Lynn Farleigh

Marilyn J. "Lynn" Farleigh (born 3 May 1942) is an English actress of stage and screen.

Early life Farleigh was born in Bath, Somerset on 3 May 1942 to Joseph Sydney Farleigh and his wife Marjorie Norah (née Clark). She attended the Redland High School for Girls in Bristol, and trained for the stage at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Career She made her first professional appearance in May 1962 in a production of Under Milk Wood at the Salisbury Playhouse, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in October 1966, playing Castiza in The Revenger's Tragedy at Stratford upon Avon. She made her New York debut with the RSC in April 1967 at the Music Box Theatre, playing Ruth in a production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming.

Her first London performance came in January 1968 as Helena in the RSC revival of All's Well That Ends Well. In the same Aldwych Theatre season she also played Amanda in The Relapse, August 1968, and Portia in Julius Caesar, November 1968.

In July 1969 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs she appeared in the Peter Tegel double-bill as the Biology Mistress in Blim at School and Anna in Poet of the Anemones; and in the following year played Simone in The Friends, written and directed by Arnold Wesker (Round House, March 1970); and Beatrice Justine in Exiles by James Joyce, directed by Harold Pinter (Mermaid Theatre, November 1970).

Her other TV appearances since 1964 include: The Rivals, Bergerac, Eyeless in Gaza, Bill Brand, Steptoe and Son (1974), Murder Most English, Z-Cars in which she played Ann Fazakerley, the 1978 miniseries The Word, the drama series Out and Bad Girls. She also appeared in the films Three into Two Won't Go (1969) and Voices (1973) and provided the voice of the cat in the animated film of Watership Down (1978).

She portrayed Mrs Bennet's sister, Mrs Phillips, in the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. In 2013 and 2014, she played Nora White in EastEnders.

In 2021 Lynn Farleigh contributed to, and participated in, a YouTube documentary tribute to Alfred Burke entitled Alfred Burke is Frank Marker.

Personal life

Farleigh married three times; to Michael Jayston in 1965 (divorced 1970); to David Yip in 1989 (divorced); and to John Woodvine in 1996 (he died in 2025).