Holly Aird

Holly Aird, is an English television actress known for playing Forensic Pathologist Frankie Wharton in the BBC1 drama series Waking the Dead, having previously starred in productions such as Soldier Soldier and the 1997 film Fever Pitch alongside Colin Firth.

Aird was spotted by a casting director aged nine whilst at Bush Davies ballet school, and starred in the 1980 dramatisation of the H.G. Wells novel The History of Mr. Polly. In 1981 she portrayed the young Elspeth Huxley in the television adaptation of the latter's autobiographical book The Flame Trees of Thika.

In 1982 she starred as the young Beatrix Potter in The Tale of Beatrix Potter. She was seen in Happy Valley in 1987 with Denholm Elliott in which she played a school girl in Kenya in the 1930s. As well as small parts in many well-known television series, Aird became best known for playing Nancy Thorpe/Garvey in Soldier Soldier. In 2000, she starred as Frankie Wharton in Waking the Dead. Aird has recently done voiceover for various BBC natural history projects (including Wild Mallorca), as well as various TV advertisements. Her most recent part (2007), was playing a clinical psychologist, in Channel 4’s drama, 'Secret Life', about a paedophile.

Aird has two children, Joseph (born to her first husband James Purefoy) and Nelly (with second husband Toby Merritt, a freelance photographer.