The actress Mary Robinson (1758-1800) was born in Bristol and attended the school run by Hannah More's sisters in Park Street. She made her first stage appearance at Drury Lane, London as Shakespeare's Juliet. Mary Robinson (detail from Some Who Have Made Bristol Famous).

She appeared at Bristol's Theatre Royal and was nicknamed Perdita after playing that role to great acclaim in The Winter's Tale. She was known as a free-spirited woman, a single parent, separated from her husband, who became mistress of the Prince Regent, for whom she gave up her acting career. When the affair ended badly in 1780 – she attempted to blackmail the Crown by threatening to publish the Prince's private letters to her – she earned money as an author, writing poems, plays, journalism, pamphlets and novels, sometimes using the pen-name Tabitha Bramble.

Others associated with drama, and with Bristol include:

Jane Green (1720-91), comic actress.

Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821), writer and actress who became Britain's first female professional critic.

Sarah MacReady (c 1789-1853), actress-manager of the Theatre Royal.

Kate Terry (1844-1924), member of the Theatre Royal stock company.

Dame Ellen Terry (1848-1928), member of the Theatre Royal stock company.

Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976), member of Old Vic company evacuated to Bristol in World War Two.

Cary Grant (real name Archibald Leach) (1904-1986), Bristol-born Hollywood actor who first went to America as an acrobat in Bob Pender's Knockabout Comedians.



Cary Grant, photograph from The Ultimate Cary Grant Pages.

Sir Michael Redgrave (1908-1985), Bristol-born and educated actor.

Peggy Ann Wood (1912-98), actress and manager of Little Theatre in Colston Street.

Sir Robert Stephens (1931-95), Bristol-born actor, son of a shipyard labourer and chocolate factory worker.

Norman Beaton (1934-1994), actor from Guiana who spent time in Bristol during early years in Britain. Norman Beaton, photograph from the BBC website.

Alfred Fagon (1937-1986), actor and playwright.

Cathy Barry, British porn actress.

John Cleese, actor and comedian educated at Clifton College.

Lee Evans, actor and comedian born at Avonmouth.

David Prowse, bodybuilder and Darth Vader.

Tony Robinson, actor and television presenter.

Pete Postlethwaite, actor who started his career in rep at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Tim Pigott-Smith, graduate of University of Bristol who made his professional stage debut at Bristol Old Vic.

Peter Nichols, playwright, author of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

Sir Tom Stoppard, playwright who worked on Bristol local papers when he left school.