The stage and screen actor Charlotte Cornwell, who has died aged 71 of cancer, stormed to stardom on television as one of the fictional Little Ladies pop group in Rock Follies, a groundbreaking drama about an all-female trio’s attempts to find fame and fortune.
The 1976 series – a TV rock musical featuring Cornwell as Anna, Julie Covington as Dee and Rula Lenska as Q, performers from a flop West End show teamed up by the musical director to have a go at cracking the pop industry – followed the trio’s gigging on the pub and club circuit while experiencing rip-off managers and music publishers. It won a 1977 Bafta award for best drama series.
Howard Schuman’s story also boasted original songs, with his lyrics, and music by the Roxy Music saxophonist Andy Mackay, who played alongside top session musicians such as Ray Russell on guitar and Peter Van Hooke on drums.
This led to chart success for the three real-life actors, whose soundtrack album, Rock Follies, produced by Mackay, went straight to No 1 in Britain, dislodging Status Quo from the top spot.
When Rock Follies of ’77 followed on screen a year later, the accompanying album was another Top 20 hit and OK became a No 10 single. In the series itself Cornwell’s character was consumed by drugs and was eventually replaced in the group by Rox, played by Sue Jones-Davies.
While a real-life court case raged that ended with an all-female band, Rock Bottom, successfully suing Thames Television for taking up their idea for the series but ditching them as the trio, Cornwell was convincing enough in her role to be cast as a fading rock star in another ITV drama.
She first played Shelley Maze, coming to terms with leaving behind her 1960s heyday as lead singer of the Angels, in Barrie Keeffe’s 1980 stage musical Bastard Angel, a Royal Shakespeare Company production at its Warehouse venue in London (now the Donmar Warehouse). The Stage applauded her “performance of enormous power and persuasion”.
When Keeffe adapted the play for the 1983 television series No Excuses, Cornwell enthused: “It’s a massive part about a woman who’s 39, about to be 40, and is reaching a midlife crisis in her work when all the skeletons come out of her cupboards and all the chickens come home to roost at the same time.”
But the role had an effect far beyond that generated by Cornwell portraying the highs and lows of rock stardom. She sued the Sunday People newspaper and Nina Myskow after the TV critic named her Wally of the Week, writing that she was ugly and middle-aged, and adding: “She can’t sing, her bum is too big and she has the sort of stage presence that jams lavatories.”
Cornwell claimed the review was a personal attack, but Myskow denied malice, saying it was fair comment. The actor was initially awarded £10,000 in libel damages by a high court jury in 1985, but this was set aside after the journalist appealed and, although a retrial two years later upheld the ruling and awarded Cornwell £11,500, the judge ordered her to pay costs for both the appeal hearing and the original trial, which ran into tens of thousands.
Born in London, Charlotte was the daughter of Ronnie Cornwell, a con artist who had already served terms in jail for fraud and obtaining money by false pretences, and Jean (nee Neal, formerly Gronow).
Her brother Rupert became an award-winning foreign correspondent on the Financial Times and the Independent, while her half-brother David, one of two sons from her father’s first marriage, was the best-selling novelist John le Carré. The character of Charlie, a British actor and double agent working for the Israelis in his 1983 thriller The Little Drummer Girl, was based on Charlotte.
When she left school and was unsure about her career, David asked her: “Have you ever thought of doing something creative?” He suggested acting and she landed a place at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
Then came a stint with the Bristol Old Vic company (1971-75) and an appearance as Sally Potter in the David Essex film musical Stardust (1974) before Rock Follies came along.
During three years (1977-80) with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, at the Aldwych theatre, London, and on tour, her roles included Rosalind in As You Like It and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing.
Cornwell was Anna Petrovna alongside Ian McKellen in a 1984 National Theatre production of Wild Honey, and in the West End she played Miss Cooper, the hotel manager, in Separate Tables (Albery theatre, 1992-93).
In 1990, she was seen as Charlotte in a Hollywood film adaptation of the Le Carré novel The Russia House.
Later, during 12 years in the US, Cornwell worked as an acting coach much revered by her students at the University of Southern California school of theatre (2003-12), made guest appearances in TV series such as The West Wing (2000) and The Mentalist (2009), and had stage roles in Los Angeles that included Mrs Lintott in The History Boys (2007).
After returning to Britain, she rejoined the RSC after 33 years to play Gertrude in Hamlet and the Countess in All’s Well That Ends Well in Stratford in 2013 before retiring to Exmoor.
Cornwell said that having her daughter, Nancy, in 1981, from a relationship with the actor Kenneth Cranham, made her more politically aware.
With the same passion that she devoted to acting and teaching, she was an active campaigner for CND, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, Artists Against Apartheid and the actors’ union Equity, for which she served as vice-president (1994-98 and 2014-16).
She is survived by Nancy and Martin Baylis, a son she gave up for adoption in her teens. Rupert and David predeceased her.
• Charlotte Elizabeth Cornwell, actor, born 26 April 1949; died 16 January 2021
