Marion Bailey

Marion Bailey (born 5 May 1951) is an English actress.^[1] She is best known for her work with her partner, filmmaker Mike Leigh,^[2] including the films Meantime (1983), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Mr. Turner (2014), for which she was nominated for Supporting Actress of the Year by the London Film Critics' Circle, and Peterloo (2018). In 2019 and 2020, she portrayed Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown on Netflix, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble in 2020 and 2021. In 2024 she was given an achievement award by the Filming Italy Sardegna festival.

Bailey was born in Bushey Hospital, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, to Rose (née Timberlake) and William Bailey. She grew up in Harrow, Middlesex, and attended Pinner County Grammar School. She was a member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. With writer Terry Johnson, she has a daughter, the actress Alice Bailey Johnson.

Bailey has frequently collaborated with her partner Mike Leigh, such as playing Mrs Booth in Mr. Turner (2014) and Lady Conyngham in Peterloo (2018). Bailey has appeared as Mrs Peach in Debbie Isitt's Nasty Neighbours (2000), Mary in the Craig Ferguson film I'll Be There, and Mrs Adams in Toast (2010). She also appeared in The Lady in the Van (2015), Allied (2016), Dead in a Week or Your Money Back (2018), and played Dinah in Stephen Cookson's Brighton (2019). She co starred with Ben Whishaw in the 2023 short film Good Boy which was shortlisted for Best Live Action Short Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Bailey's television work includes Inspector Morse, Casualty, The Bill, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Agatha Christie's Poirot, A Touch of Frost, Dalziel and Pascoe, Big Deal, Boon, The Bretts, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, No More Dying Then, Stay Lucky, Heat of the Sun, Micawber, New Tricks, Monday Monday, Being Human and Case Histories. In 1995, she had a recurring role as Avis in the long-running ITV series Shine on Harvey Moon. She also played leading roles in several popular 1980s TV series, including To Have and to Hold, Jury and Charlie.

In 2000, she played Wendy in Carlton's comedy-drama series The Thing About Vince... She has also appeared in many single TV dramas and films including Woyzeck, Way Upstream, Zackharov, Raspberry, Coppers, Derailed, Toast and Jane Austen's Persuasion. She played Jill in the BBC Three comedy series Him & Her, Sue in The Trials of Jimmy Rose, Ingrid in Temple, and Cara in Britannia for Sky. She played Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in seasons 3 and 4 of the Netflix series The Crown,^[3] for which she was a recipient of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. She has most recently appeared in Shakespeare & Hathaway, Endeavour, and the Netflix dramas Obsession and All the Light We Cannot See.

Bailey has worked extensively in British theatre, including London’s West End, the National Theatre, the Royal Court, the Old Vic, Chichester Festival Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, the Arts Theatre, the Kiln, Bristol Old Vic and the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

In 1981 she performed in Mike Leigh's West End theatre play Goosepimples, for which she received a Plays and Players Award nomination as Most Promising Newcomer.^[4] In 2007, with the Shared Experience company she received a TMA nomination as Best Supporting Performance for her role in Kindertransport.^[5]

Bailey appeared in Mike Leigh's Grief at the National Theatre (2011/12).^[6] In 2013 she played the Queen in Handbagged at the Tricycle Theatre and in the production's subsequent West End transfer to the Vaudeville Theatre.^[7]

Her most recent appearances were in Dominic Cooke’s production of Medea at Soho Place Theatre and Richard Bean’s To Have and To Hold directed by Terry Johnson at Hampstead Theatre.

• Marion Bailey at IMDb