Caroline Quentin

British actress, broadcaster and television presenter who became known for her television appearances. She co-starred as the long-suffering Dorothy on the British sitcom Men Behaving Badly (1992–1998), Maddie Magellan in Jonathan Creek (1997–2000), and DCI Janine Lewis in Blue Murder (2003–2009).

Quentin was the youngest of four girls born to Fred Jones, a former RAF pilot, and his wife Kathleen. She attended an all-girls arts boarding school in Hertfordshire, but left when she was 16. According to Quentin, her entire family displayed a dry wit, and they used laughter as a way to communicate. She describes laughter by saying, "it’s a drug and I’m addicted to it. If you can make people laugh, they can’t bully you." Although she had no formal training, she was completely at ease working onstage, and began performing in pantomime in Luton. She went on to be a summer season chorus girl in a local show.

Over the years, she appeared in many drama and comedy series such as Kiss Me Kate (1998), Jonathan Creek and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1988-1996). She did radio spots, voiceovers, videos and standup comedy, and in 1998, she set up Quentin Morrissey Productions in partnership with a former co-star. She is considered the mistress of the raised eyebrow and healthy sneer, primarily aimed at men who come within range, and says this harkens back to her youth when she felt men were ‘alien beings.’ Self-described as extremely shy and socially hopeless, she overcame these difficulties by consciously becoming an extrovert.

Quentin and her former co-stars got together for a Comic Relief special edition of Men Behaving Badly which was broadcast on 12 March 1999. During the late ’90s, she discovered that her former agent had embezzled almost half a million pounds from her, but she remains upbeat about the whole affair, refusing to lose sleep over money, and she dreams of someday fulfilling her greatest ambition by dancing professionally.