Actress Sheila Mercier, who was best known as Emmerdale's Annie Sugden, has died at the age of 100. Sheila Mercier last appeared in Emmerdale in 2009 when Annie attended her on screen Son Jack's Funeral. He tweeted: “Sad to tell all you Emmerdale fans that Sheila Mercier, Annie Sugden, died peacefully in her sleep…Hornby had been in Emmerdale for 28 years before losing his battle with cancer.It was after returning to theatre at the end of the war that she was cast as Annie Sugden, and became known by millions for her portrayal of the soap matriarch.News of Sheila Mercier’s death broke on Friday afternoon, after her former co-star Frederick Pyne announced she had died peacefully in her sleep.It was a particularly poignant occasion for Mercier and the rest of the cast as the onscreen memorial came a year after the death of Clive Hornby, the actor who played Jack, at the age of 63.The actress stayed with the show from 1972 until 1994, but continued to make guest appearances.Sign up to the Hull Live newsletter for daily updates and breaking newsThe couple were parents to a son, Nigel, who died in 2017."She would have been 101 years old on New Years Day.
The … Mrs Mercier, who … His death freed Annie to seek a new life in her fifties, and before the year was out she had spurned a proposal of marriage from Amos Brearly, licensee of the Woolpack pub. Sheila had many of those qualities too, putting the needs of the programme above her own and always delivering a great performance come rain or shine. I watch TV, read and live like an ordinary person,” she said.Eat Out to Help Out: government’s new 50% off scheme for restaurants explained - and how to use the postcode checker to find local dealsBorn Sheila Betty Rix in Hull on New Year’s Day 1919, the daughter of a wealthy ship owner, she was elder sister to the late Whitehall farceur Brian (later Lord) Rix.It was a brief hiatus and she was called upon to make her television debut as early as 1946, shortly after the service had resumed.It was Annie Sugden’s lot in life to keep the peace between her bickering sons, Joe, played by Frazer Hines, and Jack, portrayed first by Andrew Burt and later by Clive Hornby.Ms Mercier, who has died at 100, was the show’s central figure, at least in spirit, for more than 20 years.
After education at the French Convent, Hull and Hunmanby Hall, Yorkshire, she trained for the stage at the Stratford-upon-Avon College of Drama.Mercier had a long career on stage prior to her television career. By the time she left, it was on twice a week in prime time.She went to St Ethelburga’s at Hornsea and Hunmanby Hall School for Girls, on the outskirts of Filey. Sheila Mercier at the 2008 funeral of Emmerdale actor Clive Hornby, who died at the age of 63. She reconsidered and finally walked up the aisle with him 23 years later – by which time she had been widowed a second time in the show’s controversial aeroplane crash storyline.