Although best known as PEARL (she of the brown beret and glasses) in BBC TV's LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE, Juliette has played a wide variety of roles during her career.
Born in England, she spent her childhood in South Africa and New York City before training for the theatre at the Hampshire School of Drama, graduating with L.G.S.M. (teaching), A.N.E.A.(hons) performance, A.N.E.A (hons) teaching and Gold Medal N.E.A (hons) mime.
Her mother's advice was - get a teaching qualification and never give up the day job! So she's a landlady in her spare time.
Her first professional engagement was as "Salome" in "Voice in the Wilderness" for St. George Films, Hampshire, a company specialising in religious documentary films.
The dance (not the seven veils in 1955!!) certainly got the film some notoriety - oops sorry - publicity!! All the national papers jumped on the story and a clip of the dance was shown on TV in TONIGHT hosted by Cliff Michelmore - remember him? shows you how long ago that was!
She subsequently played for them in "His Name Was John", "The Communion" and "It Came to Pass".
In complete contrast her next role was the back end of the cow in pantomime at Tunbridge Wells!
Seasons in rep, countrywide, followed ranging from Llandudno to Margate.
It was in Margate that she married and left the theatre to raise a family. Having had three children in three years she discovered what was causing it and took up bridge!
Juliette returned to the profession in 1978 in a small scale tour of “Two For The Seesaw” then, "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb" for Harlech TV. Appearances on the London 'Fringe' include "Meat Love" at the Almost Free and "After All These Years" at the Finborough Arms.
She made her directing debut at the Edinburgh Festival with "Anyway" by Tudor Gates and then played 'Joanne' in his play "Who Killed 'Agatha' Christie" at the Ambassadors theatre in the West End.
In 1984 she was offered the role of PEARL in the stage version of "Last Of The Summer Wine" playing in Bournemouth. She had a feeling the part would be lucky as Pearl is her mother's name and Bournemouth is her hometown. To her great delight she was subsequently written into the TV series as a permanent character and since 1984 has featured in all the episodes. She has also played in the full length Summer Wine films "Big Day At Dream Acres" when poor Pearl tried to become glamorous and "Uncle of the Bride" when she didn't!!
Chances to ‘doff’ the wig and glasses came when she played GRACE in Brookside, LUCILLE in EastEnders and (remember the 'day-job'? It paid off!) THE CROUPIER in London’s Burning.
She has toured extensively and her greatest enjoyment is in playing as wide a variety of roles as possible and being unrecognised. Some of her favourites have been, VIOLET in "Steaming" MRS PRENTICE in "What the Butler Saw", EMMA BROOKNER in "The Normal Heart”, MARTHA in “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” CATHARINE in "Arms and the Man”, DOTTY in "Noises Off” and MAGGIE in “Hobson's Choice”.
The summer of '89 saw Juliette hoofing at the Theatre Royal, Margate as MAXINE in "Stepping Out".
Another 'first' came in 1990 when she was cast as FAIRY GODMOTHER in "Cinderella" at Tunbridge Wells. Being tone deaf this called for a little ingenuity and by the first night her song was called by the company "Juliette's poem". She's now taking singing lessons, but her teacher says she's a challenge that may be lost.
Since then she has played in panto at the Theatre Royal, Bath, Manchester Palace, Hull, Blackpool, Weston Super Mare where she played WIDOW TWANKEY in Aladdin - both singing and dancing this time and Leamington Spa to name but a few. For the past 2 years she has, with her smoke-cured voice, been playing ‘Baddies’ and has loved playing ‘Wicked Queen’ in Snow White and ‘Queen Rat’ in Dick Whittington.
The biggest challenge of her career came in 99 when she was asked to play ‘Peggy Schofield’ and ‘Irene Ruddock’ in a tour of ‘Talking Heads by Alan Bennett for Channel Theatre. Being onstage for over 2 hours in a solo performance was both terrifying and immensely satisfying.
It was after this tour that Juliette had the temerity to contact Roy Clarke and suggest he write a play for her centred on PEARL, her character in LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE.
As she said to him, ‘If I can tour Alan Bennett, I can tour Roy Clarke’. Amazingly, he agreed! Many emails, phone calls and meetings later a script was finalised. "JUST PEARL" was launched upon an unsuspecting British public in March 2003 and toured over 40 venues.
There is a strong possibility that it will be touring again in Spring 2008..
In 2003 she was cast as MIRIAM a hostage in the film of the opera DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER by John Adams and directed by Penny Woolcock. DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER was premiered at the Walter Reade Theatre, New York on May 13th 2003 and was subsequently screened at the Sundance Festival, California and at Festivals throughout Europe winning many prizes. It made its English debut on ITV Channel 4 in the summer of 2004.
2007 saw her casting off the dowdy look to play a typical Jewish mother in 'Are You Ready For Love' and doing two cruises talking of her experiences in TV and her observations on PEARL.
She then toured in DIRTY DUSTING playing 'Olive' an elderly office cleaner who, with her mates, takes over one of the offices and sets up a telephone sex line!!! GREAT FUN, but a bit embarrassing when her children came to see it.
Another tour was SAILOR BEWARE playing poor, nervous 'Aunt Edie' Totally against type and a wonderful opportunity to diversify.
Juliette is now filming a new series of Last Of Summer Wine as ‘Pearl’ the lady you love to hate.
Then she starts rehearsing for panto at the Civic theatre in Doncaster playing WICKED QUEEN in SNOW WHITE.
She lives in Westgate on Sea (WHERE????) and, when not working, her hobbies are snorkelling, playing bridge badly, spoiling her grand children, writing, (she's just started her autobiography before senility sets in and she can't remember anything), gardening, directing amateur drama and telling her children how to run their lives.
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