Liz Smith

Acting

Liz Smith

Born 1921-12-11 · Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, UK

Betty Gleadle (December 11, 1921 – December 24, 2016), known by the stage name Liz Smith, was an English character actress, known for her roles in BBC sitcoms, including as Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared (1975–1979), the sisters Bette and Belle in 2point4 Children (1991–1999), Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–1996) and Norma Speakman ("Nana") in The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2006). She also played Zillah in Lark Rise to Candleford (2008) and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the 1984 film A Private Function.

Acting credits

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory poster
7.0

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit poster
7.1

Cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his cunning canine pal Gromit run a business ridding the town of garden pests. Using only humane methods, which turns their home into a halfway house for evicted vermin, the pair stumble upon a mystery involving a voracious vegetarian monster that threatens to ruin the annual veggie-growing contest.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

2005

City of Ember poster
6.4

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers, in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, before the the lights go out forever.

City of Ember

2008

A Christmas Carol poster
6.9

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

A Christmas Carol

1999

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover poster
7.3

When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

1989

Trail of the Pink Panther poster
5.1

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.

Trail of the Pink Panther

1982

Curse of the Pink Panther poster
4.6

Inspector Clouseau disappears, and the Surete wants the world's second best detective to look for him. However, Clouseau's enemy, Dreyfus, rigs the Surete's computer to select, instead, the world's WORST detective, NYPD Sgt. Clifton Sleigh. Sleigh obtusely bungles his way past assassins and corrupt officials as though he were Clouseau's American cousin.

Curse of the Pink Panther

1983

Keeping Mum poster
6.7

A pastor preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon fails to realize that his wife is having an affair and his children are up to no good.

Keeping Mum

2005

Haunted poster
6.1

Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.

Haunted

1995

Oliver Twist poster
6.8

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

Oliver Twist

2005

Alice in Wonderland poster
6.2

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into a whimsical Wonderland, where she meets characters like the delightful Cheshire Cat, the clumsy White Knight, a rude caterpillar, and the hot-tempered Queen of Hearts and can grow ten feet tall or shrink to three inches. But will she ever be able to return home?

Alice in Wonderland

1999

The Duellists poster
7.2

In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.

The Duellists

1977

Secrets & Lies poster
7.6

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

Secrets & Lies

1996

The French Lieutenant's Woman poster
6.5

In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.

The French Lieutenant's Woman

1981

A Christmas Carol poster
7.5

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

A Christmas Carol

1984

High Spirits poster
5.8

When a hotelier attempts to fill the chronic vacancies at his castle by launching an advertising campaign that falsely portrays the property as haunted, two actual ghosts show up and end up falling for two guests.

High Spirits

1988

Son of the Pink Panther poster
4.6

The illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau is on the case of the kidnapped Princess Yasmin.

Son of the Pink Panther

1993

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End poster
7.0

Sir Henry Rawlinson attempts to exorcise the ghost of his brother Humbert, who was accidentally killed in a drunken duck-shooting incident.

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

1980

Agatha poster
6.1

England, 1926. An American journalist looks for mystery writer Agatha Christie when she suddenly disappears without explanation, leaving no trace.

Agatha

1979

The Monster Club poster
5.8

A vampire attacks a horror author on the street and then invites him to a nearby club as a gesture of gratitude, which turns out to be a meeting place for assorted creatures of the night. The vampire then regales him with three stories, each interspersed with musical performances at the club.

The Monster Club

1981

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

Night of 100 Stars III poster
4.3

A celebrity benefit for The Actors' Fund of America, featuring music, songs, dance and comedy.

Night of 100 Stars III

1990

Little Dorrit poster
6.4

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.

Little Dorrit

1987

Apartment Zero poster
6.7

In a rundown area of Buenos Aires, at the dawn of the 1980s, Adrian LeDuc owns both a struggling movie theater and a shabby apartment building filled with eccentric, squabbling tenants. To make ends meet, Adrian takes in a roommate, Jack Carney, but soon begins to suspect that the quiet American is responsible for a series of political assassinations that are rocking the city.

Apartment Zero

1989