Celebrity Biographies
Wanda Ventham Biography, Age, Family, Husband, Career, Movies & TV Shows
BIOGRAPHY OF WANDA VENTHAM
Wanda Ventham is an English actress born August 5, 1935 in Brighton, United Kingdom. She is best known for her role as Colonel Virginia Lake on the 1970s science fiction television series UFO, and for her recurring role as Cassandra Trotter’s mother Pamela Parry on the sitcom Only Fools and Horses from 1989 to 1992. She also appeared in two episodes of The Saint alongside Roger Moore.
WANDA VENTHAM AGE
She was born on August 5, 1935. She is 83 years old in 2018.
WANDA VENTHAM FAMILY
Ventham was born in Brighton, to Gladys Frances and Frederick Howard Ventham. Her biggest dream being to become an artist, she attended art school for a year, while working as a scenic painter for the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, West Sussex, during her school holidays. Due to her exposure to professional theater, she decided to quit art school and pursue an acting career. She went to the Central School of Speech and Drama, alongside Judi Dench, who graduated in 1956.
HUSBAND OF WANDA VENTHAM
Ventham married her first husband James Tabernacle in 1957 and they had one daughter, Tracy. However, they divorced on November 12, 1974. She later met actor Timothy Carlton in 1970 while filming sequences for the drama series A Family at War and they have been married since April 1976.
CHILDREN OF WANDA VENTHAM
She has two children Benedict Cumberbatch and Tracy Peacock
WANDA VENTHAM’S CAREER
Ventham’s first film role was in 1956 in My Teenage Daughter, starring Anna Neagle and Sylvia Syms. In 1964, she appeared in Carry On Cleo and Carry On… Up the Khyber (1968). She starred in the mystery film, Death is a Woman in 1966, alongside Mark Burns. Her best known role was on television as Colonel Virginia Lake, second in command to Cmdr. Ed Straker (Ed Bishop) in the cult series UFO.
Her other numerous TV credits include regular roles on Heartbeat as Fiona Weston, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates as Margaret Balshaw and The Rag Trade as Shirley. She also played a love interest for Arthur Daley in Minder, Susan’s mother in Coupling, and Deborah’s mother in Men Behaving Badly. She played the lead in the 15-episode BBC series The Lotus Eaters (1972–73), opposite Ian Hendry, and had an appearance on Rutland Weekend Television. She appeared in an episode of Danger Man, and the Patrick McGoohan series was completed immediately after – the allegorical spy series The Prisoner – as well as the sitcoms Executive Stress and Next of Kin, and the sketch show The Two Ronnies .
She appeared three times in Doctor Who over three decades: as Jean Rock in The Faceless Ones (1967), as Thea Ransome in Image of the Fendahl (1977), and as Faroon in Time and the Rani (1987). She appeared in Image of the Fendahl opposite Denis Lill. The two went on to play Pamela and Alan Parry on the sitcom Only Fools and Horses.
She and her husband Timothy Carlton appeared in the 2014 BBC adaptation of Sherlock, as the parents of Sherlock Holmes, who is played by their son Benedict Cumberbatch. She also appeared in Holby City as Myrtle McKee, a hospital patient who leads a double life.
MOVIES AND TV SHOWS
Movies
- 1956 My Teenage Daughter
- 1959 The Navy Lark
- 1961 We joined the Navy
- 1962 Solo for Sparrow
- 1964 Carry On Cleo
- 1965 The Big Job
- 1965 Talent…and How to Get It
- 1966 Death is a Woman
- 1966 The Cold Nosed Spy
- 1967 Mr Ten Percent
- 1968 Terror of the Blood Beast
- 1968 Carry On Khyber
- 1974 Invasion: UFO
- 1974 Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter
- 2002 Mrs. Caldicot’s Cabbage War
- 2005 Asylum
- 2012 Run for your wife
- 2016 Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
TV shows
- 1962-1963 The Rag Trade
- 1964-1965 Danger Man
- 1964-1966 The Saint
- 1965 The Likely Boys
- 1965 The Avengers
- 1967 The Prisoner
- 1967 The Caesars
- 1967–1971 The Convenience Stores
- 1967, 1977, 1987 Doctor Who
- 1969 The Gold Thieves
- 1969 Department S
- 1970 Z-Cars
- 1970-1971 A family at war
- 1970 Doctor on the loose
- 1970-1973 UFO
- 1971 Thirty Minute Theater
- 1972-1973 The Lotus Eaters
- 1975 The Sweeney
- 1975 Rutland Weekend Television
- 1976 Emmerdale Farm
- 1977 Crown Court
- 1978-1979 Fallen Hero
- 1980 The Two Ronnies
- 1982 Less
- 1986-1987 Management stress
- 1988 All Creatures Great and Small
- 1989 Capstick Madge Capstick’s Law
- 1989–1992 Only Fools and Horses
- 1995–1996 Next of Kin
- Heartbeat from 1996 to 1997
- Coupling 2001
- 2005 Midsomer murders
- 2007 Lewis
- 2014–2017 Sherlock
- 2018 Holby City