The daughter of a high-born British military major, actress Joanna Lumley was a model before entering films with 1968's Some Girls Do. In 1976, she took on the Diana Rigg-like female lead on the British TV action series The New Avengers, costarring Patrick MacNee of the old Avengers. Joanna also costarred in two of Blake Edwards' Pink Panther movies of the '80s. Thoroughly jettisoning her previous cool-glamour image, Joanna Lumley costarred with Jennifer Saunders in the 1993 British TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous as a pair of boozing, bawdy functionaries in the '90s fashion world (the series was picked up by the American cable network Comedy Central in 1994). So popular was Ms. Lumley's characterization of potty-mouthed, cheap-thrill-seeking Patsy that, shortly after the premiere of Absolutely Fabulous, she was being imitated in TV commercials by comic actor John Cleese!

On the big screen she appeared in Cold Comfort Farm, James and the Giant Peach, and The Cat's Meow before returning to her signature role as Patsy Stone for another run of Absolutely Fabulous in 2001. After that she could be seen in Eurotrip, and provided voiceover work in both Doogal and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. She starred in the series Clatterford, and had a prominent part in the 2011 project Late Bloomers.