Sandra Dickinson

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Sandra Dickinson bigraphy, stories - Film

Sandra Dickinson : biography

20 October 1948 –

Sandra Dickinson (born Sandra Searles on 20 October 1948) is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice in the UK – notably commencing in the St. Bruno TV advertisements in the early 1970s.

Personal life

Dickinson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Maryland. Her father, Harold S. Searles, was a psychoanalyst and her mother, Sylvia, was a nurse. In 1969, Dickinson met her first husband, Briton Hugh Dickinson (whose surname she still uses as her stage name), moving to the United Kingdom with him the following year. They were married for five years. She married the British actor Peter Davison on 26 December 1978, and they were divorced in 1994. Together they composed and performed the theme tune to the 1980s children’s programme Button Moon. They have a daughter, Georgia Moffett, born 25 December 1984, who is also an actress.

Dickinson married her third husband, a second British actor, Mark Osmond, on 16 August 2009. The wedding was filmed for Four Weddings, a reality TV show where four couples compete to have theirs voted the best wedding; hers came third. Her grandson gave her away. The wedding took place in Shepperton, where the couple have lived since 2007. Dickinson became a British citizen the same year, and runs a theatre school in Shepperton (which also has a base in Ealing) called the Close Up Theatre School.

Credits

Her roles include:

  • Trillian in the television version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxySandra Dickinson said in an interview in The Making of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that when she heard that she had been suggested for the role of Trillian, she thought it completely mad – Sandra Dickinson was blonde and fair-skinned, and in the Hitch Hiker book, Trillian is described as dark and looking "slightly Arabic". However, during the screen test, Douglas Adams was sufficiently impressed with her acting skills that when Dickinson suggested wryly, "I’ve got to get my Union Jack lenses in" (i.e., practice my English accent), Douglas Adams asked her to use her natural voice and accent.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185452/ Dickinson later returned to the "Hitchhiker’s" universe to play Tricia MacMillan in the fourth and fifth radio series produced by Above the Title for BBC Radio 4.
  • Emily in A Man for Emily in The Tomorrow People
  • Tina in the sitcom 2point4 children
  • A stage production of The Owl and the Pussycat, where the leads were herself and her then husband Peter Davison.
  • Barefoot in the Park – London stage production from 1984, again with Davison as a pair of American newlyweds adjusting to life in their new high-rise apartment.
  • A parallel universe version of Trillian (AKA Tricia McMillan) in the Quintessential Phase of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide radio series.
  • Zelda in Cover, a 1981 drama series from Thames Television, set in a recruitment and testing agency for the spy service.
  • Cameo appearance in the sequel film Superman III as the wife of a man who puts a grapefruit in her face after seeing the size of a bill from Bloomingdale’s. A year later, Dickinson makes an appearance in Supergirl.
  • Maggie in the 1996 Doctor Who BBC radio serial The Ghosts of N-Space.

Both Dickinson and then husband Peter Davison appeared together in former Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner’s production of the holiday pantomime Cinderella in 1983.

Dickinson has also appeared in an episode of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt series, also starring Malcolm McDowell as a neurotic vampire who prefers bloodbanks to actual victims.

She made a guest appearance in the BBC1 drama Casualty in February 2001, playing Debbie Hall, a tourist who arrives in Holby City Hospital with her husband, who has been stabbed by a mugger.

She has played Queen Camilla in Carlisle pantomime production of Snow White & the Seven Dwarves in 2007, and in 2008 she played Fairy Godmother at the Towngate Theatre Basildon’s production of Cinderella & once again in the 2009 Harlow Playhouse theatre production of Cinderella alongside her now husband Mark Osmond.

She played Lady Gloria Gransford in New Tricks Season 6 episode 4 "Shadow Show" in 2009.

From 18 December 2010 to 9 January 2011 Dickinson played the evil Queen Malificent in the pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Corn Exchange in Exeter.

She played Debbie in White Van Man series 1 episode 5 "Honest", first broadcast on 12 April 2011.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0109mdh The series stars her daughter Georgia Moffett.

She provided the voices of Miss Simian, Granny Jojo, Mrs. Jotunheim, and the cupcake woman from The Amazing World of Gumball.