Roberta Taylor

Husky-voiced East London-born actress Roberta Taylor came to fame on television as Hills family matriarch Irene Raymond on the popular soap EastEnders (1985) and as the indomitable, hard-drinking, yet very human Inspector Gina Gold, presiding over Sun Hill's uniformed police in The Bill (1984) from 2002 to 2008.The actress was born out of wedlock to bus conductors Robert Alexander Archer and Winifred Roberts. Her father had a wife elsewhere and soon skedaddled. Roberta (nicknamed 'Robbie') was brought up by her mother, a formidable grandmother and several aunts (in 2005, she detailed her childhood in a memoir entitled 'Too Many Mothers'). Roberta initially trained as a dental nurse while studying drama at Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel. In 1966, she married Victor Taylor, a rope maker. The union ended in divorce nine years later.On the advice of a friend, Roberta enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama on the same day her future second husband, the actor Peter Guin... [Details Intro]