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Jan Holden was a stage actress known for her light comedy roles and appeared in numerous popular television series throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
She was elegant and attractive, with pale blue eyes. Raised in Cawnpore, India, she attended school in the hills near Simla.
At the start of the Second World War, she and her mother returned to England, where she boarded at Lowther College in North Wales and spent holidays with her school friends.
At 18, she received offers from RADA, the Old Vic School, and Bristol Old Vic, but her father refused permission, disapproving of her theatrical aspirations.
Eventually, he relented, allowing her to take a directing course at the Old Vic. She was one of two students chosen to become assistant stage managers when the Old Vic reopened in 1951.
Jan Holden worked in repertory theatre, where she met her first husband, actor Edwin Richfield. They married in 1952 while performing together in Blackpool in a stage adaptation of "The Blue Lamp."
During the 1950s, she transitioned to television, appearing in series such as Patrol Car (1954), Rheingold Theatre (1953), The Vise (1954), Harpers West One (1961), and The Avengers (1961). Later, she featured in Agony (1979) and Oh Happy Band! (1980).
Her film credits included The Best House in London (1969), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), and Work Is a Four Letter Word (1968).
She faced personal tragedies, including the drowning of her twin brother Geoffrey in the early 1960s and the breakdown of her marriage in 1973, leaving her to raise three teenage children. One of her twin daughters passed away from a brain tumour in 1999. Despite suffering from poor health in her final two decades, she remained upbeat.
In 1988, she remarried Louis Manson, a solicitor and business executive who survived her. She was survived by a son and a daughter from her first marriage, along with two stepsons and two stepdaughters.
