Sharon D. Duce (born 17 January 1948) is an English actress.
Born in Sheffield, she trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art then became a stage actress at the Sheffield Repertory Theatre, the York Theatre Royal, and the Theatre in the Round, before joining Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge's Actors Company. Apart from her career in film and television, she has had leading roles at the Royal Court Theatre and other West End theatres.[2]
Duce began her acting career in 1970; She made her first appearance on the short-lived ITV crime drama series Parkin's Patch, before going on to many television guest appearances throughout the decade, in shows including Armchair Theatre, Z-Cars, Play for Today and Crown Court, as well as film roles in The Tamarind Seed, which was her film debut, and Absolution. Her television guest roles continued into the 1980s in a number of mainstream productions, such as The Professionals, Tales of the Unexpected, In Loving Memory, Rockliffe, and Doctor Who. She had a main role in the short-lived ITV comedy series Funny Man, and in the BBC One series Big Deal, as Jan Oliver.
Duce was cast in the 1991 film Buddy's Song, based on the 1987 novel of the same name; she plays Carol Clark, the mother of Buddy (Chesney Hawkes), who attempts to make it as a musician with the help of Buddy's father and her estranged husband (Roger Daltrey). In 1992, she guest-appeared in the fourth series drama series of CITV drama Press Gang, followed by the leading role of Pat Hollingsworth in BBC One's Growing Pains. She appeared in The Tomorrow People, the revived version of the 1970s series, Wycliffe and Peak Practice.
In the 2000s, she has had guest roles in Playing the Field, Where the Heart Is and The Royle Family, where she made an appearance in the third series' Christmas special. She had a recurring role in London's Burning, and appearances in soap operas Emmerdale, as Millicent Rudge in 2003, and in Coronation Street as Julie Carp's mother, Paula Carp, she departed the soap on 22 May 2009.[3]
She also had multiple guest roles in long running drama series' Casualty, The Bill and Doctors.
She has two children with the former actor Dominic Guard, with whom she appeared in the 1978 film Absolution.[4]