Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

She found a niche in TV comedy, her 1968 debut coming in the same year she married John Cleese, alongside whom she featured occasionally in Monty Python's Flying Circus and later the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

It's through her partnership with Cleese that Booth's place in the comedy pantheon is assured, together writing and starring in classic 1970s series Fawlty Towers.

Quite rightly their writing is regarded as perhaps the finest British sitcom yet produced, but Booth deserves equal credit for her performances as level-headed maid Polly: mixing great delivery with knowing when to play it straight against Cleese's monstrous hotelier.

Divorcing Cleese in 1978, Booth has not since returned to comedy and refuses to discuss Fawlty Towers.

She moved into straight acting, appearing in Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ costume dramas Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Buccaneers, before retiring from all acting in 1995 to start a new career in psychotherapy.