Yvonne Gilan (born 12 October 1931) is an English actress who is best remembered for her portrayal of Mme. Peignoir in Fawlty Towers. She was married to the television director Michael Gill and is the mother of the journalist A. A. Gill.

Biographie

At Edinburgh University Gilan met Michael Gill, later to have career as a television director and producer; they married in 1951 and had two sons, Adrian and Nicholas, but their marriage was dissolved in 1978. Adrian is now known as A.A. Gill, the British newspaper columnist and writer. Her younger son Nicholas (Nick), a talented chef, unaccountably disappeared in 1998, and has not been heard from since. "He was an incredibly successful Michelin-starred chef, but he had reached rock bottom". In his autobiography, A. A. Gill described Gilan's appearance and characteristics as he recalled them from childhood:


Physical, gamine, a thick shock of short black hair with a heavy fringe. Freckles, dark complexion. A witty, interested, boyish face, but provocative, mocking, with an exhibitionist smile that is not altogether humorous ... Her smile can wither or zap like Dan Dare's ray gun.
Gilan kept the letters that Adrian wrote to her from his boarding school, St. Christopher School, Letchworth, in Hertfordshire, and returned them to him half a century later.