Jean Anderson

Mary Jean Heriot Powell (12 December 1907 – 1 April 2001), She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1926–1928.

In 1936 Lord Longford's company from the Gate Theatre, Dublin were appearing at the Westminster Theatre in London. When the company returned to Dublin she went with them and appeared regularly at the Gate Theatre for three years. Among many notable productions were As You Like It, The Duchess of Malfi, The Cherry Orchard and Doctor Faustus.

When Anderson returned to London in 1940 she joined the staff of the Players’ Theatre Club, which was a popular refuge from the war. When the director Leonard Sachs was called up for service, Anderson took over running the club and kept it going for the duration. At this point the focus of her work swung to television and film, but she continued to appear on stage in notable productions, such as Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author directed by Dame Ngaio Marsh,

Other TV credits include: Police Surgeon, Maigret, The Odd Man, The Man in Room 17, The Borderers, Paul Temple, Codename, Oil Strike North, Miss Marple, Inspector Morse, Campion, Rab C. Nesbitt, Keeping Up Appearances and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. She also played the role of the mother in The Railway Children in two separate BBC adaptations in 1951 and 1957.

She had a London home in Barnes, and in her later years moved to Eden Valley in the north-west of England near her daughter. Her interests were collecting porcelain figurines and horse racing.

She was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1985 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.

Anderson died in 2001, aged 93.