Victoria Wood Autograph Page Mounted

Victoria Wood CBE (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, singer, composer, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano.  Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday.  She later said of this unhappy time “The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform”.

Wood was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2015, but kept her illness private.  She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband. Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.