Roberta Taylor, known for her roles in The Bill and EastEnders, has died aged 76.
Taylor suffered from lung disease emphysema and died on 6 July after a fall two months ago led to an infection. Her condition subsequently worsened with a bout of pneumonia, reported The Guardian.
Taylor started out as a dental nurse, but took drama classes in her spare time until 1973, when a friend suggested she try to get into drama school. Taylor auditioned and got into the Central school on the same day as Peter Guinness, who eventually became her second husband.
Taylor worked at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre from 1980 to 1992 and honed her craft working in several plays, including Noel Coward’s Private Lives, Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, and Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage. She was also, during this period, cast in a stage adaptation of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) titled A Waste of Time, which also starred Rupert Everett and Gary Oldman.
The actor started playing Irene Raymond on the BBC’s EastEnders in 1997, the matriarch of the Hills family. Over the three years she spent on the show, Irene had several romances, including one with Gavin Richards’ Terry Raymond and her young lodger Troy Harvey, played by Jamie Jarvis.
She played Irene till 2000, and on her exit, explained that the rigours of filming a soap meant she had too little time for herself.
“I was always thinking, ‘When can I learn my lines?’ I gave over much of my life to the show and if I was to carry on at such a pace I’d have to continue to put my life on hold,” she told The Mirror.
“I didn’t want to do things at half-cock. I had a lot of fun playing Irene, and Gavin, who plays my screen husband Terry, and I got on brilliantly.
“Irene was a complicated lady. I never knew what was going to happen next, but that’s what life is like. We worked hard at our characters. People thought we were comical but actually there was a lot of sarcasm.”
She then went on to work on the ITV series The Bill, playing Inspector Gina Gold.
Taylor also appeared on television shows like Casualty, Doctors, Sharman, Holby City, Silent Witness, and Inspector Morse, and in films like The Witches in 1990 and Tom & Viv in 1994.
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Her last major television series was Shakespeare & Hathaway in 2022.
Taylor published a memoir about her childhood, Too Many Mothers, in 2005, and a novel called The Reinvention of Ivy Brown in 2008.
Tributes poured in after news of her death broke.
Actor Nicholas Pegg wrote on X: “Beautiful, brilliant Roberta Taylor. Adored by millions for her roles in The Bill and EastEnders. Outstanding in Shakespeare, Inspector Morse, and all points in between. A mighty raconteur, a demon at Scrabble, and a dear friend. Thoughts are with her family and her beloved Pete.”
Kyri Zindilis, story producer on EastEnders, wrote: “Devastated to hear this – I adored Irene Raymond. We have this picture printed out and up on the wall in the Story Department, and it always makes me smile. RIP Roberta Taylor.”