Rita May
Birthday: Born in 1942-05-09 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Deathday: Alive
Rita May is an English film and television actress, singer, and writer, best known for playing Mrs Kemp in Threads, Jean in Early Doors and Margaret in Trollied. She's also the only original cast remember who appeared in all episodes of the children's ITV drama series "Children's Ward" from 1989 to 2000.
TV Credits
Red Riding
Character: Aunty Win
Thrilling trilogy of films based on David Peace's cult noir novels about Yorkshire during the 1970s and 80s: a world of paranoia, corruption and the terrifying legacy of the Ripper murders....
Trollied
Character: Margaret
Set in Valco, a fictional budget supermarket in the north west of England, Trollied finds the funny in one of our most familiar surroundings and focuses on the types of characters we all recognise: bored checkout staff, ineffectual managers and a range of customers, from the irate to the downright bizarre....
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Character: Supermarket Shopper
Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor....
The Syndicate
Character: Nanna
A drama exploring how winning the lottery transforms the lives of ordinary people....
The Royal
Character: Aunt Mary Graham
Follows the staff and patients of a Yorkshire cottage hospital in the 60s, embroiled in tangled love lives and bitter power struggles....
Children's Ward
Character: Mags
Children's Ward is a British children's television drama series produced by Granada Television and broadcast on the ITV network as part of its Children's ITV strand on weekday afternoons. The programme was set – as the title suggests – in Ward B1, the children's ward of the fictitious South Park Hospital, and told the stories of the young patients and the staff present there. Aimed at older children and teenagers, Children's Ward was a long-lived series for a children's drama, starting life in 1...
Ackley Bridge
Character: Julie "Nana" Booth
A new academy school in a Yorkshire mill town merges the lives and cultures of the largely divided white and Asian community...
Early Doors
Character: Jean Dixon
A sitcom set in a small pub in Manchester, “The Grapes”, where daily life is bound up in the issues of love, loneliness, and blocked urinals. Regular drinkers Joe and Duffy pass the time with landlord Ken and his police officer cronies....
Sunshine
Character: Doreen
Sunshine is a three-part comedy drama that began on 7 October 2008 on BBC1 from the co-writers of The Royle Family and Early Doors. These co-writers, Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, also appear in the series....
The Gathering Seed
Character: Martha Kilbride
The saga of Manchester lad Joe Henshaw, a story that takes in family life, the trials and tribulations of the Labour movement and World War Two...
Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators
Character: Emilia Merchant
Frank Hathaway, a hardboiled private investigator, and his rookie sidekick Lu Shakespeare form the unlikeliest of partnerships as they investigate the secrets of rural Warwickshire's residents....
Heartbeat
Character: Mrs. Nelly Sneddon
Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines....
Last of the Summer Wine
Character: Celia
Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world....
Movie Credits
The Gamekeeper
Character: Mary
George Purse is the gamekeeper for the duke's estate, a role he takes seriously. His position gives him a certain status, but he has an uneasy relationship with some of the locals, not least those who turn to poaching...
The Price of Coal, Part 1: Meet the People
Character: Kath Storey
The workers of Milton Colliery prepare for a royal visit from Prince Charles....
When Saturday Comes
Character: Mabel
Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas - he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?...
Looks and Smiles
Character: Receptionist
Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens' Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mom. Karen misses...
Threads
Character: Mrs. Kemp
Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization....
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974
Character: Aunty Win
Yorkshire, 1974. Fear, mistrust and institutionalised police corruption are running riot. Rookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to search for the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions. When young Clare Kemplay goes missing, Eddie and his colleague, Barry, persuade their editor to let them investigate links with two similar abductions that draw them into a deadly world of secrecy, intimidation, shock...
The Price of Coal, Part 2: Back to Reality
Character: Kath Storey
A month after the royal visit, the workers at Milton Colliery are brought crashing back down to earth by an underground explosion....
Walk Like a Panther
Character: Mabel Higgins
A group of 1980s wrestlers are forced to don the lycra once last time when their beloved local pub is threatened with closure....
Fanny & Elvis
Character: Rick's Mother
Yorkshire writer Kate finds out her biological clock is ticking down the same day that her husband leaves her. To get over the financial crisis this creates she takes in car-dealer Dave. He's homeless as Kate's husband has moved in with his wife. This leaves the problem of how to get promptly pregnant. Surely not with increasingly interesting Dave. They can't even agree on a baby's name - he thinks Fanny is silly and she finds Elvis, well, inconceivable....
Everybody's Talking About Jamie
Character: Mrs. Cardwell
Jamie New is 16 and doesn’t quite fit in—instead of pursuing a "real" career he dreams of becoming a drag queen. Uncertain about his future, Jamie knows one thing for sure: he is going to be a sensation. Supported by his loving mom and his amazing friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies and steps out of the darkness, into the spotlight....
Nits
Character: Nan
A 7-year-old boy (Jonathan Mason) struggles to understand why his mother, newly returned from hospital, isn't giving him the attention he craves....
In the Loop
Character: Mrs Michaelson
The US President and the UK Prime Minister are planning on launching a war in the Middle East, but—behind the scenes—government officials and advisers are either promoting the war or are trying to prevent it....
England's Greens and Peasant Land
Character: Pat
A planning decision must be made, and the motorway extension must go through on either the Golf Course or the Allotments - will the greens survive or the peasant lands?...