[3] In the 1920s Handl travelled several times to New York with her father, with the ship's log listing her on each occasion as having no occupation and residing in the family home.

[4] Handl studied at an acting school run by a sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike, and then made her stage debut in London in February 1937, at the relatively advanced age of 36.

Handl appeared in supporting roles in more than 100 British films, mostly comedy character parts such as slightly eccentric mothers, grannies, landladies and servants.

[7] She was also a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and one of Britain's most avid champions of Chihuahuas, being inseparable from the pair that she owned.

Among her many later appearances on stage, she played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1975, in a production directed by Jonathan Miller.

She appeared in Super Gran as the magician The Great Ronaldo and as Tim Wylton's mother in Clinging Ivy (1985).

Highly original and oddly haunting";[9] and its sequel, The Gold Tip Pfitzer, (a type of Juniper, associated with mourning), (1966).