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Welsh stage, screen and radio actress, the daughter of Canon W.D. Phillips, vicar of the coal mining town of Cwmtillery. Dorothea Phillips, known as ‘Dottie’, attended Aberystwyth University aiming for a law degree. Ultimately, she found her lessons ‘tedious’ and instead joined the university dramatic society. Having then graduated, she first worked as an usherette and as an assistant stage manager before becoming a repertory stage actress. Turned professional in 1947, Dottie came to specialize in character roles, excelling at various dialects and accents, the former including Welsh, Yorkshire, Cockney and Devon, the latter French, German and Italian. She also had a good singing voice (mezzo soprano) and could play the piano. Among her many theatrical and radio performances were repeated turns in the Dylan Thomas play Under Milk Wood (she also acted in the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor motion picture of 1971).
A prolific character actress on the screen, Dorothea Phillips could be spotted playing anything from unassuming nurses, benign aunts and bustling nannies to sinister spinsters, strict governesses and titled ladies. Her television résumé included a fair share of crime (Dixon of Dock Green (1955), The Saint (1962), Jason King (1971), Poirot (1989)) and period drama (Nicholas Nickleby (1968), I Remember Nelson (1982), Jane Eyre (1983), Dick Turpin (1979)). She briefly courted TV stardom as one of the lead characters in Sexton Blake (1967) (Blake’s cook and housekeeper Mrs. Bardell) and The Black Arrow (1972) (Mistress Hatch). For the big screen, she featured in Carry on Loving (1970), Duet for One (1986) and 102 Dalmatians (2000).
Before she was cast in the role of head mistress in BBC’s long-running children’s show Grange Hill (1978), Dottie was said to have owned several liqueur licenses for drinking venues in Soho.
