Belinda Carroll is a British stage and television actress.

Background and early career

Carroll's parents were John F. Carroll, a flying instructor with the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

, and actress Hazel Bainbridge (b. 1909/1910 – d. 7 January 1998). Her elder sister is actress Kate O'Mara

Kate O'Mara

Kate O'Mara is an English film, stage and television actress. She is perhaps most widely known for her role as Caress Morell, the scheming sister of Alexis Colby in the 1980s American primetime soap opera Dynasty, though is also known for playing other villains such as The Rani in Doctor Who and...

.

She trained in provincial repertory

Repertory

Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...

, joining the Wimbledon Repertory Company after leaving school, and made her debut in London's West End

West End of London

The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...

 at the age of 20 when she took over the role of Marion from Barbara Ferris

Barbara Ferris

Barbara Gillian Ferris is an English actress and former fashion model.She appeared in a number of films and productions for television and is possibly best remembered as Dinah, the young woman who eloped with Dave Clark in the 1965 film Catch Us If You Can...

 in Terence Frisby

Terence Frisby

Terence Frisby is a London-based playwright and novelist, best known as the author of the play There's A Girl In My Soup.-Personal life:...

's long-running comedy There's a Girl in My Soup

There's A Girl In My Soup (comedy)

There's A Girl In My Soup is a stage comedy written by Terence Frisby.It opened in 1966 at the Globe Theatre and ran for six and half years until 1973 - over a thousand performances - to become the longest-running comedy in the history of the West End. After three and a half years at the Globe, the...

, opposite Donald Sinden

Donald Sinden

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE is an English actor of theatre, film and television.-Personal life:Sinden was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, on 9 October 1923. The son of Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes , he grew up in the Sussex village of Ditchling, where their home doubled as the...

 and Clive Francis

Clive Francis

-Early life:He is the son of actors Raymond Francis and Margaret Towner. He was born in Eastbourne.His father played Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart in the 1960s series No Hiding Place and his mother still acts today - most recently she played Jira, Anakin Skywalker's friend, in Star...

.

Stage and television

Other stage roles from the late 1960s to early 1980s included parts in His, Hers and Theirs with Gladys Cooper

Gladys Cooper

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, DBE was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television....

; The Pleasure of His Company with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...

; Peter Pan

Peter and Wendy

Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...

(as Wendy

Wendy Darling

Wendy Moira Angela Darling is a fictional character, the female protagonist of Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, and in most adaptations in other media. Her exact age is not specified in the original play or novel by Barrie, though she is implied to be 12 or 13 years old or younger, as she is "just...

) with Dorothy Tutin

Dorothy Tutin

Dame Dorothy Tutin DBE was an English actor of stage, film, and television.An obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage...

; with Jean Kent

Jean Kent

Jean Kent is a British film actress who appeared in a number of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s.-Biography:Jean Kent was born in Brixton, London as Joan Mildred Summerfield. She started her theatrical career as a dancer in 1931. Initially, she used the stage name of Jean Carr when she...

 and David Jason

David Jason

Sir David John White, OBE , better known by his stage name David Jason, is an English BAFTA award-winning actor. He is best known as the main character Derek "Del Boy" Trotter on the BBC sit-com Only Fools and Horses from 1981, the voice of Mr Toad in The Wind In The Willows and as detective Jack...

 as the often skimpily clad Frances Hunter in Anthony Marriott

Anthony Marriott

Anthony Marriott is an actor and playwright notable for being joint author, with Alistair Foot of the comedy No Sex Please, We're British which opened at the Strand Theatre, London, in 1971. It has been performed in 52 countries and which on 21 February 1979 became the longest running comedy in...

 and Alistair Foot’s No Sex, Please – We’re British

No Sex Please, We're British

No Sex Please, We're British is a British comedic play written by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott, first staged in London's West End in 1971. It was unanimously panned by critics, but still ran for nearly a decade to packed audiences...

; Charley’s Aunt with John Inman

John Inman

Frederick John Inman was an English actor best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?, a British sitcom in the 1970s and 1980s. Inman was also well known in the United Kingdom as a pantomime dame....

; and as Anne Meredith in Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

's Cards on the Table

Cards on the Table

Cards on the Table is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 2 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year...

(1981).

Carroll appeared subsequently in many productions around Britain and on television in Callan

Callan

-People:Callan is the birth place of some famous people, namely:* Edmund Ignatius Rice, founder of the Irish Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers* Callan also has links with Asa Griggs Candler's family and the Coca-Cola company....

, The Duchess of Duke Street

The Duchess of Duke Street

The Duchess Of Duke Street is a BBC television drama series set in London between 1900 and 1935. It was created by John Hawkesworth, the former producer of the highly successful ITV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs...

(1976), Lovejoy

Lovejoy

Lovejoy is a TV series about the adventures of Lovejoy, a British antiques dealer and faker based in East Anglia, a less than scrupulous yet likeable rogue. The episodes were based on a series of picaresque novels by John Grant...

(1991) and Casualty

Casualty (TV series)

Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

(2001). She starred with James Fox

James Fox

James Fox, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:James Fox was born in London, England to theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and film producer Robert Fox. The actress Emilia Fox is his niece and the actor Laurence Fox is his son. His...

 and Simon Williams

Simon Williams (actor)

Simon Williams is an English actor known for playing James Bellamy in the period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. Frequently playing upper-class roles, he is also known for playing Dr...

 in the psychological drama No Longer Alone (1978).

Family

Carroll was married first to actor Simon Williams, who also appeared in No Sex Please, We're British. They had two children, Tam and Amy Williams, also actors, before divorcing in the late 1970s. She subsequently married actor Michael Cochrane

Michael Cochrane

Michael Cochrane is an English actor who specialises in playing upper class characters, sometimes with a suaveness that hides their villainy....

.