Stella Gonet

Early life

Gonet was born in Greenock, Scotland. Her Scottish mother and Polish father met when her father was stationed in Greenock during World War II. She is the seventh of twelve children and four of her sisters are nurses.

She trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Career

Gonet starred as Beatrice Eliott, one of the two lead roles, in three series of the television drama The House of Eliott, and played Chief Executive Officer Jayne Grayson in the medical drama Holby City. She also has appeared in Casualty, The Crow Road, Dalziel and Pascoe, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Foyle's War, Outnumbered and Lewis. She played a villain in the mini-series The Secret and played Grace Maplin in the Sins of Commission episode of Midsomer Murders.

Her screen credits also include For Queen and Country, Nicholas Nickleby, and Red Mercury.

Gonet also has acted extensively in the theatre. In 1989, she appeared as Ophelia in the National Theatre production of Hamlet, with the title role being played by Daniel Day-Lewis, Ian Charleston and finally Jeremy Northam.

She played Margaret Thatcher in the Moira Buffini play Handbagged in 2013 at the Tricycle Theatre, and in 2014 at the Vaudeville Theatre when the play transferred to the West End.

Personal life

Gonet married English actor Nicholas Farrell in 2005. The couple co-starred in an episode of The Roman Mysteries as Queen Berenice of Judea and Emperor Titus, and as Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove in ITV's 2007 production of Jane Austen's Persuasion, and they both participated in a 2001 Shakespeare's Richard III audiobook. The couple have a daughter, Natasha, born in 2000.