Stephanie Cole, the actress known for Tenko, Open All Hours and Coronation Street, has died at the age of 84. Her agent, John Grant, said in a statement on behalf of her family that she had been living with Alzheimer's disease for several years.
Grant described Cole as an extraordinary talent whose long and distinguished career included many iconic performances in theatre and television. He said she brought joy to millions through her many much-loved roles in sitcom and drama, and that she would also be remembered for her tireless work supporting mental health charities. The family asked for privacy during what he called an incredibly difficult time.
Born in Solihull, Cole trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She made her stage debut at 17, playing the 90-year-old medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. That early role would bookend her career: in 2004, at 63, she returned to it when the play was revived at the West End’s Savoy Theatre.
Her breakout television role came in the 1980s BBC wartime drama Tenko, as Dr Beatrice Mason. The series followed British women in Singapore after the Japanese invasion and their confinement in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Cole played a doctor struggling to look after the women’s health, opposite Ann Bell and Claire Oberman.
During the same period, she played the moody customer Mrs Delphine Featherstone, also known as The Black Widow, in the Ronnie Barker-starring sitcom Open All Hours. She later won the award for best TV comedy actress for her portrayal of the sharp-tongued photojournalist Diana Trent in Waiting For God.
Cole cited her earlier performance as Muriel in Alan Bennett’s monologue Soldiering On as one of her proudest moments. That production also starred Maggie Smith and Julie Walters. Her stage highlight, by her own account, was a West End production of A Passionate Woman. Other theatre work included Driving Miss Daisy, Noises Off and King Lear.
On television, she played the aunt of Martin Clunes’s titular character in the ITV medical drama Doc Martin. Her other notable roles included Keeping Mum and the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Cabin Pressure, alongside a fast-rising Benedict Cumberbatch, as Carolyn Knapp-Shappey. In a 2018 interview with the Guardian, she said one of the joys of the character was how strong and feisty she was. Carolyn told it like it was and took no rubbish, Cole added. She said she confessed there was perhaps a little of the character’s bossiness in her.
Cole appeared in Coronation Street as Roy Cropper’s mother Sylvia Goodwin between 2011 and 2013. The role won her another comedy prize, in her 70s, at the 2012 British Soap Awards. She reprised her Open All Hours character in the 2010s reboot Still Open All Hours, opposite David Jason, and appeared alongside Suranne Jones in Gentleman Jack. On Halloween 2018, she guest starred in the live episode of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s Inside No. 9, titled Dead Line.
She also appeared in Midsomer Murders and Doctors. Her last major TV role was opposite Greg Davies in his BBC comedy series The Cleaner in 2021. Cole was married twice. Her first husband was the playwright and theatrical fight director Henry Marshall, whom she divorced in 1988. A decade later, she married fellow actor Peter Birrel, 30 years after the pair first appeared together in a production of Richard II at the Bristol Old Vic. Birrel died in 2004. Cole is survived by a daughter from her first marriage, Emma Battcock. She was made an OBE in 2005 for her services to drama, the elderly and mental health charities.
