Amanda Elwes

Amanda Elwes and her twin sister Lydia were born to Timothy Cyprian George Thomas Elwes, of East End Farm, Seale, Surrey, and his first wife Lorna, daughter of Captain Ian Archibald de Hoghton Lyle, Black Watch, of the family of the Lyle baronets of Glendelvine. Actor Cary Elwes and his brother, producer Cassian Elwes, are her first cousins. In 1992, Elwes married music promoter Matthew Austin.^[3]

Elwes started her acting career training at the Central School of Speech and Drama.^[4] She first acted on stage in the early 1980's and among her theatre roles are as Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park (Sheffield Crucible), Lucy in Woman in Mind at the Windsor Theatre Royal,^[5] Lady Windermere in Lady Windermere's Fan (1993-94, at numerous theatres, including Theatre Royal, Bath and Birmingham Repertory Theatre) and Emma in Harold Pinter's play Betrayal at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow from March 30th to April 22nd 1995.^[6]

She made her first screen appearance in a commercial for After Eight mints in 1987, along with former theatre colleague Adam Morris, and two years later she won her first TV role in an episode of the TV detective series Bergerac in January 1989. Very quickly she gained notice in a number of successful new shows that year, including episodes in Agatha Christie's Poirot and Campion and the following year she appeared in another hit series, the hugely popular Jeeves and Wooster as Angela Travers. Another notable role was in 1991 as Marjorie Fisher in A Perfect Hero alongside Nigel Havers, and she continued to be very busy in 1992 with appearances in A Touch of Frost, Miss Marple and a big role in the TV movie Tattle Tale alongside Hollywood stars C. Thomas Howell and Ally Sheedy. By the end of the year Elwes married music producer Matthew Austin.

Although Elwes continued to appear on screen in such shows as The Riff Raff Element (1993) and Heartbeat (1994), after this her workload dropped off considerably. It was during her run on stage in Lady Windermere's Fan in the West End in 1994 that Elwes began to have second thoughts about acting. Discovering she was five months pregnant with her first child and wanting a more child friendly career, a fellow actress learned of her love of flowers and encouraged her to set up a floristry business.^[7] Helped financially, she eventually founded Amanda Austin Flowers^[8] in 1998, and in 2011 her twin sister Lydia joined her in running the business. Although she continued to act sporadically on screen - including a notable role in the children's drama True Tilda in 1997 - her last screen appearance was in the ITV series Rosemary & Thyme in 2004, after which she seemed to have retired from acting for now.