Sue Holderness

Sue Holderness
Born	Susan Joan Pringle Holderness (1949-05-28) 28 May 1949 Hampstead, London, England
Nationality	English
Other names	Susan Holderness
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1967–present
Spouse	Mark Piper ​ ​ (m. 1989)​
Children	2

Susan Joan Pringle Holderness (born 28 May 1949) is an English actress. She best known for having played the role of Marlene Boyce in the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses (from 1985 to 2003) and its spin-off The Green Green Grass (from 2005 to 2009).

Career

Holderness was born in Hampstead, London. After taking her A-levels, she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

She began her acting career with Manchester’s 69 Theatre Company in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peer Gynt and as Desdemona in Catch My Soul (Jack Good’s rock-musical version of Othello). She has worked consistently in theatre, radio, film and television. West End plays include The Female Odd Couple, Why Not Stay for Breakfast, The Male of the Species and the highly acclaimed one-woman play Our Kid (based on Myra Hindley).

Sue Holderness at the Stevenage Christmas Lights Switch-on, 18 November 2010

Sue regularly appears in The Vagina Monologues and she is part of the cast of the touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners. She has toured the country in numerous plays and worked in several repertory companies. Much of Sue’s career has been spent doing Alan Ayckbourn plays, three of which (Relatively Speaking, Time and Time Again, and How the Other Half Loves) she toured with John Challis, who plays Boycie to Sue’s long-suffering Marlene in Only Fools And Horses. The Green, Green Grass ran from 2005 - 2009. A total of four series and three Christmas Specials were created.

Sue played the role of Annie in the 2010 UK Tour of Calendar Girls (April–August). She played Annie again in 2011(April–August.)She played Celia in the 2012 tour(Jan - May) and went back to playing Annie in the Autumn 2012 tour (Sep - December).

Television roles include Marianne in The Sandbaggers (two series), Bless This House, as Pamela Huntley-Johnson in the episode The Bells Are Ringing (1974) in which she was credited as Susan Holderness, as Liz in It Takes a Worried Man (two series), Jo in The Brief, Cleopatra IV in The Cleopatras; as Laura Doolan, a wife of serial bigamist "Confident" Clive Cosgrove in the Minder episode A Number of Old Wives Tales (1984); episodes of The New Avengers, Thriller, Sob Sisters, Growing Pains, Doctors, Lime Street with Robert Wagner, and Murder in Suburbia. She played Rowan Atkinson's love interest, Lorraine, in Canned Laughter, and did numerous impersonations in two series of End of Part One. She played Maggie in Dear John, by John Sullivan, Joan Forrester (Oscar Blaketon's former wife) in Heartbeat for YTV, Joan Travis in Revelations, and Rachel’s mum in Cold Feet, also for Granada.

Films include That'll Be the Day (1973) and It Could Happen to You (aka Intimate Teenage Secrets) (1976). Sue also appeared in the low budget feature Meat Draw and Out of Sight for Granada.

Sue regularly appears in pantomime. and has appeared in productions across the UK. In 2014, Holderness appeared in the BBC One medical drama Casualty as Alice Sweeney.

In 2018 onwards, Holderness has appeared as Mrs Rossi in the sitcom Still Open All Hours.

Selected filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1973	That'll Be The Day	Shirley
1976	It Could Happen to You	Christine

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	Lollipop	Receptionist	Episode: "Doctor Fruit Cake"
1974	Bless This House	Pamela Huntley-Johnson
1978	The One and Only Phyllis Dixey	Mildred Challenger	TV film
1978-1980	The Sandbaggers	Marianne
1985-2003	Only Fools and Horses	Marlene Boyce
1989	Sob Sisters	Marion	1 episode
2005-2009	The Green Green Grass	Marlene Boyce
2018-2019	Still Open All Hours	Mrs Rossi
2020	Holby City	Gloria Davidson

External links

• Sue Holderness at IMDb