Joanna Van Gyseghem
Joanna Van Gyseghem (born 4 September 1941, Tunbridge Wells) is an English actress, educated at Malvern Girls' College and Trinity College, Dublin. Her father, André van Gyseghem, was an actor and director. Her mother, Jean Forbes-Robertson was also an actress. Her maternal grandfather was Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson and her great aunt was American actress Maxine Elliott.
She appeared in the TV series Fraud Squad as Detective Sergeant Hicks from 1969 to 1970. In 1972, she played Olivia in Twelfth Night, with Punch commenting on "Joanna Van Gyseghem's Olivia, veering from intimations of imperiousness to anticipations of lechery with great charm and fine technical control".[1]
She is known for her roles as Linda Cochran in the television sitcom Duty Free and as Marigold Featherstone, wife of Guthrie Featherstone, QC, MP, in Rumpole of the Bailey. She also co-starred with Liza Goddard in LWTV's hit television comedy Pig in the Middle as Susan Wade, the controlling wife of the principal character Barty Wade, played by Terence Brady who also wrote the series with his wife Charlotte Bingham.
Joanna had a guest role in the British sitcom Barbara which starred Gwen Taylor. Van Gyseghem played the role of Yvonne, an ex-girlfriend of Barbara's husband Ted who visited from Miami to attend the wedding in the episode 'Wedding'. Yvonne takes a romantic interest in Ted; Van Gyseghem thus played Gwen Taylor's love rival, as she had done in Duty Free.
She appeared in the series The Darling Buds of May as Felicity Harran in 1993 and also in the TV series Heartbeat as Penelope Ealham in 2000 and more recently has also played the minor role of Camilla Greenwood in the BBC soap opera EastEnders in 2008.
She married actor Ralph Bates; they divorced in 1973.
Her hobbies have included making jewellery.
Notes
- ↑ Henry Mayhew, Mark Lemon, Tom Taylor, eds., Punch vol. 263 (1972), p. 122