Briony McRoberts

BRIONY McRoberts, who has died aged 56, starred in the STV soap Take The High Road for nine years, playing Glendarroch's lady laird Sam Hagan, and she appeared in a range of TV dramas such as Eastnders and The Bill. Her agent Katie Threlfall said the well-loved and vibrant actress had taken her own life, describing the death on the London Tube line as unbelievably shocking.

On the face of it, McRoberts's life was all she could hope for. Married to Downton Abbey star David Robb, 
her career was progressing comfortably, and in fact the couple had a successful marriage and professional relationship, appearing together in several theatre productions over the years.

Born in Hertfordshire, the actress moved to Richmond at the age of six when her mother died. Her father was an academic, and when it came to relocating after her father remarried, by chance her stepmother placed her in a school called The Professional Children's School.

"Naturally she assumed it was a school for the children of professional parents," McRoberts once recalled. "It wasn't. I went and discovered that it was a stage school."

McRoberts didn't stay too long, once her father gleaned the true nature of his daughter's education. But in a short time she had managed to secure her first film part, as a sea nymph alongside Robert Ryan and Nanette Newman in Captain Nemo and the Underwater City. The actress was hooked.

While her parents were underwhelmed by their daughter's chosen career, young Briony, who would go on to play a succession of baddies, such as Wicked Queens in panto, played Wendy Darling in a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan starring Mia Farrow and Danny Kaye on NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame.

McRoberts met her future husband when they appeared together in an unsuccessful play, Betsy.

"It was about the relationship between Napoleon and Betsy, the only girl on the island of St Helena who could speak French," she recalled. "Unfortunately, it was a very badly-written play. It turned Napoleon into this kind, sweet, gentle man, and my character into this idiot child who bounced around the stage. It was ghastly and we closed the theatre."

Luckily, the 19-year-old's reputation wasn't damaged. "In fact, it turned out to be a godsend and I landed the part of the glamorous Margo Fassbender in the Pink Panther Strikes Again. The director came to see Betsy, and took a shine to me – in more ways than one – and cast me as this wonderful character who, although totally innocent, was captured and tortured by the incompetent Clouseau."

McRoberts, who loved hillwalking (since 2004 she and David Robb had also run every year in the Edinburgh Marathon to raise money for leukaemia research). She went on to star in several major theatre productions over the years, such as the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh's Private Lives in 1995, and in 2000 Same Time Next Year, both alongside David Robb.

McRoberts landed several top television roles, from The Professionals to Heartbeat to The Bill, and played counsellor Carol Nickleson in EastEnders in 1990. The actress revealed a sharp sense of humour when she pointed out in an interview her repeat fee cheques for one episode of BBC's Butterflies. "Each time it's screened I get £3.60," she said.

The sense of humour again revealed itself after her nine-year stint in Take The High Road, in which she played "sexy superbitch" Sam, a character who bedded teenage boys. McRoberts ridiculed some of the storylines. "One totally incomprehensible scene was Sheila Ramsay giving birth in the woods. Now, I've never been pregnant, but I'm sure if I was and my car broke down at the exact moment my contractions started I'd wander into a forest too. Who wouldn't? Everyone knows that the first place midwives look for heavily-pregnant women is deep in the woods. In fact for every tree in Scotland there's a pregnant woman leaning against it."

After High Road, McRoberts, who was an active supporter of the Scottish Friends of the Earth's Fight the Fumes campaign, returned to the stage and appeared in several pantos.

In February, the actress travelled to Glasgow for the funeral of her High Road co-star Lesley Fitz-Simons, who died of cancer aged 51.

McRoberts's TV career also included a stint on Taggart. Her co-star Colin McCredie was one of the first to express his shock. "Devastating news," he said on Twitter, echoing the thoughts of many who worked with her. "Such a brilliant lady, great company and a fine actress. I was very fond of Briony. I cannot believe it. She was so full of life and brilliant company. Poor David."

She is survived by her husband.