79
Age
20
Movies
22
TV Shows
5.8
Rating
Cleopatra Mary Palmer (née Sylvestre; 19 April 1945 – 20 September 2024), known professionally as Cleo Sylvestre, was a British actress. She was the first black woman ever to play a leading role at the National Theatre in London, and the first woman to record with The Rolling Stones.
79
Died at
20
Movies
22
TV Shows
5.8
Avg Rating
Cleopatra Mary Palmer (née Sylvestre; 19 April 1945 – 20 September 2024), known professionally as Cleo Sylvestre, was a British actress. She was the first black woman ever to play a leading role at the National Theatre in London, and the first woman to record with The Rolling Stones.
1960
Cleopatra Mary Palmer (née Sylvestre; 19 April 1945 – 20 September 2024), known professionally as Cleo Sylvestre, was a British actress. She was the first black woman ever to play a leading role at the National Theatre in London, and the first woman to record with The Rolling Stones.
Sylvestre was brought up in Euston, north London, by her mother, Laureen Sylvestre (née Goodare), a cabaret artist at the Shim Sham Club in Wardour Street, who was born in Yorkshire in 1911. Laureen was of mixed English and African' heritage, and married Owen Oscar Sylvestre, from Trinidad, in 1944. Owen was a Flight Sergeant in the Air Force and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal; he and Laureen divorced in 1955. Sylvestre always understood Owen to be her father; her daughter Zoë discovered many years later - whilst working in Sierra Leone - that her biological father was Ben Lewis, a lawyer from Sierra Leone whom the family called Uncle Ben, and that she had 15 half-siblings. Aged eight, she made her film debut in Johnny on the Run.
Sylvestre was educated at Camden School for Girls and also attended the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. In 1964 she released a single, "To Know Him Is to Love Him", under the name "Cleo", produced by Andrew Loog Oldham and backed by The Rolling Stones. After Brian Jones left the Rolling Stones in 1969, she agreed to rehearse with his new band but abandoned music to concentrate on her theatre and television work.
Her West End debut was at Wyndham's Theatre in Wise Child (1967) by Simon Gray, in which she starred alongside Sir Alec Guinness and was nominated most promising new actress. She was the first black actress in a leading role at the National Theatre in The National Health (1969) by Peter Nichols. She did several seasons with the Young Vic Company, including Molière's Les Fourberies de Scapin on Broadway and a tour of Mexico. She subsequently worked in many regional theatres, including the Theatre Royal, Lincoln, the Theatre Royal, Brighton, the Theatre Royal, York, the Derby Playhouse and the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. She played Phaedre at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2007 and Rosa Parks, Josephine Baker and Wangari Maathai in Alison Mead's A Century of Women at Leicester Square Theatre (2011). She appeared with Antony Sher in his play ID (2003) at the Almeida Theatre, toured with English Touring Theatre in Far from the Madding Crowd (2008) and with Northern Broadsides in its 2010 production of Medea. She also appeared with Michael Sheen in Under Milk Wood (2021) at the Royal National Theatre. Children's theatre work includes seasons at the Unicorn Theatre and the London Bubble Theatre Company.
Her television appearances include: Ken Loach's Up the Junction (1965), Doctor Who (1965), Cathy Come Home (1966) and Poor Cow (1967), as well as appearances in the original Till Death Us Do Part, Z-Cars, Callan, Doctors, New Tricks, The Armando Iannucci Shows, Chambers, The Bill, Who Do You Do and A Bird in the Hand, a Tube Tales episode directed by Jude Law. After a brief appearance as a factory worker in soap opera Coronation Street in 1966, she became the first ever regular black British female character on British TV, in the original series of Crossroads, playing Meg Richardson's adopted daughter Melanie from 1970 to 1972.
Gender
Female
Birthday
April 19, 1945
Died
September 20, 2024
Birthplace
Hitchin, Herts, England, UK
Johnny on the Run
1953
Paddington
2014
Sweetness in the Belly
2019
National Theatre Live: Allelujah!
2018
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
1987
Beyond the Lake
2022
National Theatre Live: Under Milk Wood
2021
The Love Child
1988
Up the Junction
1965
The Attendant
1993
My Lover, My Son
1970
Tube Tales
1999
Some Women
1969
The Alf Garnett Saga
1972
The Smashing Bird I Used to Know
1969
Far from the Madding Crowd
2010
Mrs. Lawrence Will Look After It
1968
Catherine
1988
Black and White in Colour
1992
Beautiful Things
2024
Doctor Who
1963
All Creatures Great & Small
2020
Coronation Street
1960
Silent Witness
1996
Minder
1979
Grange Hill
1978
New Tricks
2004
The Wednesday Play
1964
The Wednesday Play
1964
The Wednesday Play
1964
The Wednesday Play
1964
Platform 7
2023
Public Eye
1965
The Expert
1968
The Troubleshooters
1965
The Troubleshooters
1965
Till Death Us Do Part
1966
Strange Report
1969
Rockliffe's Babies
1987
The Guilty
2013
+ 2 more TV shows