Cleo Sylvestre: ‘Trailblazing’ actress dies aged 79

“Trailblazing” actress Cleo Sylvestre who starred in films, soap operas and stage plays has died aged 79, her agent has said.

Sylvestre, also known as Cleopatra Palmer, appeared in productions as diverse as Crossroads, Shakespeare’s As You Like It and the first Paddington movie.

A spokesperson for Fulcrum Talent said: “It is with deep regret that I have to announce the sad news that Cleo Sylvestre MBE died this morning.

“Much loved and admired by her peers, she will be remembered as a trailblazer and a true friend. She will be sorely missed by so many.”

Sylvestre was also a singer and recorded with The Rolling Stones, who backed her on a 1964 cover of To Know Him Is To Love Him. She later worked as a musician with her blues band Honey B Mama And Friends.

Born in Hertfordshire in April 1945, she was brought up in London by her mother Laureen Sylvestre and studied at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.

She was made an MBE in 2023 for services to drama and charity and was married to Ian Palmer until his death in 1995.

Sylvestre enjoyed roles in some of TV’s best-known shows, including playing Melanie Harper, the adopted daughter of Meg Richardson in ITV’s long-running Crossroads, during the 1970s.

Other TV roles came in The Bill, New Tricks, Till Death Do Us Part, Grange Hill, Doctor Who and Coronation Street.

Her more recent parts included ITV thriller Platform 7, and Channel 5’s revamp of All Creatures Great And Small.

Sylvestre began her acting career on the stage and was the first black actress to take a leading role in a National Theatre production – in National Health in 1969.

She made her Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) debut playing Audrey in a 2023 production of As You Like It.

Her film roles have ranged from the 2014 film Paddington, Kidulthood from 2006 and 1993’s The Punk.

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US-born playwright and author Bonnie Greer wrote on X that Sylvestre was “one of the reasons that-from my vantage point in NYC (New York City) that I thought that this country has the best anglophone theatre, and the best place to be a Black woman in it”.

She added: “I still think that. Thank you, Cleo!”

Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, the UK’s first sickle cell nurse specialist, wrote that she was “devastated” at the death of her “wonderful, kind friend”.