Life and Work
Judy Parfitt was born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of Catherine Josephine (née Caulton) and Lawrence Hamilton Parfitt. As a teenager, she attended Notre Dame High School for Girls in Sheffield, and later trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
In 1981 she created the role of Eleanor in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Peter Nichols' Passion Play. In 1984 she played Deidre in Jack Rosenthal's The Chain. In 1987, she played the mother of Clive Durham for Merchant Ivory's Maurice. In 1995, she portrayed Kathy Bates' former, domineering employer in Dolores Claiborne, who is dying in present-time, but is seen as a vibrant, glowing woman in flashback sequences. Two of her most notable past roles are Mildred Layton in The Jewel in the Crown (1984) (for which she received her first BAFTA nomination), and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in 1980's TV serial version of Pride and Prejudice.
Parfitt appeared opposite Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright and Frank Finlay in the episode Saturday, Sunday, Monday of the TV Series Laurence Olivier Presents (1978).
She has appeared in some American television shows, beginning with her regular role as Snow White's Stepmother, Evil Queen Lillian "Lily" White in the series The Charmings. Parfitt's real-life husband Tony Steedman guest-starred as Santa Claus in The Charmings' second season Christmas special. She appeared on an episode of Murder, She Wrote in 1989, and as the mother of Dr Elizabeth Corday (played by Alex Kingston) on several episodes of ER in 2002.
Parfitt played Lady Mount-Temple in the biopic film Wilde, alongside Stephen Fry, Vanessa Redgrave and Gemma Jones in 1997. In 2003, she played the scheming mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer alongside Colin Firth in Girl with a Pearl Earring. The role earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, though she lost out to Renée Zellweger for her role in Cold Mountain.
She played the domineering American dowager, Mrs. van Schuyler, opposite David Suchet, James Fox, Frances de la Tour and David Soul in a feature-length episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot in the 2004 edition of Death on the Nile.
In 2008, she appeared as the primary villainess in Little Dorrit, as the cruel Mrs. Clennam, alongside Alun Armstrong, Sue Johnston and Matthew Macfadyen.
At Christmas 2011, she appeared in a small role similar to that which she portrayed in Little Dorrit as Aunt Chastity alongside Una Stubbs and Phyllida Law in The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff.
In 2012, she began appearing in the BBC TV series Call the Midwife as Sister Monica Joan.
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