Marion Bailey

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title: "Marion Bailey" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1951-births", "living-people", "english-television-actresses", "english-film-actresses", "20th-century-english-actresses", "21st-century-english-actresses", "alumni-of-the-guildhall-school-of-music-and-drama", "national-youth-theatre-members", "actors-from-bushey", "actors-from-the-london-borough-of-harrow", "people-from-harrow,-london", "actresses-from-hertfordshire"] description: "British actress" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Bailey" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British actress ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Marion Bailey
image	Marion Bailey at Mr Turner premiere.jpg
caption	Bailey in 2014
birth_date
birth_place	Bushey, Hertfordshire, England
alma_mater	Guildhall School of Music and Drama
occupation	Actress
::

| name = Marion Bailey | image = Marion Bailey at Mr Turner premiere.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Bailey in 2014 | birth_date = | birth_place = Bushey, Hertfordshire, England | alma_mater = Guildhall School of Music and Drama | occupation = Actress | years_active = | spouse =

Marion Bailey (born 5 May 1951) is an English actress. She is best known for her work with her partner, filmmaker Mike Leigh, including the films Meantime (1983), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Mr. Turner (2014), for which she was nominated Supporting Actress of the Year by the London Film Critics' Circle, and Peterloo (2018). In 2019 and 2020, she portrayed Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown on Netflix, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild award winner for best ensemble in 2020 and 2021. In 2024 she was given an Achievement award from Filming Italy Sardegna.

Personal life

Bailey was born in Bushey Hospital, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, to Rose (née Timberlake) and William Bailey. She grew up in Harrow, Middlesex, and attended Pinner County Grammar School. She was a member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. With writer Terry Johnson, she has a daughter, the actress Alice Bailey Johnson.

Career

Film

As well as Leigh's films, Bailey has appeared as Mrs Peach in Debbie Isitt's Nasty Neighbours (2000), Mary in the Craig Ferguson film I'll Be There and Mrs Adams in S.J.Clarkson's "Toast" (2010). Bailey starred as Mrs Booth in Mr. Turner (2014) and appeared in The Lady in the Van (2015), Allied (2016), Dead in a Week or Your Money Back (2018), Lady Conyngham in Leigh's Peterloo (2018) and played Dinah in Stephen Cookson's "Brighton"(2019). She co starred with Ben Whishaw in the 2023 Short film Good Boy which was shortlisted for Best Live Action Short Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Television

Bailey's television work includes Inspector Morse, Casualty, The Bill, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Agatha Christie's Poirot, A Touch of Frost, Dalziel and Pascoe, Big Deal, Boon, The Bretts, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, No More Dying Then, Stay Lucky, Heat of the Sun, Micawber, New Tricks, Monday Monday, Being Human and Case Histories. In 1995, she had a recurring role as Avis in the long-running ITV series Shine on Harvey Moon. She also played leading roles in several popular 1980s TV series, including To Have and to Hold, Jury and Charlie.

In 2000, she played Wendy in Carlton's comedy-drama series The Thing About Vince. She has also appeared in many single TV dramas and films including Woyzeck, Way Upstream, Zackharov, Raspberry, Coppers, Derailed, Toast and Jane Austen's Persuasion. She played Jill in the BBC Three comedy series Him and Her, Sue in The Trials of Jimmy Rose, Ingrid in Temple, Cara in Britannia for Sky. She played Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in seasons 3 and 4 of international Netflix series The Crown, for which she was the recipient of a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Television Drama Series. She has most recently appeared in Shakespeare and Hathaway, Endeavour and the Netflix dramas Obsession and All the Light We Cannot See.

Theatre

Bailey has worked extensively in British theatre, including London’s West End, the National Theatre, the Royal Court, the Old Vic, Chichester Festival Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, the Arts Theatre, the Kiln, Bristol Old Vic and the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

In 1981 she performed in Mike Leigh's West End theatre play Goosepimples, for which she received a Plays and Players Award nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. In 2007, with the Shared Experience company she received a TMA nomination as Best Supporting Performance for her role in Kindertransport.

Bailey appeared in Mike Leigh's Grief at the National Theatre (2011/12). In 2013 she played the Queen in Handbagged at the Tricycle Theatre and in the production's subsequent West End transfer to the Vaudeville Theatre.

Her most recent appearances were in Dominic Cooke’s production of Medea at Soho Place Theatre and Richard Bean’s To Have and To Hold directed by Terry Johnson at Hampstead Theatre.

Filmography

::data[format=table title="Film"]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Don't Get Me Started	Gill Lane
1999	Nasty Neighbours	Jean Peach
2000	Offending Angels	False Mentor
2002	All or Nothing	Carol
2003	I'll Be There	Mary
2004	Vera Drake	Mrs. Fowler
2006	The Sickie	Carol	Short
2008	Domestic Flight	Susan	Short
2010	Toast	Mrs. Adams	Short
2014	Mr. Turner	Sophia Booth
2015	Fuel to Fire	Dena Monk
2015	The Lady in the Van	Housekeeper in Convent
2015	National Theatre Live: The Deep Blue Sea	Mrs Elton
2016	Allied	Mrs. Sinclair
2016	First	Julia	Short
2018	Dead in a Week or Your Money Back	Penny
2018	Peterloo	Lady Conyngham
2018	The Therapist	Lonnie	Short
2019	Brighton	Dinah
2022	Tommies	Mrs. Willis	Short
2023	Good Boy	Jackie	Short
::

::data[format=table title="Television"]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1975	The Girls of Slender Means	Dormitory Girl	Miniseries (3 episodes)
1983	Jury	Chloe McCormack	Series 1, episodes 3 & 4
1983	Meantime	Barbara	TV movie
1984	All the World's a Stage	Extract from Woyzeck	Miniseries (1 episode)
1984	Raspberry	Chris	TV movie
1984	Miracles Take Longer	Juliet Arnold	3 episodes
1984	Charlie	Susan Alexander	Miniseries (4 episodes)
1984	Sakharov	Ludmilla Kovalov	TV movie
1984	Scene	Mrs. Piper	Series 17, episode 3
1984	Big Deal	Alison Diamond	Series 1 (3 episodes)
1985	Summer Season	Joanna Potter	Series 1, episode 17
1985	Summer Season	Hotel Receptionist	Series 1, episode 25
1986	To Have and to Hold	Ann Fletcher	Miniseries (8 episodes)
1987	Way Upstream	June	TV movie
1988	Worlds Beyond	Norma Moran	Series 1, episode 12
1988	Coppers	Julia	TV movie
1988	The Bretts	Agnes	Series 2, episode 5
1989	Inspector Morse	Fran Pierce	Series 3, episode 4
1989	The Ruth Rendell Mysteries	Ros Swan	Series 1, (3 episodes)
1990	Stay Lucky	Jane Rowlands	Series 2, episode 5
1990	Casualty	Joy Waddington	Series 5, episode 5
1991	Agatha Christie's Poirot	Jane Mason	Series 3, episode 4
1992	The Bill	Dorothy Strafford	Series 8, episode 26
1992	Boon	Sheila	Series 7, episode 10
1993	The Chief	Isabelle Melly	Series 3, episode 4
1994	A Touch of Frost	Eileen Grant	Series 2, episode 3
1994	The Bill	Elizabeth Dreyfon	Series 10, episode 17
1994	Casualty	Anna Longford	Series 9, episode 10
1995	Dangerfield	Angie Millwood	Series 1, episode 3
1995	Shine on Harvey Moon	Avis	Series 5 (7 episodes)
1997	Dalziel and Pascoe	Lorraine Wildgoose	Series 2, episode 2
1998	Heat of the Sun	Gwladys Carstairs	Miniseries (1 episode)
1998	The Bill	Delia Shaw	Series 14, episode 32
2000	The Thing About Vince...	Wendy Skinner	Miniseries (3 episodes)
2001	Shades	Caroline MacIntyre	Series 1, episode 6
2001	Micawber	Lady Macefield	Series 1, episode 2
2005	Cherished	Marion Harding	TV movie
2005	Derailed	Diana Kellow	TV movie
2007	The Bill	Jess Parker	Series 23, episode 20
2007	Persuasion	Mrs. Croft	TV movie
2007	New Tricks	Brenda	Series 4, episode 7
2008	Holby City	Lesley Bingham	Series 10, episode 13
2008	Midsomer Murders	Alyssa Bradley	Series 11, episode 3
2009	Monday Monday	Clara	Series 1, episode 6
2010–13	Him & Her	Jill	Series 1–4 (4 episodes)
2010	Toast	Mrs. Adams	TV movie
2011	Being Human	Ruth	Series 3, episode 6
2011	Case Histories	Gloria Hatter	Series 1, episodes 3 & 4
2015	The Trials of Jimmy Rose	Sue Anderson	Miniseries (3 episodes)
2017	SS-GB	Joan Woods	Miniseries (1 episode)
2019	Temple	Ingrid	Series 1, episode 4
2019	Britannia	Cara	Series 2 (3 episodes)
2019–20	The Crown	Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother	Series 3–4 (18 episodes)
2021	Endeavour	Hilda Bruce-Potter	Series 8, episode 3
2022	This Is Going to Hurt	Callie's Mother	Series 1, episode 1
2022	Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators	Edie Brosnan	Series 4, episode 7
2022	Drømmeren	Lady Islington	Series 1, episode 2
2023	All the Light We Cannot See	Madame Manec	Series 1, episode 1-4
2023	Obsession	Elizabeth	Miniseries (3 episodes)
::

References

References

1. "Archived copy".
2. Kellaway, Kate. (30 October 2010). "Mike Leigh's women". [[The Guardian]].
3. (26 July 2018). "Variety".
4. (22 September 2011). "Mike Leigh: Profile of a Playwright".
5. "Hammersmith leads London TMA nominations".
6. Spencer, Charles. (22 September 2011). "Grief, National Theatre, review".
7. Walker, Tim. (13 April 2014). "Handbagged, at Vaudeville Theatre, review".

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