Fun Facts About Brenda

◆ She was a late bloomer. Brenda was working as a book-keeper at British Rail in London when the company’s am-dram group asked her to fill in and she got the bug. When her first marriage broke up, she quit her job and went to drama school at age 27.

◆ After splitting from husband Alan Blethyn in 1973 (she kept his surname), Brenda found love in 1975 with Michael Mayhew, when both worked at the National Theatre. They married in 2010 at Peckham Registry Office with actor Timothy Spall and his wife as the only guests.

◆ She’s an awardwinner. In 1997 Brenda won Best Actress at the Baftas and Golden Globes and an Oscar O nomination for her role in Secrets & Lies. In 1998 she nabbed another Oscar nomination for Little Voice.

◆ She ran the London Marathon three years in a row, starting at the age of 56! She was persuaded too do it by a charity, charity Children with Leukaemia. She jokes that she worried she might die on national television, but made it around the course all three times.