Maggie Steed

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Maggie Steed in a scene from Foyle's War

Maggie Steed is a British stage and television actress. After studying drama at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, she left the theatre for several years.

"Actresses in those days had to be "dolly birds" and I was just Margaret Baker from Plymouth, tall with very gappy teeth, so I became a secretary instead. It was only years later, when I'd grown up politically and become interested in Theatre in Education, that I started again and ended up at the Coventry Belgrade with Clive Russell and Sue Johnston" (interview in The Independent, 22 March 2000).

Maggie Steed works regularly on the stage and has performed with the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. She has also performed as a stand-up comedienne. She helped write and perform in the comedy benefit concert, An Evening for Nicaragua, at the Shaftesbury Theatre, which aired on British Television in 1983. The cast included Ben Elton, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Emma Thompson and Rik Mayall. Maggie Steed also visited Nicaragua in 1982 with Andy de la Tour.

Her first major television role was playing Rita Moon in the series Shine on Harvey Moon. She is also known for long running roles playing Margaret Crabbe in Pie in the Sky and Phyllis Woolf in Born and Bred. Her television credits include appearances on Minder, Coronation Street, The Young Ones, Red Dwarf, Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War and French and Saunders. She has recently appeared in Jennifer Saunders' new sitcom Jam and Jerusalem, shown on BBC One in November and December 2006.