Patricia Maynard

Biography

Patricia Maynard was born in Beighton, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, brought up in Tooting Bec, South London and went to school in Battersea, just down the road from the Old Vic where she learned her love of Shakespeare. She trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Her first five years were spent in rep and the theatre. One of her first theatrical engagements was in a play Collapse of a Stout Party, written by Trevor Peacock. In 1966 she joined the RSC, the same year as Trevor Nunn and Terry Hands, with appearances as Katharine to Ian Holm’s Henry V and also Castiza in Revengers’ Tragedy. She was at the Bristol Old Vic from 1967-69, where her plays included Blithe Spirit, Comedy of Errors, Venice Preserved (with Alan Bates, Bernard Hepton and Alan Webb), Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton by Dennis Potter, and a musical of Nancy Mitford’s book The Pursuit of Love written by Julian Slade. She returned to Bristol in 1982, playing Lady India in Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon.

Her television work has included playing the heroine Cora in The Last of the Mohicans in 1971, then the children's Sci-Fi classic Escape Into Night playing a Governess called Miss Chesterfield from 19 April to 24 May 1972 and Tom Baker's first story line in Doctor Who in 1974-75, Robot, playing chief villain Miss Winters. Two films for television in the 1970s, When Day is Done, co-starring with Edward Woodward, and Lives of our Own. Her TV series have included This Year, Next Year about Yorkshire hill farmers, General Hospital, playing the gynaecologist, with Lynda Bellingham, Strike it Rich - two series in the 1980s - and guest appearances in The Sweeney, Minder, Jemima Shore Investigates, The House of Eliott, and Campion. She has appeared in most of the soaps of the time – Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm, Casualty, Holby City, Crossroads and EastEnders, where she played the part of Edwina Dunn, the mother of Laura Beale, who was played by her daughter Hannah.