Connie Booth

Connie Booth

Born 1940-12-02 (age 85) Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
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Biography

Constance "Connie" Booth (born 2 December 1940) is an American writer and actress, known for appearances on British television and particularly for her portrayal of Polly Sherman in the popular 1970s television show Fawlty Towers, which she co-wrote with her then husband John Cleese.

In 1995, she quit acting and worked as a psychotherapist until her retirement.

Booth was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 2, 1940. Her father was a Wall Street stockbroker and her mother was an actress. The family later moved to New York State. Booth entered acting and worked as a Broadway understudy and waitress. She met John Cleese while he was working in New York City; they married on February 20, 1968.

Booth secured parts in episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74) and in the Python films And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, as a woman accused of being a witch). She also appeared in How to Irritate People (1968), a pre-Monty Python film starring Cleese and other future Monty Python members; a short film titled Romance with a Double Bass (1974) which Cleese adapted from a short story by Anton Chekhov; and The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977), Cleese's Sherlock Holmes spoof, as Mrs. Hudson

Booth and Cleese co-wrote and co-starred in Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), in which she played waitress and chambermaid Polly. For thirty years Booth declined to talk about the show until she agreed to participate in a documentary about the series for the digital channel Gold in 2009.

Booth played various roles on British television, including Sophie in Dickens of London (1976), Mrs. Errol in a BBC adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980) and Miss March in a dramatisation of Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers (1995). She also starred in the lead role of a drama called The Story of Ruth (1981), in which she played the role of the schizophrenic daughter of an abusive father. In 1994, she played a supporting role in "The Culex Experiment", an episode of the children's science fiction TV series The Tomorrow People.

Booth also had a stage career, primarily in the London theatre, appearing in 10 productions from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, notably starring with John Mills in the 1983–1984 West End production of Little Lies at Wyndham's Theatre

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Known For

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Little Lord Fauntleroy

1980

as Mrs. Errol

High Spirits
High Spirits

1988

as Marge

84 Charing Cross Road
84 Charing Cross Road

1987

as The Lady from Delaware

Nairobi Affair
Nairobi Affair

1984

as Mrs. Gardner

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The Funny Blokes of British Comedy

2005

as Polly Sherman (archive footage) (uncredited)

Hawks
Hawks

1988

as Nurse Javis

The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It
The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It

1977

as Mrs. Hudson / Francine Moriarty

🎦
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes

1987

as Violet Morstan

American Friends
American Friends

1991

as Caroline Hartley

The Hound of the Baskervilles
How to Irritate People
How to Irritate People

1969

as Various

Leon the Pig Farmer
Leon the Pig Farmer

1993

as Yvonne Chadwick

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

1980

as Sylva Bassington-ffrench

The Deadly Game
The Deadly Game

1982

as Helen Trapp

Romance with a Double Bass
Romance with a Double Bass

1974

as Princess Costanza

The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus Volume 3