Maria Friedman ( Freedman; born 19 March 1960) is a British actress and director of stage and screen, best known for her work in musical theatre. She is an eight-time Olivier Award nominee, winning three. Her first win was for her 1994 one-woman show, By Special Arrangement. She has also twice won Best Actress in a Musical for the original London productions of Passion and Ragtime. She is more recently known for her role as Elaine Peacock in EastEnders. She made an appearance as the narrator in the 1999 straight to video version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Early years Maria Freedman was born in Switzerland, the daughter of Clair Llewelyn (née Sims), a concert pianist, and Leonard Friedman ( Freedman), a violinist for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Her younger sister is the theatre producer Sonia Friedman. Her father is from a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, whereas her mother is English. She began her education in Germany (where her family moved), and by the age of five moved with her family to England after the divorce of her parents. Career In 1989 she appeared in the lead female role of Hayyah in the play Ghetto by Joshua Sobol at the Olivier Theatre in London. In the following year she appeared in another Royal National Theatre production as Dot in Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim. She won an Olivier Award for her one-woman cabaret, Maria Friedman By Special Arrangement and another Olivier Award (Best Actress in a Musical) in 1997, starring in Sondheim's Passion. She appeared in Passion in the West End at the Queen's Theatre in 1996 as Fosca. She starred in Chicago in the West End at the Adelphi Theatre as Roxie starting in 1998. In the 1999 film of Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, she played the narrator. She played the role of Mother in the West End production of Ragtime at the Piccadilly Theatre starting in March 2003, winning the 2004 Olivier Award, Best Actress in a Musical. In 2004 she originated the role of Marian Halcombe in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Woman in White in the West End and on Broadway in 2005. As previews for The Woman in White started for the Broadway production, she was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and left the show to have surgery to have the lump removed. Less than