Helen Fraser

Helen Fraser (born Helen Margaret Stronach; born 15 June 1942) is a retired English actress, who has appeared in many television series since the early 1960s.[ 1] For international audiences, she may be best known for her roles in Billy Liar (1963) and Repulsion (1965).[ 2] She is also well known in Britain for portraying the role of miserable warder Sylvia Hollamby in the prison drama series Bad Girls.[ 3] She appeared in the series from the first episode in 1999 until the last in 2006.[ 1]

She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alongside Tom Courtenay and John Thaw, among others.[ 4] She gained her breakthrough role alongside Courtenay in Billy Liar (1963).[ 5] They later played the parents of character Dave Best in the Christmas special of The Royle Family (2008).[ 6]

She is best known to television viewers for her long-running role in the ITV women's prison drama Bad Girls as unpleasant prison officer Sylvia Hollamby[ 7] from the first episode in 1999 to the last in 2006.[ 1] She reprised the role in the West End production of Bad Girls: The Musical in 2007.[ 6]

She made her TV debut in the early 1960s and her credits include Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, The Likely Lads, Doctor in Charge, The Dustbinmen, On the Buses, Rising Damp, Tales of the Unexpected, Duty Free, One Foot in the Grave and Casualty.[ 8] She also worked on TV with comedians like Dick Emery and the Two Ronnies in the 1970s.[ 6]

She has also appeared on stage, including with the Royal National Theatre, in the West End and in regional theatres across the country.[ 9] In 2009 and 2010, she toured the UK as Mrs Fisher in a stage version of Billy Liar.[ 3] In 2011, she joined the tour of Calendar Girls.[ 10]

Fraser has appeared in the ITV soap Coronation Street twice – in 1998 as Magenta Savannah and again in 2013 as Doris Babbage.[ 11] [ 12] [ 13]

In 2015, she appeared in an episode of the BBC daytime soap Doctors.[ 14]

In 1964, she married the recording engineer Peter Handford; the couple had met on the set of Billy Liar.[ 3] Handford died in 2007.[ 15] Fraser lives in Eye, Suffolk.[ 16]