Peignoir in Fawlty Towers (episode "The Wedding Party") and minor roles in both EastEnders and French Fields.
In 1964, Gilan wrote a short fantasy film, The Peaches, starring Juliet Harmer, with a small cameo role for her son Adrian as a bespectacled chess player.
After announcing that, due to the summer heat, she would sleep "au naturel tonight", subsequently she teased Fawlty that he had left his cassette player in her room as an excuse to gain entry, during the night.
From 1980 onwards, Gilan worked as a motivational speaker at the Oxford Said Business School, helping leaders improve their presentation and communication skills,[2] and lectured at the Imperial College, London.
[3] At the University of Edinburgh, Gilan met Michael Gill, later to have a career as a television director and producer; they married in 1951 and had two sons, Adrian and Nicholas.
In his autobiography, Adrian described his mother's appearance and characteristics as he recalled them from childhood: Physical, gamine, a thick shock of short black hair with a heavy fringe.