Acting
Born September 23, 1942 · Malta Street, Freetown, Sierra Leone
Jeillo Angela Doris Edwards was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, one of six children, and she attended the Annie Walsh Memorial School. Edwards moved to England in the late 1950s and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She began performing at the age of four, reading from the Bible at her church. She was well known for her distinctive voice and imperious enunciation. She featured on the BBC World Service for Africa, which was broadcast in the UK. She became popular in the United Kingdom, appearing on television, where she was the first black woman to appear on British television as well as being the first African to appear on Dixon of Dock Green in 1972. She also appeared on television dramas such as The Professionals, The Bill and Casualty. She performed on British television, radio, stage and films for more than four decades. Edwards appeared in cameo roles in many British television comedy programmes, including The League of Gentlemen, Absolutely Fabulous, Red Dwarf, Black Books, Spaced and Little Britain, in which she had been planned to appear in the second series before her death. As well as acting she was a school governor and owned a restaurant called Auntie J's in Brixton. In the early 1970s, she married a Ghanaian, Edmund Clottey, and they had a daughter and two sons. Jeillo Edwards died in London on 2 July 2004, at the age of 61. She had suffered chronic kidney problems.

Anansi
2003

Dirty Pretty Things
2002
Tough Love
2000

Tube Tales
1999
Paris, Brixton
1997

Beautiful Thing
1996

Pat and Margaret
1994
Black and Blue
1992
Elphida
1987

Paint Me a Murder
1984

Memoirs of a Survivor
1981

Name for the Day
1980
Betzi
1978

Black Joy
1977

The Sniffler and the Pug
1977

A Kind of Marriage
1976

Through the Night
1975