Actress Lynda Bellingham has sadly died following her battle with cancer, she was 66.
Born in Canada but adopted into a British family, Bellingham’s career spanned five decades, debuting in General Hospital before appearances in Confessions of a Driving Instructor, Sweeney!, and Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers.
It was her role as Helen Herriot in four series’ of the classic All Creatures Great and Small however that arguably brought her to prominence, starring alongside Christopher Timothy as on-screen husband James Herriot, Robert Hardy as Siegfried Farnon and Doctor Who‘s own Peter Davison as Tristan Farnon. She would co-star with Davison once more many years later in ITV’s At Home with the Braithwaites.
Lynda will forever be remembered by Doctor Who fans however as The Inquisitor during the 1986 14-part epic The Trial of a Timelord, a role she returned to masterfully with the Big Finish Productions Gallifrey series and The Trial of the Valeyard. It was a role she seemed to relish.. even being offended she was never asked for the lead!
“I was deeply hurt that after 13 episodes I have never been asked back, not even mentioned when they said they wanted a female Doctor. I am a Time Lord after all.”
Yet it will forever be her role as “the Oxo mum” between 1983 and 1999 that will be enshrined in the nation’s memory, the commercials cited as some of the most fondly remembered of the 1980s and 1990s.
In more recent years Lynda appeared as a panelist on Loose Women and as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing before announcing earlier this month that she had taken the brave decision to stop her chemotherapy for colon cancer and she wished to die gracefully.
She passed away yesterday, “peacefully in her husband’s arms.”
She is survived by her husband Michael and two sons, Michael and Robbie.
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