Mary Elizabeth Miller (née Spinks; 27 December 1929 – 11 July 2020) was an English television and stage actress, who was a founding member of the National Theatre Company in 1963.

[2] In 1961, the playwright and novelist Peter Wildeblood was commissioned by Granada Television to produce an 11-part series featuring "up-and-coming acting talent, in plays by young authors, each actor or actress taking the lead role in turn".

In 1963, Miller became one of the 77 performers to be founding members[3] of the National Theatre Company in its inaugural season under artistic director Sir Laurence Olivier.

[16] She was chosen to portray the strong female personality that was Angela Dunwoody QC, in Crown Court, the courtroom drama series made by various ITV network television companies between 1972 and 1984.

Miller took up the role in 1976, and played the barrister until 1977, in four storylines over ten episodes beginning with "Accepted Standards" in 1976, which featured a cast including Ben Kingsley, Patricia Routledge and Liz Smith, and involved a GP who is accused of libel against a PVC factory over their claims regarding safe practice.

[23] And in 1978, appearing in an episode of Scottish Television's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (the title role being played by Geraldine McEwan), she took the part of Irene Cibelli.

[25] Filmed in Czechoslovakia, it starred Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine, and was adapted from the novel Im Westen nichts Neues by Erich Maria Remarque.

[29] Miller continued with her stage career, appearing in such productions as the 1983 run of the play Pack of Lies at the Lyric Theatre in London in October 1983, alongside Frank Windsor.

[30] She was part of a strong cast list assembled by Anglia Television in 1985 for the making of the fantasy puppet/live action feature Alice in Wonderland, based on the famous novel by Lewis Carroll.

[31] After appearing in two episodes of Fay Weldon's The Heart of the Country for BBC Pebble Mill in the same year,[32] she became a regular member of the cast of the Anglia Television fantasy role-playing game format called Knightmare, usually playing the parts of Lilith or Mildread, in a total of 27 shows and finishing in 1988 (although the programme itself continued until 1994).

[36] Her last recorded work was in the 2005 "updating" of Trial & Retribution by Lynda La Plante, in which Miller played a different character, Felicity Harper, in added on episodes.

[3] Miller spent the last eleven years of her life as a resident of Denville Hall, the actors’ retirement and nursing home in Northwood, Hillingdon, where she died on 11 July 2020, at the age of 90.