Actress who played Nurse Gladys in TV’S Open All Hours

LYNDA BARON, who has died at the age of 82, made her name as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, the district nurse who deftly fielded the amorous intentions of Ronnie Barker’s Arkwright in Roy Clarke’s highly popular sitcom, Open All Hours.

Over the course of a long and splendid career Baron appeared in numerous TV and stage projects.

Her small-screen CV ranged from Eastenders, Grundy, Crossroads, Doctor Who, the slimming-club drama, Fat Friends, and the children’s series, Come Outside, to The Road To Coronation Street, a drama in 2010 about the famous TV soap, for which she was deservedly Bafta-nominated for her portrayal of Violet (Ena Sharples) Carson.

Her many stage roles – she had debuted on the London stage in 1958 – took in Tom Stoppard’s After Magritte and The Real Inspector Hound and Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, as well as The Full Monty.

She toured in such plays as Steel Magnolias (appearing as the eccentric Ouiser, “a cynic with a wicked tongue”) and the musical, Maddie, in which she played a wealthy art patron.

The Glasgow Herald noted of the latter, in 1997: “An eye-popping mixture of Mae West and Bette Midler, Miss Baron commands the stage in her many songs of sexual innuendo. At one point she even becomes Maddie, with highly entertaining results.”

Baron also had a role in Barbra Streisand’s film, 1983 Yentl, reportedly later observing of it: “She rewrote and cut my scenes ’til I became the highest-paid extra in film history”.

She was born Lilian Ridgeway in Urmston, Manchester, and from the age of four or five she was taking ballet lessons. When older, she enrolled at a dance school. She took part in various end-of-the-pier shows before making her way to London while still in her teens.

She quickly landed work in the capital, including singing roles in cabaret, which led to higher-profile appearances on the late-night

BBC satirical show, BBC3, and at London’s Talk Of The Town nightclub.

A highly talented all-rounder, it was Baron’s comedic skills that in time made her a first-class choice for sitcoms.

Lynda Baron, who was twice married, is survived by a daughter and a son.