Acting

Jeillo Edwards

Born 1942-09-23 · Malta Street, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Jeillo Angela Doris Edwards was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, one of six children, and she attended the Annie Walsh Memorial School. Edwards moved to England in the late 1950s and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She began performing at the age of four, reading from the Bible at her church. She was well known for her distinctive voice and imperious enunciation. She featured on the BBC World Service for Africa, which was broadcast in the UK. She became popular in the United Kingdom, appearing on television, where she was the first black woman to appear on British television as well as being the first African to appear on Dixon of Dock Green in 1972. She also appeared on television dramas such as The Professionals, The Bill and Casualty. She performed on British television, radio, stage and films for more than four decades. Edwards appeared in cameo roles in many British television comedy programmes, including The League of Gentlemen, Absolutely Fabulous, Red Dwarf, Black Books, Spaced and Little Britain, in which she had been planned to appear in the second series before her death. As well as acting she was a school governor and owned a restaurant called Auntie J's in Brixton. In the early 1970s, she married a Ghanaian, Edmund Clottey, and they had a daughter and two sons. Jeillo Edwards died in London on 2 July 2004, at the age of 61. She had suffered chronic kidney problems.

Acting credits

Dirty Pretty Things poster
6.9

An undocumented immigrant finds a human heart in one of the toilets of the west London hotel where he works with other undocumented immigrants.

Dirty Pretty Things

2002

Beautiful Thing poster
7.2

During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

Beautiful Thing

1996

Tube Tales poster
5.3

Nine short stories based on the true experiences of London Underground passengers: "Mr. Cool" (Amy Jenkins, dir.); "Horny" (Stephen Hopkins); "Grasshopper" (Menhaj Huda); "My Father the Liar" (Bob Hoskins); "Bone" (Ewan McGregor); "Mouth" (Armando Iannucci); "A Bird in the Hand" (Jude Law); "Rosebud" (Gaby Dellal); "Steal Away" (Charles McDougall)

Tube Tales

1999

No artwork available
8.0

A moody drama concerning the lonely but luxurious imprisonment of Napoleon Bonaparte on St Helena.

Betzi

1978

No artwork available
9.0

When a local black politician is murdered an undercover police officer unveils a web of police corruption which puts lives at risk and threatens the whole community.

Black and Blue

1992

Name for the Day poster
7.0

Clive decides he will go mad. Stark raving mad. His wife doesn't take him seriously, until Clive does something that makes her realise he means it.

Name for the Day

1980

Pat and Margaret poster
7.7

Unexpected events occur when Pat, a glamorous British-born star of American soaps, returns home to plug her auto-biography on television and meets, for the first time since they were teenagers, Margaret her plain and frumpy younger sister. The meeting is painful for both women highlighting the vast differences in their lives and resurrecting painful memories of their unhappy childhood with an uncaring, errant mother. The tabloid press smell a juicy story and a race ensues to trace the whereabouts of the long lost parent.

Pat and Margaret

1994

No artwork available
10.0

DC Lenny Milton (Winstone) is not as ambitious as his best friend and popular boss DCI Michael Love (Dunbar), but the pair are drinking partners and their wives and children are close. However, this goes very wrong over the space of 7 days, when Milton is approached by the police complaints division asking him to go undercover and investigate allegations of corruption against his friend. Milton finds this difficult at first and tries to dismiss the evidence building up. But as his suspicions begin to take shape his position appears to be in danger.

Tough Love

2000

Memoirs of a Survivor poster
4.2

Based on the acclaimed novel by Doris Lessing, this dystopian science fiction tale concerns a woman struggling to make her way in a post-apocalyptic society. D (Julie Christie) is living in a city that's at the point of collapse following a catastrophic nuclear war; lawlessness and violence rule the day, and gangs of brutal youth roam the streets. With the help of her teenage companion Emily (Leonie Mellinger), D tries to make her way, and in order to cope, she often escapes into a fantasy world in which she lives in genteel Victorian surroundings in the 19th century.

Memoirs of a Survivor

1981

No artwork available
NR

Amanda is a student obsessed with all things French. Holed up with the flu in her Brixton flat, she is awoken in the dead of night by a burglar who's broken into the wrong house. Amanda falls in love with the intruder but as their love blooms, her flat starts to fill up with stolen goods.

Paris, Brixton

1997

A Kind of Marriage poster
NR

"By local custom, a man may turn from a wife who cannot give him more than one son. But Charles assures Maria that he is a 'modern educated man'. When war drives them back to their village, events force Maria to re-think their marriage." - Radio Times, 1976

A Kind of Marriage

1976

Black Joy poster
6.8

An innocent and unsophisticated Guyanese immigrant is exposed to the hustlin' way of life in the Brixton ghetto.

Black Joy

1977

Paint Me a Murder poster
8.5

Luke Lorenz is a artist whose paintings don't sell. His imaginative wife Sandra reasons that sales of his works would increase tenfold if he were to die, so they fake his death.

Paint Me a Murder

1984

Anansi poster
7.0

The story of an adventurous odyssey experienced by a group of West Africans to build a new life in Germany.

Anansi

2003

Through the Night poster
NR

The play tells the story of Christine Potts, who undergoes an unexpected mastectomy, and struggles to cope with the aftermath and the deficiencies of her post-operative care.

Through the Night

1975

No artwork available
NR

Elphida is 30. She has been married for 13 years and has 3 children. She plans to restart her education when her youngest child goes to nursery. Then the nursery is closed. On top of this, her parents are contemplating divorce and want her to act as a go between.

Elphida

1987

The Sniffler and the Pug poster
NR

Two parents get to know each other on a neonatal unit. One has a baby with Down's syndrome.

The Sniffler and the Pug

1977