biography

Kate O'Mara (born Kate Carroll) was born on 10 August 1939, in Leicester, UK. Her mother was the actress Hazel Bainbridge and father John Carroll, a flying instructor for the RAF.

Educated at the Aida Foster School, she began an early career as a speech therapist at a Sussex Girls' School, but her attraction to acting got the best of her and she switched gears, making her debut in a stage production of The Merchant of Venice in 1963 at the age of 24.

She continued to appear in classical works throughout the next two seasons until TV series spots started coming her way. Kate attracted gothic notice in Hammer Studio horrifics as tawdry, darkly alluring femmes in both The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) and The Vampire Lovers (1970), but her film load over the years would remain sporadic.

She has remained focused on stage endeavours in the ensuing years and has appeared in many British TV series as well as various femme fatales or shady ladies. She made little leeway in America but did appear as Joan Collins equally bitchy sister for one season of Dynasty in 1986. She was also delightfully vindictive in episodes of Doctor Who and Absolutely Fabulous in England. She relished a standout role in the long-running British soap opera Crossroads.

In the 80s she founded and toured in a theatre company which has continued running into the millennium. It is called The British Actor's Theatre Company. She has since published two books: When She Was Bad in 1991 and Good Time Girl in 1993.

Her personal life has often hit the headlines in the UK. In the 1990s it was revealed that she gave birth to an out-of-wedlock child in the 1960s, eventually named Chris Linde, whom she was forced to give up for adoption, and who later sought her out when he sold his story to the newspapers.

The British press has also had a field day with the fact that she has usually been romantically involved with men much younger than her. Her third husband, actor Richard Willis, was 18 years her junior. A more recent partner, actor Mark Noble, was 20 years younger.

Her height is 5ft 4.

She has been married and divorced three times, her son Dickon (born 1963) came from her first marriage to an actor she has repeatedly refused to name. Dickon is a set designer for The British Actor's Theatre Company.