Frances de la Tour of Fire" (2005) and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" (2010). Other television roles include Emma Porlock in the Dennis Potter serial "Cold Lazarus" (1996), Headmistress Margaret Baron in BBC sitcom "Big School" and Violet Crosby in the sitcom "Vicious". De la Tour was born in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, to Moyra (née Fessas) and Charles de la Tour (1909–1982). The name was also spelt De Lautour, and it was in this form that her birth was registered in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the third quarter of 1944. She has French, Greek, and Irish ancestry. She was educated at
Frances de la Tour 2009, she appeared in Alan Bennett's new play "The Habit of Art" at the National. In 2012, she returned to the National in her third Bennett premiere, "People". Her many television appearances during the 1980s and 1990s include the 1980 miniseries "Flickers" opposite Bob Hoskins, the TV version of "Duet for One", for which she received a BAFTA nomination, the series "A Kind of Living" (1988–89), Dennis Potter's "Cold Lazarus" (1996), and "Tom Jones" (1997). Of all her TV roles, however, she is best known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire television comedy "Rising Damp", from 1974