Jennifer Wilson, who has died aged 89, played a pivotal role in The Brothers, a hugely popular 1970s BBC television drama about conflicts in a Midlands family haulage business. Her character, Jennifer Kingsley, was the secretary revealed as the secret lover of her boss, the patriarch and owner of the firm, Robert Hammond – who died while making love to her.
The drama began with the reading of the will and the family’s shock at discovering that Hammond Transport Services had been left equally to the road haulage magnate’s three sons – and his secretary, with provision for her daughter with him.
This grenade sparked the boardroom-to-bedroom dramas that would follow. “Have you ever asked why he needed me?” Jennifer taunted Robert’s widow, Mary (played by Jean Anderson), setting the tone for their relationship. Jennifer later transferred her affections to the eldest son, Edward, whom she then married. Wilson appeared in all 92 episodes (1972-76) of the drama, which also starred Hilary Tindall, Gabrielle Drake and Kate O’Mara.
She had also portrayed the “other woman” in A Man of Our Times (1968), another series mixing business and domestic melodrama. Max Osborne (George Cole) was the furniture factory middle manager made redundant and offered a job in Australia, which his lover, Muriel (Wilson), encourages him to take, with the promise that she and her daughter will go with them – if he divorces his wife.
Photograph: ITV/Shutterstock
Wilson followed this with the role of Detective Sergeant Helen Webb in the first series of Special Branch (1969), which featured a fictional clandestine Scotland Yard department safeguarding national security and followed Z Cars in moving police dramas on from the homely Dixon of Dock Green.
Switching to another police series for a 1970 episode of Softly Softly: Task Force, Wilson played a sex worker in a three-dimensional portrayal that stood out from the many stereotypes of the time. As her character realises she is trapped in a room with a knife-wielding client, Wilson’s face positively exudes fear. After The Brothers, she spent most of her career on the stage.
Jennifer was born in London, to Frederick Lohr, a writer, and Irene (nee Morgan). She grew up in Chigwell, Essex, and, aged 12, took her stepfather’s surname following her mother’s divorce and remarriage to Herbert Wilson. After attending Sibford school, Oxfordshire, she studied art at South East Technical College, in Dagenham with the intention of becoming a fashion designer.
She switched to acting and won a scholarship to Rada, where she was awarded the Forbes Robertson prize. While there, she made her screen debut with a small role in a BBC TV production of The Taming of the Shrew (1952). She also appeared in the film musical biopic The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan, released in 1953, a year after her graduation.
On joining Nottingham’s rep, Wilson’s first role was Rosalind in As You Like It (1952). The following year, she played Viola in Twelfth Night at the Regent’s Park open air theatre, with one critic describing her performance as “touching and true, and with a pleasant glint of humour”.
Her talent for the classics led to a stint with the Old Vic theatre company (1955-56) that included playing Lady Macduff in Macbeth and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. Then, she took part in its American tour of four Shakespeare plays (1956-57) and joined a company led by Marius Goring to take Scenes from Shakespeare to Finland (1957), and India and Sri Lanka (1958).
In the West End, Wilson had a long run as Florence Crompton in Spring and Port Wine (Mermaid and Apollo theatres, 1965-67) but a much shorter one as Mrs Captain Phobbs in the flop farce Lend Me Five Shillings (Vaudeville theatre, 1968). She also played Mrs Darling in Peter Pan at the Coliseum theatre (1973-74), alongside Maggie Smith as Peter Pan and Dave Allen as Captain Hook/Mr Darling, and Mrs Boyle in The Mousetrap (St Martin’s theatre, 1999-2000, 2004 and 2008-09).
Wilson’s early TV roles included Kate Nickleby in a 1957 BBC serialisation of Nicholas Nickleby, during which she met her second husband, the actor-director Brian Peck, who was playing Smike. They married two years later. She also starred as Lizzie Holroyd in The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd (1961) and played Anne Appleby in the BBC glossy magazine soap Compact during 1965.
Wilson’s first marriage, to the artist Stanley Swain, in 1954, ended in divorce. She and her second husband appeared on stage together many times and divided their time between homes in Britain and the south of France.
In 2014, they appeared on TV in Coronation Street as Mr and Mrs Bradbury, a bickering elderly couple. Peck died in 2021. Wilson is survived by Melanie, the daughter of her first marriage.
• Jennifer Wenda Wilson, actor, born 25 April 1932; died 29 March 2022
