Margot Boyd

Margot Boyd (24 September 1913 – 20 May 2008), born Beryl Billings, was an English stage, television and radio actress. She grew up in Bath and trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Here Boyd acted in a production supervised by George Bernard Shaw.

After graduating from RADA, she gained work at the Leeds Theatre Royal Repertory Company, never seeming to play a leading role less than 55 years of age, she later commented. She later worked with Michael Redgrave at Stratford in 1953. In 1956 she appeared in One Bright Day at the Apollo Theatre in London. Redgrave cast her in the lead role of Noël Coward's Waiting in the Wings in 1960, with Coward himself becoming a friend when the production reached Dublin. On television, Boyd starred in the lead of Our Miss Pemberton (1957) and had many guest appearances in series such as Dixon of Dock Green and Upstairs, Downstairs.

In later years, she was best known for playing Marjorie Antrobus in The Archers radio serial on Radio 4 and Hilda Rumpole in The Splendours and Miseries of an Old Bailey Hack on the same station. As a member of the BBC Radio Drama Company in 1984, she was originally intended to make a one-off appearance in the serial, but became a regular member of the cast. Her character was effectively written out in 2004. Boyd died at a home for retired actors, Denville Hall, in Northwood, Middlesex.

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