Connie Booth
Known For
Acting
Born
1940-12-02 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Biography
Constance "Connie" Booth (born 2 December 1940) is an American writer and actress, known for appearances on British television and particularly for her portrayal of Polly Sherman in the popular 1970s television show Fawlty Towers, which she co-wrote with her then husband John Cleese. In 1995, she quit acting and worked as a psychotherapist until her retirement. Booth was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 2, 1940. Her father was a Wall Street stockbroker and her mother was an actress. The family later moved to New York State. Booth entered acting and worked as a Broadway understudy and waitress. She met John Cleese while he was working in New York City; they married on February 20, 1968. Booth secured parts in episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74) and in the Python films And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, as a woman accused of being a witch). She also appeared in How to Irritate People (1968), a pre-Monty Python film starring Cleese and other future Monty Python members; a short film titled Romance with a Double Bass (1974) which Cleese adapted from a short story by Anton Chekhov; and The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977), Cleese's Sherlock Holmes spoof, as Mrs. Hudson Booth and Cleese co-wrote and co-starred in Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), in which she played waitress and chambermaid Polly. For thirty years Booth declined to talk about the show until she agreed to participate in a documentary about the series for the digital channel Gold in 2009. Booth played various roles on British television, including Sophie in Dickens of London (1976), Mrs. Errol in a BBC adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980) and Miss March in a dramatisation of Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers (1995). She also starred in the lead role of a drama called The Story of Ruth (1981), in which she played the role of the schizophrenic daughter of an abusive father. In 1994, she played a supporting role in "The Culex Experiment", an episode of the children's science fiction TV series The Tomorrow People. Booth also had a stage career, primarily in the London theatre, appearing in 10 productions from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, notably starring with John Mills in the 1983–1984 West End production of Little Lies at Wyndham's Theatre
Most Known For
Play for Today
as Lee-Ann Good
Play for Today
as Ginny
Bergerac
as Monica McLeod
Fawlty Towers
as Polly Sherman
Monty Python's Flying Circus
as Various
Monty Python's Flying Circus
as Second Juror
American Playhouse
as Belle Stark
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
as The Witch
The Buccaneers
as Jackie March
Worzel Gummidge
as Aunt Sally II
The Secret Policeman's Ball
as Self
Dickens of London
as Sophie
Little Lord Fauntleroy
as Mrs. Errol
High Spirits
as Marge
The Hound of the Baskervilles
as Laura Lyons
And Now for Something Completely Different
as Best Girl
84 Charing Cross Road
as The Lady from Delaware
A Life on Screen
as Self
Worlds Beyond
as Betty Hewart
Faith
as Pat Harbinson