Biography

Daughter of Catherine and Isaac Routledge. Her father was a haberdasher, and, during WWII, the family lived weeks at a time in the basement of her father's shop. She attended Birkenhead High School, where she sang in the choir and ran the Sunday School. She studied English at Liverpool University, and, after graduation, worked without pay at the Liverpool Playhouse. She was asked to join the company, and she later studied at Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol. She then moved to London, where she built an impressive stage career over the next several years, also appearing on Broadway 1966-1968. Patricia has worked in TV since the early 1950s, most recently in Keeping Up Appearances (1990). She also recorded an album, "Presenting Patricia Routledge", and worked in film and radio. She has never married or had children, has said that she will not retire, and lives in Kensington and Surrey when not working.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: anon-14

The daughter of a gentleman's outfitter, Patricia, who studied at Liverpool University, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and London's Guildhall School of Music, made her professional debut at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1952. She's best known, of course, as "Hyacinth Bucket" in Keeping Up Appearances (1990), but her career has encompassed a huge variety of roles--from Alan Bennett's Talking Heads (1988) monologues and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985), to Shakespeare, Sheridan and musicals such as "Carousel". She can also be seen as the subject of the BBC series, Patricia Routledge (1998), and there are plans to translate her one-woman stage-show about Beatrix Potter to the screen. Other highlights have included a Tony Award in 1967 for her performance on Broadway in "Darling of the Day"; a triumph in the title role of Offenbach's opera, "The Duchess of Gerolstein" (1978 production); an acclaimed Queen Margaret in the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Richard III" (1984); a Laurence Olivier Award for her "Old Lady" in "Candide" (1988). In 1991, she received a British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Actress for Keeping Up Appearances (1990). In 1992, she was voted BBC Television Personality of the Year, and, a year later, she was awarded the OBE. During the 60th anniversary awards for the BBC, she was also voted by viewers as Britain's favorite actress.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Karen Leyton

In the 1990s, Patricia found UK TV fame as Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) in the hit comedy series "Keeping Up Appearances" (1990), in which she played a middle-class woman who was always putting on airs and graces in order to ingratiate herself with the right people.

This was followed by the series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1995) in which she played a retired northern housewife turned private eye.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Smith <FL97@DIAL.PIPEX.COM>