Maggie Steed (born Margaret Baker; 1 December 1946) is an English actress and comedian.
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Career
After studying drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol in the late 1960s, Steed left the theatre for several years, until she was about 30 years old, 1976 or 1977. She stated: "Actresses in those days had to be 'dolly birds' and I was just Margaret Baker from Plymouth, tall with very gappy teeth, so I became a secretary instead. It was only years later, when I'd grown up politically and become interested in theatre, that I started again and ended up at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre with Clive Russell and Sue Johnston."
Steed has performed with the Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and with Belt and Braces, the political theatre troupe run by Gavin Richards as well as working as a comedian in alternative cabaret.
She was one of the first women to become involved in the alternative comedy scene when it sprang into existence in 1979, and performing at the Comedy Store, with the group Alternative Cabaret and elsewhere. Her material was personal and confessional.
Her first major television role was playing Rita Moon in the series Shine on Harvey Moon. She played Margaret Crabbe in Pie in the Sky in the mid 1990s and Phyllis Woolf in Born and Bred. Her television credits include appearances on Fox, Minder, Sensitive Skin and Jam & Jerusalem.
