Joanna Lumley’s Fascinating Career!
Joanna Lumley returned to our screens in early 2024 with a brand new Netflix thriller Fool Me Once. With a career spanning over five decades, this award-winning actress has so many highlights worth a throwback!
At 77-years-old, Dame Joanna Lumley doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.
“I love my life! Why would I retire?” says the effervescent star.
And she sure did have us hooked with her most recent role in the brand new thriller Fool Me Once! Her performance as Judith Burkett, the protagonist’s cold and calculated mother-in-law was brilliant.
Considered a national treasure, Joanna Lumley’s most notable appearances over the years include The New Avengers (ITV, 1976-1977), Sapphire and Steel (ITV, 1979-1982), and Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992-2004).
She’s one of Britain’s most beloved actresses, yet Joanna didn’t start out at drama school – she was a model before she turned to acting.
Joanna Lumley was a model in the 1960s.
“In those days anybody could be a model, literally anybody. And so, coming up to London, one thing I knew I didn’t want to do was go to university.
“I wanted to wear red lipstick and have an open-top car and drive around Italy, so I thought I’d be a model. So in those days you had to go to Lucie Clayton [Charm Academy] and learn how to be a model.
“What did I learn there? Things like getting out of E-Types without showing your pants!” she laughs.
Joanna Lumley’s Ab Fab character, Patsy, encapsulated perfectly in one image.
Our Beloved Patsy
Joanna is best known for her role in 1990s comedy Absolutely Fabulous (“Ab Fab”) when she starred as champagne-swilling, chain-smoking fashionista Patsy Stone.
“Patsy was born in France so long ago nobody can remember when,” laughs Joanna.
“She was like Wile E Coyote. Whenever she smacked down and everything had gone wrong she’d spring up, still red lipstick on, nice hairdo, wearing Betty Jackson clothes or something!
“Quite a lot of her voice is based on Mick Jagger after a heavy night. She was rude to people and didn’t seem to care. I adored her.
“What she did care about was Eddie, her best friend.”
Joanna Lumley as Purdey in The New Avengers . Credit: ALAMY
The Famous Purdey Cut Was Joanna Lumley’s Idea
Only the Rachel Cut from Friends comes close in terms of fame to the iconic bowl cut worn by Joanna’s character in The Avengers.
“Yeah, the Purdey cut was my idea. I had hair a bit longer than I have now when I got the job. It was brownish. And I thought, This is going to look horrible, my hair is horrible.
“Purdey was an agent! She was a tough, working police kind of girl. She wouldn’t mess around with soppy hair, so I thought, Cut it off!
“I couldn’t afford the proper hairdresser so I went to Leonard’s [hair salon] and got one of the cheaper boys. This boy with lovely black hair spent ages cutting, while a little red-haired boy held his Kirby grips.
“The black-haired boy was John Frieda and the red-haired boy was Nicky Clarke!”
Learn more about iconic Purdey hairstyle
Joanna Lumley in her latest role in Fool Me Once as Judith Burkett, the cold and calculated mother-in-law.
Joanna Lumley Is Her Own Worst Critic
The camera may love Joanna, but the feeling is not reciprocated.
“Even now in front of the camera, I think Why am I doing this? When they say, ‘Would you like to see the rushes?’ I reply, ‘No! Don’t show me!’
“Quite a lot of the films I’m in, I never go and see them for fear of looking up at the screen and seeing myself. Because in my mind I’m a cross between Brigitte Bardot
and Audrey Hepburn with the brilliance of Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep. But it’s me!”
There’s No Stopping Joanna Lumley
“The thing is, if I was in a job I hated or that was tedious or tired me out and was not rewarding, I’d retire like a shot. But as all I’m doing is all I ever dreamed of doing and being in life, why would I give it up?
“I said to my husband, who is a musician, once, ‘What would life without music be like?’ and he said, ‘I couldn’t live, it’s like breathing’.
“I hop around and if there’s a gap, I can sneak in through the gap. You’ve got to present a moving target! I think if I was waiting always for a very good part to come along, I’d be dead in the water, because I get offered mad aunts and roles like this, which is not surprising.
“I hang on just in case they say, ‘Judi Dench? No, I don’t think so. Let’s go for Joanna Lumley’!”
