Honor Blackman’s death was announced today by her family.

It’s with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Honor Blackman aged 94. She died peacefully of natural causes at her home in Lewes, Sussex, surrounded by her family. She was much loved and will be greatly missed by her two children Barnaby and Lottie, and grandchildren Daisy, Oscar, Olive and Toby.

As well as being a much-adored mother and grandmother, Honor was an actor of hugely prolific creative talent; with an extraordinary combination of beauty, brains and physical prowess, along with her unique voice and a dedicated work ethic, she achieved an unparalleled iconic status in the world of film and entertainment and with absolute commitment to her craft and total professionalism in all her endeavours she contributed to some of the great films and theatre productions of our times

Blackman was born in Plaistow. Her father, Frederick Blackman, was a civil service statistician. She attended North Ealing Primary School and Ealing County Grammar School for Girls. For her 15th birthday, her parents gave her acting lessons and she started training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1940. While attending the Guildhall School, Blackman worked as a clerical assistant for the Home Office. Following graduation, she was an understudy in the West End play The Guinea Pig. In 1947 she appeared in the Patrick Hastings play The Blind Goddess at the Apollo Theatre.

Blackman started acting on television in the recurring role of “Nicole”, secretary/assistant to Dan Dailey’s character of Tim Collier on the 1959 television series The Four Just Men. In a 1962 episode of The Saint titled “The Arrow of God”, Blackman played an adulterous personal secretary named Pauline Stone, who became one of several suspects in the murder of a despised gossip columnist.

In an episode of The Avengers, “Too Many Christmas Trees” (1965), John Steed received a Christmas card from Cathy Gale. Reading the envelope, he says in a puzzled voice, “Whatever can she be doing at Fort Knox…?” It was an inside joke, as Blackman was filming Goldfinger at the time.

In December 1969 and in February 1993 Blackman was taken by surprise as the subject of This Is Your Life. In 1972, Blackman (as a “Special Guest Star”) and Richard Basehart played a married pair of Shakespearean actors who commit murder in the American crime mystery series Columbo (episode “Dagger of the Mind”). In 1983, she appeared in a film production of Agatha Christie‘s novel, The Secret Adversary, in the role of Rita Vandemeyer, and as Juno/Empress Eugenie in the BBC television production of Orpheus in the Underworld.

Doctor Who fans will remember Honor Blackman from her role in the 1986 story “Terror of the Vervoids“, a segment of the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord playing Professor Sarah Lasky.

From 1990 to 1996, she appeared as Laura West on The Upper Hand. In 2003, Blackman took a guest role on Midsomer Murders, as ex-racing driver Isobel Hewitt in the episode “A Talent for Life”. In September 2004, she briefly joined the Coronation Street cast in a storyline about wife swapping. In 2007, she participated in the BBC TV project, The Verdict. She was one of 12 well-known figures who made up a jury to hear a fictional rape case. The series was designed to explore the jury system. She was sworn in as a juror as “Honor Kaufmann”. In 2013, she guest-starred in the BBC medical drama Casualty and in By Any Means.

Blackman also appeared in a number of episodes of Never the Twain with Donald Sinden and Windsor Davies as vet Veronica Barton.