Francesca Annis

Francesca Annis (born 14 May 1945) is an English actress. She is known for television roles in Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1983–84), Reckless, Wives and Daughters (1999), Deceit (2000), and Cranford (2007). A six-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 1979 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the ITV serial Lillie. Her film appearances include Macbeth (1971), Krull (1983), Dune (1984), The Debt Collector (1999), and The Libertine (2004).

Early life and education Annis was born in Kensington, London, in 1945, to an English father, Lester William Anthony Annis (1914–2001), and a Brazilian-French mother, Mariquita (Mara) Purcell (1913–2009). Both were sometime actors and Mara a sometime singer. with training in the Russian style at the Corona Stage Academy.

Career Annis began acting professionally in her teens, and made her film debut in The Cat Gang (1959). Her first major film role was as Elizabeth Taylor's handmaiden in Cleopatra (1963), in which she was cast at the age of 16 while still studying Russian ballet.

Annis played the "Widow of the Web" in the 1983 science fantasy film Krull, and starred as Lady Jessica in the 1984 David Lynch science fiction film Dune.

She appeared as Tuppence with James Warwick as Tommy Beresford in the pilot film The Secret Adversary (1983) and the subsequent TV series, Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1983–84). Annis played Jacqueline Kennedy in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World in 1988. She portrayed Mrs Wellington in the second film and directorial debut by Prince, Under the Cherry Moon (1986).

Annis pursued a stage career, playing leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, such as Luciana in Trevor Nunn's musical version of The Comedy of Errors (1976) and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet alongside Ian McKellen (1976).

At the National Theatre in 1981, she played Natalya Petrovna in Peter Gill's production of Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. At the Comedy Theatre between September 2005 and January 2006, Annis starred as Ruth in Epitaph for George Dillon with Joseph Fiennes. She returned to the stage in April 2009, to star as Mrs Conway in Rupert Goold's National Theatre revival of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways.

She appeared in television productions in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in series such as Edward the Seventh (1975) as Lillie Langtry, a role she reprised in Lillie (1978); Madame Bovary (1975); and Parnell and the Englishwoman (1991), in which she played Kitty O'Shea. She played a major role in J. C. Wilsher's police drama Between the Lines from 1993 to 1994, as well as the miniseries Reckless (1998) and its 2000 sequel. Annis co-starred with Sir Michael Gambon and Dame Judi Dench as Lady Ludlow (an aristocrat opposed to the education of the lower classes) in the BBC1 costume-drama series Cranford (2007). In 2015 and 2016, Annis played a leading role in the ITV drama Home Fires. More recently, in 2025, she starred as the "formidable matriarch" Ann in The Forsytes, a period drama broadcast in the UK on Channel 5. Annis also appeared in the 1980s mini series I'll Take Manhattan, adapted for screen from the Judith Krantz novel of the same name.

Personal life Annis was in a relationship with photographer Patrick Wiseman that began in 1974, raising three children, Charlotte, Taran, and Andreas. Annis began a relationship with Hamlet co-star Ralph Fiennes in 1995, ending her 23-year relationship with Wiseman in 1997; Fiennes in turn divorced his wife of four years, Alex Kingston. Annis is said to have "apologised to Wiseman" over their parting.

At age 64, in an interview with Tim Auld of The Telegraph in 2009, Annis described herself as being one who tends "to forget the bad things – I don't dwell on them. I think, 'Oh, f– it, life's too short'" and that though single, she believes "it is better to be with someone than alone," stating "I think you live a fuller life...to have someone else's input on anything – a book, a meal, your children, life, a walk – is fantastic" and expressing optimism as she looked to her future, stating "'I like to have a big open canvas. I am a glass-half-full person. Something will turn up, you know, and whatever it is, it'll be fine.'" 1995 Shakespeare's Hamlet as Gertrude, with the Almeida Theatre at the Hackney EmpireHamlet (1995): Almeida Theatre Company, Hackney Empire | BBA Shakespeare 2001 Ibsen's Ghosts as Helen Alving (28 March-14 July 2001) at the Comedy Theatre, London. 1981 Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country as Natalya Petrovna, with the National Theatre 2005 John Osborne and Anthony Creighton's Epitaph for George Dillon as Ruth, at the Comedy Theatre