Overview
Phyllis Logan (born 11 January 1956) is a Scottish actress, known for playing Lady Jane Felsham in Lovejoy (1986–1993) and Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey (2010–2015). She won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for the 1983 film Another Time, Another Place. Her other film appearances include Secrets & Lies (1996), Shooting Fish (1997), Downton Abbey (2019) and Misbehaviour (2020).
Early life
Logan's father, David, was a Rolls-Royce engineer and a trade-union leader and became the secretary of his local branch of the AUEW (Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers). Phyllis is the youngest in her family and has a brother and a sister. Her father died at the age of 59 while she was at drama school.
Education
Logan was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, and grew up in nearby Johnstone, where she was educated at Johnstone High School. She studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and graduated with the James Bridie gold medal in 1977.
Career
After graduation Logan joined the Dundee Repertory Theatre. She left in 1979 to work on stage in Edinburgh. She also worked regularly on Scottish television. On the BBC Scotland production, The White Bird Passes, she first met writer-director Michael Radford. For his first feature film, Another Time, Another Place (1983), he cast Logan in the leading role of Janie, for which she won a Gold Award for Best Actress at the Taormina Film Festival and the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress in 1983 and the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles in 1984. She was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
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