Louie Ramsay (25 November 1929 – 6 March 2011) was a British actress perhaps best known to television audiences for her portrayal of the wife of Chief Inspector Reg Wexford on the ITV television series Ruth Rendell Mysteries. In real life, Ramsay married the man who played Reg Wexford in the series, actor George Baker.Ramsay was born to Scottish parents in South Africa in 1929, but was raised in London. She was educated at the North London Collegiate School. She became friends with Patricia Hitchcock, daughter of film director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast her in a small role in his 1950 film Stage Fright. Ramsay made her West End debut in 1951 as a member of the chorus line in the musical South Pacific.She was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1958 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh.In the 1970s, Ramsay acted at Laurence Olivier's National Theatre, in Peter Shaffer's Equus, The Misanthrope, with Alec McCowen and Diana Rigg, and as Joan Plowright's sister in Olivier's acclaimed production of JB Priestley's Eden End. On the first night of Eden End, taking a curtain call with Olivier and Priestley himself, she said to herself quietly: "Lou, I think you've just peaked." Ramsay died on 6 March 2011, at the age of 81. She was survived by her husband, actor George Baker, as well as her son from her previous marriage to Irish actor Ronan O'Casey. Baker himself died just seven months later.
Born of Scottish parents, she was originally a very successful dancer, until an illness halted that part of her career.
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Met husband George Baker when they played on-screen husband and wife, "Inspector Reg Wexford" and "Dora Wexford", in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987) TV series.
Actress
Title
Year
Status
Character
Doctors
2001
TV Series
Gaynor Jamieson
Holby City
2000
TV Series
Emma Richards
Ruth Rendell Mysteries
1987-2000
TV Series
Dora Wexford
The Grand
1997
TV Series
Mary Bannerman
The Prince and the Pauper
1996
TV Mini-Series
Merchant's Wife
Emmerdale
1987
TV Series
Louise Pennington
Strike It Rich!
1986-1987
TV Series
Lady Bentley
King's Royal
1982-1983
TV Series
Rita King
When the Boat Comes In
1981
TV Series
Violet Lawrence
Juggernaut
1974
Character (voice, uncredited)
Comedy Playhouse
1971
TV Series
Jill Hastings
The Avengers
1967
TV Series
Nanny Smith
Softly Softly
1967
TV Series
Faye
Five O'Clock Club
1964
TV Series
The Strange World of Gurney Slade
1960
TV Mini-Series
Twenty Minutes South
1955
TV Movie
Susan Banister
Stage Fright
1950
Young Woman (uncredited)
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Profiling
2008
TV Series documentary
Herself
Super Sleuths
2006
TV Series documentary
Herself / Dora Wexford
This Is Your Life
1995
TV Series documentary
Herself
The Celebrity Game
1964
TV Series
Herself
Don't Say a Word
1964
TV Series
Herself - Guest
Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium