Samantha Spiro

Samantha Spiro (born 20 June 1968) is a double Olivier Award-winning English actress. She is best known for portraying Barbara Windsor in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and the television film Cor, Blimey!, DI Vivien Friend in M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team, and Melessa Tarly in the HBO series Game of Thrones. 2Background Born in Whitechapel, London, England, Spiro grew up in Radlett, Hertfordshire. She is Jewish. Spiro decided to be an actress at the age of ten, after seeing a production of Androcles and the Lion at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. She joined the National Youth Theatre, and later trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Spiro married the actor Mark Leadbetter, whom she met at drama school, in February 2002. They have two daughters and currently live in Queen's Park, London. 2Career 3Theatre Spiro's first acting job after graduating from drama school was with the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, in productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Boys From Syracuse and Macbeth. Her many theatre credits include As You Like It, Teechers, The Tragic Roundabout, Jumpers, On the Piste, Roots, How the Other Half Loves and Glyn and It, opposite Penelope Keit