SCREEN QUEEN: Cherie Lunghi

Cherie Lunghi, who appears in tonight’s episode of Death In Paradise (9pm, BBC1), has been a familiar face on our screens for more than 30 years. Here, we take a look at her sparkling career…

Educating Cherie Born in Nottingham in 1952, Cherie was raised in London, where she attended the same performing arts school as Jane Seymour, Jenny Agutter and Nigel Havers. Later, she went to Central School of Speech and Drama, and was soon treading the boards with the Royal Shakespeare Company; her ambition, however, was to work in films.

Shooting star Cherie’s first big film role was in John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981), playing Guinevere to Nigel Terry’s Arthur. The following year, she starred in TV drama

Praying Mantis, which was shown during Ch4’s first month on air; Cherie plays a wronged woman (left) who unleashes a fiendish revenge plot. You may also have spotted her in Level 42’s video for Something About You in 1985.

Top of her game In 1989, Cherie landed the starring role in The Manageress (below with Gary Lineker), in which she played the manager of a Second Division football team. The show ran for two series and led to a series of high-profile TV advertisements in which she played the boss of a coffee company. She was soon synonymous with the part.

Ever young More recently, Cherie’s rumba and foxtrot drew high scores on 2008’s Strictly Come Dancing, and she memorably played the imposing madam in Secret Diary Of A Call

Girl (with Billie Piper, below). Unfazed by turning 60 last year, she said, ‘Nowadays, 60 is the new 40.’