Frances de la Tour

Frances de la Tour has had a lengthy stage career and amassed a considerable resume of television work while gradually earning recognition for her film roles. After honing her comedic skills in acclaimed productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and other plays, she branched out during the early '70s, which saw her team up with veteran talent Marty Feldman in the film "Every Home Should Have One" and the show "The Marty Feldman Laugh Machine." In 1974, she was cast in what would become her most recognizable role over the next few decades: Miss Ruth Jones, a lonely, unmarried woman living in a dilapidated Victorian house in the sitcom "Rising Damp." During the '80s, after "Rising Damp" ended, her work included the mini-series "Flickers" in which she played Maud, the wife of Bob Hoskins' character via a marriage of convenience. She also co-starred in "A Kind of Living" as a wife dealing with relocation and new motherhood. The '90s and early '00s brought more television work in a variety of genres, but it wasn't until 2005 that de la Tour began landing supporting roles in films with greater frequency. Along with appearing in '05's blockbuster "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" as Madame Olympe Maxime, in the following year she was reunited with her "A Kind of Living" co-star Richard Griffiths in "The History Boys." She closed out the decade with a supporting role in the big-budget blockbuster, "Alice in Wonderland."