About Elsie written by Joanna Cannon.
Wilcox appeared in Coronation Street from 2020 to 2023, playing the role of List of [Coronation Street characters introduced in 2020|Elaine Jones], a former abuse victim and first wife of Geoff Metcalfe and mother of established character Tim Metcalfe. She previously appeared in Coronation Street in 1969 as Ray Langton's sister Janice.
Personal life
Wilcox was married to fellow actor Derek Seaton from 1970 until his death in 1979 from a brain haemorrhage aged 35.In 1991, Wilcox married Nelson "Skip" Riddle, an American businessman and the eldest son of the composer, bandleader and arranger Nelson Riddle.