Husky-voiced actor lit up the Citizens Theatre before joining The Bill and EastEnders

Roberta Taylor, who has died aged 76, was an actress of huge presence and authority who appeared numerous times at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. She later became a familiar face on television, with regular roles in BBC soap EastEnders (1997-2000) and ITV police drama, The Bill (1984-2010). Latterly she had a regular role in comedy drama, Shakespeare amd Hathaway: Private Investigators (2018-2022). Taylor brought a husky-voiced grandeur to her inherent common touch in all three of her major small screen roles. In EastEnders she was Irene Raymond, the mercurial matriarch romantically entangled with Gavin Richards’s Terry Raymond. Irene and Terry’s marriage ended in the Christmas Day 1999 episode, when Irene’s extra marital affair with a toy boy was discovered. In The Bill, she was Inspector Gina Gold, an iron lady who made Sun Hill police station her fiefdom. In Shakespeare and Hathaway, Taylor was flamboyantly clad theatrical costume shop owner Gloria Fonteyn.

Roberta Taylor Born: February 26, 1948 Died: July 6, 2024 Roberta Taylor, who has died aged 76, was an actress of huge presence and authority who appeared numerous times at the Citizens Theatre , Glasgow from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. She later became a familiar face on television, with regular roles in BBC soap EastEnders (1997-2000) and ITV police drama, The Bill (1984-2010). Latterly she had a regular role in comedy drama, Shakespeare amd Hathaway: Private Investigators (2018-2022).

Taylor brought a husky-voiced grandeur to her inherent common touch in all three of her major small screen roles. In EastEnders she was Irene Raymond, the mercurial matriarch romantically entangled with Gavin Richards’s Terry Raymond. Irene and Terry’s marriage ended in the Christmas Day 1999 episode, when Irene’s extra marital affair with a toy boy was discovered.

In The Bill, she was Inspector Gina Gold, an iron lady who made Sun Hill police station her fiefdom. In Shakespeare and Hathaway, Taylor was flamboyantly clad theatrical costume shop owner Gloria Fonteyn. Taylor’s playing of all three roles might arguably be said to have been a product both of her background growing up surrounded by powerful women, and of her time at the Citz.

Arriving in Glasgow in 1976 when the Gorbals-based emporium was at its most provocative peak, Taylor made her professional stage debut in a production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “sung ballet”, The Seven Deadly Sins. In keeping with t.