Jeillo Edwards

Biography

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.

Known For

Beautiful Thing
Beautiful Thing
Anansi
Anansi
The Sniffler and the Pug
The Sniffler and the Pug

Filmography

2003 Murder Investigation Team
as Agnes Welsh
2003 Anansi
as Aunt Vera
2002 Dirty Pretty Things
as Hospital Cleaning Lady
2001 Murder in Mind
as Phyllis
2000 Tough Love
as Irate Woman
2000 Black Books
as Midwife
1999 Tube Tales
as Middle Aged Woman (segment "Steal Away")
1999 Spaced
as Tim's Benefit Clerk
1999 The League of Gentlemen
as Yvonne
1997 Holding On
as Aunt Gaynor
1997 Paris, Brixton
as
1996 Beautiful Thing
as Rose
1994 Pat and Margaret
as Tea Bar Lady
1992 Absolutely Fabulous
as Jeillo
1992 Black and Blue
as Mrs Jessop
1988 Red Dwarf
as Second Ground Controller
1987 Elphida
as Somali Woman
1986 Casualty
as Jean MacKenzie
1984 Paint Me a Murder
as Landlady
1984 The Bill
as