Joanna Lumley

The daughter of a high-born British military major, actress Joanna Lumley was a model before entering films with 1968's Some Girls Do. In 1976, she took on the Diana Rigg-like female lead on the British TV action series The New Avengers, costarring Patrick MacNee of the old Avengers. Joanna also costarred in two of Blake Edwards' Pink Panther movies of the '80s. Thoroughly jettisoning her previous cool-glamour image, Joanna Lumley costarred with Jennifer Saunders in the 1993 British TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous as a pair of boozing, bawdy functionaries in the '90s fashion world (the series was picked up by the American cable network Comedy Central in 1994). So popular was Ms. Lumley's characterization of potty-mouthed, cheap-thrill-seeking Patsy that, shortly after the premiere of Absolutely Fabulous, she was being imitated in TV commercials by comic actor John Cleese! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide