the sitcom The Bed-Sit Girl and appeared in the West End comedy Say Who You Are. In 1975, she co-starred with Reg Varney in a failed sitcom called Down the 'Gate and, in 1981, appeared in and co-wrote, the ITV comedy series Chintz. In 1986, she played the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet with the Royal Shakespeare Company and her other credits with the RSC in the mid to late-1980s included Maria in Twelfth Night, First Witch in Macbeth, Glinda/Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz and Parthy Ann in an Opera North version of Show Boat. In 2000 she returned to the RSC to play Mrs Medlock in its musical of The Secret Garden, directed by Adrian Noble. In the early 1990s, she toured the country in The Phantom of the Opera and 42nd Street, among others. Her later West End credits included the musicals Nine in 1997 and Into the Woods in 1998 at the Donmar Warehouse and Mrs Pearce in Trevor Nunn's revival of My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 2002. She also starred in a revival of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Playhouse Theatre in 2003. The production was not admired but Laye's performance (as Madame de Rosemond) was and she received the Clarence Derwent Award for Best Female in a Supporting Role. In 2005, she toured Britain as the Grandmother in Roald Dahl's The Witches. Later years Her final stage work came in 2006 in the three roles of Miss La Creevy, Mrs Gudden, and Peg Sliderskew in the Chichester Festival Theatre's revival of the RSC's epic Nicholas Nickleby. During rehearsals, she was diagnosed with cancer and kept her illness secret from the rest of the cast, but was too ill to transfer with the production to London. Her later television work included character roles in EastEnders, Coronation Street, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Doctors, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, and The Commander. Personal life and death She was married first, briefly, to stuntman Frank Maher and secondly in 1963, to actor Garfield Morgan; they were subsequently divorced. In 1972, she married her third husband, Alan Downer, who wrote scripts for Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm on television and Waggoners' Walk on radio. He died in 1995 after years of ill health following a stroke. They had a son, Andrew, who was an agent for film crews. Laye died of lung