Joanna Lumley: A life in pictures
Absolutely Fabulous: Joanna Lumley
From Swinging Sixties model to cult TV star and campaigner for Gurkhas' rights, the actress has had an Absolutely Fabulous life.
1948: I was born in northern India on 1 May 1946, the second child of James, a major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, and Thya Rose.
My sister, Aelene, had been born two years earlier. We left India a year later, spent two years in Hong Kong, nipped back to England, then moved to Malaya when I was five and lived there until I was eight.
I had a terribly happy childhood.
Once you've lived in the Far East, you always yearn for the sounds, monsoons and flowers of the tropics.
1958: My father was posted back to England in 1954 and we eventually moved to Rolvenden in Kent. At 11, I joined my sister as a boarder at an Anglican convent school in Hastings.
I was in school plays and loved dancing - I was even offered a place at Sadler's Wells ballet school, but as I had to choose between ballet and my passion, riding, I turned it down.
I behaved very badly at school and left with only one A-level.
1966: Having failed the RADA exam, I took a modelling course in London and became house model for Jean Muir - a brilliant grounding in the business.
Happy Childhood: Joanna was born in India and didn't move to England until she was ten
Swinging Sixties: The blonde modeled for Jean Muir
It was the height of Swinging London and we girls all had chalk-white faces and three or four layers of eyelashes.
1970: My first marriage, to comedy writer Jeremy Lloyd, lasted less than a year. He was witty, tall and charming - we should have just had a raging affair.
1976: I got into films by chance at 22 - a small role in Some Girls Do.
I was 30 when I got the role of Purdey in The New Avengers.
It launched my career and taught me to punch hard enough to knock a man to the ground.
1979: I spent three years working on Sapphire & Steel, a TV sci-fi thriller in which David McCallum and I battled to stop evil forces destroying the universe.
It was great fun working with David, and the wonderfully spooky show ran for six series and became a well-deserved cult hit.
1981: My son - who is 14 in this photo - is the light of my life. I've never had any regrets about becoming an unmarried mother.
I was 21 and had been going out with my boyfriend, photographer Michael Claydon, for two years when I found out I was pregnant - despite having been told by doctors that I was sterile.
Avaricious: The actress with Jennifer Saunders as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous
1993: Patsy, the character I played in Absolutely Fabulous, was a national treasure - people liked her because she was so revolting.
The two of them [Patsy and Jennifer Saunders' Edina] were ghastly about everything. They were avaricious but also very, very funny, and playing Patsy was the best fun in the world.
Jennifer and I have talked about doing it again, but the truth is that it's in her hands.
1997: When my son, Jamie, married his girlfriend, Louise, at St David's Roman Catholic Church on the Isle of Wight, his father, who had always been involved in his life, was there, and Stephen played the organ in church. It was terribly moving. I did get choked up, but I didn't blub.
Motherly love: Joanna with her son Jame's in 1981, and at his wedding, right, in 1997
Iconic: Joanna and Peter O'Toole in 'Coming Home'
1998: Coming Home, with Peter O'Toole, was a wonderful two-part series set during the war.
It was a new experience for me - the first time I'd played the mother of grown-up children in period costume.
2008: I have always supported the Gurkhas, not least because one of them - Tul Bahadur Pun - saved my father's life when they were fighting together in Burma in 1944.
My father showed me a photograph of Pun when I was seven.
He said, 'Here's one of the bravest men on Earth.'
So I was overjoyed last year when Gurkha veterans won the right to live in the UK.
2009: While lobbying Gordon Brown for the Gurkha campaign, I gained a new insight into the MPs' world.
Their life is much harder than mine - you have to work like a dog and you get more blame than credit.
There were some calls for me to enter politics, but I'd never run for office. I'm too old and don't have the stamina.
Passionate: Joanna has always supported the Gurkhas, after one of them saved her father's life when they was fighting together in Burma in 1944
Activist: The actress gained a new insight into political life when she met with Gordon Brown in 2009
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1254073/Joanna-Lumley-A-life-pictures.html#ixzz0gj5z52d9
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