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Liz Smith found fame as an actress at an age when most people are considering retirement. It was a long road to eventual stardom, during which she struggled to raise a family after a broken marriage. She became best known for her roles in The Vicar of Dibley (1994) and The Royle Family but her talents encompassed serious drama too. And while she made something of a name playing slightly dotty old ladies, the real Liz Smith was far removed from these on-screen personas. She was born Betty Gleadle in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. Her early life was not happy. Her mother died in childbirth when she was just two years old and her father abandoned her when he remarried. "My father was a bit of a sod, really. He just went off with loads of women and then married one who said he had to cut off completely from his prior life and that meant me." She started going to the local cinema with her grandfather when she was four and she quickly gained a fascination for acting.

By the age of nine, she was appearing in local dramatic productions, often playing the part of elderly ladies. World War Two thwarted her plans and she joined the WRNS because, as she later told the BBC's Desert Island Discs, she loved the cut of the naval uniform. She continued appearing in plays and entertainments while serving in the Royal Navy. She met her future husband Jack Thomas while she was stationed in India and the couple married at the end of the war. Her grandmother had left her enough money to buy a house in London. Smith later remembered that she had picked it at random from a magazine and bought it without crossing the threshold.

But what had been an idyllic marriage failed shortly after the family moved to Epping Forest in Essex and she was left to bring up her two children alone. With money tight, she worked in a number of jobs including delivering post and quality control in a plastic bag factory. But her love for acting remained and she began buying the theatrical magazine, The Stage, and sending her photograph to casting agents. Eventually she became part of a group studying method acting under a teacher who had come to the UK from America.

She performed at the Gate Theatre in west London and spent many years in repertory, as well as spells as an entertainer in Butlins holiday camps. In 1970, she was selling toys in London's Regent Street when she got a call from the director Mike Leigh to play the downtrodden mother in his film Bleak Moments. Leigh cast her again in Hard Labour, part of the BBC's Play for Today series, a role that allowed her to shine. She received critical acclaim as the middle-aged housewife who endures a life of domestic drudgery, constantly at the beck and call of her demanding husband and daughter.

It was the breakthrough she had sought for years and, as she later recalled: "I never went back to grotty jobs again." She was seldom off the screen over the next 20 years, with appearances in a number of TV programmes including Last of the Summer Wine, The Sweeney, The Duchess of Duke Street and The Gentle Touch. She was cast as Madame Balls in the 1976 film The Pink Panther Strikes Again, but her scenes were left on the cutting-room floor. However, she did appear in the role six years later in The Curse of the Pink Panther. In 1984 she received a Bafta for Best Supporting Actress when she played Maggie Smith's mother in the film A Private Function.

Two years later she appeared as Patricia Hodge's alcoholic mother in the BBC drama The Life and Loves Of A She Devil. It was a part, she said, that she really enjoyed as it gave her the chance to wear more glamorous outfits than her usual roles required. And she was able to dress up again for her next film appearance, this time in the role of Grace in Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. She was still much in demand at the beginning of the 1990s, appearing in the sitcom 2point4 Children and in the series Lovejoy and Bottom.

In 1994 she became a household name with her portrayal of Letitia Cropley in the series The Vicar of Dibley (1994). The character was famous for her idiosyncratic recipes such as parsnip brownies and lard and fish paste pancakes, but was killed off in 1996. Two years later Liz Smith starred as Nana in The Royle Family, a sitcom that ran for nearly four years. She took the part again in 2006 in a special edition in which Nana died. Typically, she attributed her success to Caroline Aherne's scripts rather than her own talent.

"They were great roles," she later remembered. "I was so lucky that things did come my way then." Unlike some actors, she watched recordings of her own performances looking for ways in which she could improve her acting. She continued to appear in feature films, playing Grandma Georgina in Tim Burton's 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and she was the voice of Mrs Mulch in Wallace & Gromit -The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. In 2006 she published her autobiography Our Betty and moved into a retirement home in north London but continued acting. She appeared in the BBC's Lark Rise to Candleford, finally announcing her retirement in 2008 at the age of 87. It was a belief in her own talent that drove Liz Smith on when her life was at a low ebb. "All I wanted was a chance," she told the BBC. "It was wonderful when it did happen."

Smith died on Christmas Eve 2016. She was 95.

Jeffrey Hayden was born on 15 October 1926 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Knight Rider (1982), The Incredible Hulk (1977) and Cover Up (1984). He was married to Eva Marie Saint. He died on 24 December 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Richard Adams spent his first 52 years in relative anonymity. And when he did complete a book that he wrote, he struggled to find anyone to publish it.

Richard George Adams was born on 9 May 1920, in Newbury, Berkshire. He was the son of a country doctor and was brought up in the rolling countryside with views towards the real Watership Down, on the Hampshire border. One of his earliest memories was seeing a local man pushing a handcart full of dead rabbits down the street. "It made me realise, in an instant, that rabbits were things and that it was only in a baby's world that they were not."

He suffered the fate of many middle-class boys of the period when he was sent to boarding school at the age of nine, where, by all accounts, he had a miserable time. He won a scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford, but his education was interrupted by World War Two and he served for five years in the Army before returning to his studies. He joined the civil service and spent part of his career managing the clean air programme designed to reduce pollution, especially that caused by the many coal fires still burning in British households. The event that changed his life occurred on a car journey with his family to see Twelfth Night at Stratford-upon-Avon. His bored children asked for a story and he began telling them a tale about a group of rabbits attempting to escape from their threatened warren.

Adams was persuaded to write it all down, a process that took him more than two years, but he was, at first, unable to find a publisher. Many of his rejection letters complained that the book was too long and his characters did not fit the common perception of cuddly bunnies. His rabbits were described with biological realism; they defecated, had sex and engaged in violent battles for dominance. Eventually, in 1972, after 14 rejections, the publisher Rex Collings saw the potential and agreed to take it on with an initial print run of 2,500 copies.

It was hailed as a children's classic, going on to sell more than 50 million copies, helped along by readings on BBC radio, and a dramatic performance in London's Regent's Park. Watership Down sold particularly well in the US where canny distributors placed it on the adult publishing list. On his promotional tours across the Atlantic, Adams played the American idea of the archetypical Englishman, wearing a bowler hat and insisting on English marmalade and mustard wherever he went. The book, and a subsequent animated film in 1978, became synonymous with rabbits and at least one enterprising butcher advertised: "You've read the book, you've seen the film, now eat the cast."

Inevitably it attracted criticism from some highbrow reviewers. "There is something to be said for myxomatosis," was one caustic comment. The sudden flow of wealth enabled Adams to retire from the civil service and become a full-time writer. It also drove him into tax exile on the Isle of Man, although he later returned to his roots in southern England. By the time Watership Down was published, he was already writing his second book Shardik, the novel he considered his best work.

It is an epic tale of a bear who is a god in an imaginary world and who is abused by the humans in the story. Shardik did not find favour among critics with some describing it as "preachy", a judgement with which Adams did not disagree. His commitment to animal welfare was expressed in his third novel, The Plague Dogs, an outspoken attack on animal experimentation. He admitted that his indignation about vivisection might have got the better of him but the book became another best-seller.

He became president of the RSPCA but his attempts to persuade the charity to adopt a more campaigning stance did not find favour with some of the more conservative members of the ruling council. He resigned just ahead of a vote which would have severely curtailed his presidential powers. Despite his campaigning for animals he insisted he was not a sentimentalist. He refused to condemn a decision to gas rabbits on the real Watership Down in 1998 after their burrows began undermining the hill. "If I saw a rabbit in my garden I'd shoot it," he once said.

In all, he wrote more than 20 books, including The Girl in a Swing, a ghostly love story with an undercurrent of eroticism, and a prequel to Shardik - entitled Maia - which was criticised for its sexual and sado-masochistic content. None of these books achieved the success of Watership Down and even a 1997 sequel, Tales from Watership Down, failed to capture the magic of the original. Richard Adams was essentially a traditional Englishman with a love of the countryside and a belief that, somehow, things were better in the past. It is perhaps surprising that this natural conservative, from a conventional middle-class background, should have written a book which had such a revolutionary impact on children's literature.

Richard Adams died on Christmas Eve 2016, aged 96.

Rick Parfitt was born on 12 October 1948 in Woking, Surrey, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002), Sieranevada (2016) and Bula Quo! (2013). He was married to Lyndsay Whitburn, Patty Beedon and Marietta Booker. He died on 24 December 2016 in Marbella, Spain.

Gil Parrondo was born on 17 June 1921 in Luarca, Asturias, Spain. He was a set decorator and art director, known for Patton (1970), The Boys from Brazil (1978) and Tiovivo c. 1950 (2004). He died on 24 December 2016 in Madrid, Spain.

Adrian McElwee was born in 1989 in the USA. He is known for Something to Do with the Wall (1991), In Paraguay (2008) and Bright Leaves (2003). He died on 24 December 2016 in the USA.

Fernando Corredor was born in 1937 in Medellin, Colombia. He was an actor, known for Amar y Temer (2011), Taxi mortal (1980) and Sin Senos Sí Hay Paraíso (2016). He died on 24 December 2016 in Bogota, Colombia.

Chun-Liang Chen was born in April 1942 in Beigang township, Yunlin county, Taiwan. He was a director and producer, known for Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (1991), Child of Peach (1987) and Da xiao jiang jun (1980). He died on 24 December 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan.

German Regalado was born on 20 September 1948 in San Felipe, Yaracuy, Venezuela. He was an actor, known for Pa mí tú estás loco (1978), Inmensamente tuya (1987) and Las amazonas (1985). He died on 24 December 2016 in San Felipe, Yaracuy, Venezuela.

Jirí Smetana was born on 16 December 1945 in Czechoslovakia. He died on 24 December 2016 in Prague, Czech Republic.

Carl Kakasuleff was born on 3 February 1938 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for The Big Idea (2010), Open Mic'rs (2006) and The Mini (2007). He died on 24 December 2016 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

Carla Todero was an actress, known for Il signore di Ballantrae (1979), Don Matteo (2000) and Delitto d'amore (1974). She died on 24 December 2016.

Mihail Curagau was born on 15 August 1943 in Balanesti, Nisporensky District, Moldavskaya SSR, USSR. He was an actor, known for Trevozhnyy rassvet (1984), Gnev (1974) and Se cauta un paznic (1968). He died on 24 December 2016 in Moldavia.

Guilherme Guimarães was an actor and costume designer, known for Entranced Earth (1967) and O Rei do Baralho (1973). He died on 24 December 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

John Barfield was born on 15 October 1964 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA. He was an actor, known for In Our Eyes (2016) and Sunday Night Baseball (1990). He died on 24 December 2016 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

William Wiggins was born on 30 May 1934 in Port Allen, Louisiana, USA. He was married to Janice Slaughter. He died on 24 December 2016 in Bloomington, Indiana, USA.

Feliks Krivin was born on 11 July 1928 in Mariupol, Ukrainian SSR, USSR. Feliks was a writer, known for Chipollino (1973), Oduvanchik: tolstye scheki (1971) and Kuritsa (1990). Feliks died on 24 December 2016 in Be'er Sheva, Israel.

Philip Cannon was born on 21 December 1929 in Paris, France. Philip died on 24 December 2016 in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.

Ernst Reinboth was born on February 8, 1935 in Berlin, Germany. He was a director and producer for short films, known for Interferenzen (1967), Aleph (1968), Der Sucher (1976), Die Abstrakte Oper Nr.1 (1978), Licht Skulptur Raum (1979), Das Tor (1986). The films were accompanied with music by Johann Sebastian Bach, György Ligeti and Maurice Ravel, and especially with new music and experimental sounds by Boris Blacher, Karlheinz Wahren, Rüdiger Rüfer and Nikolai Badinski. Besides the music many of his short films were accompanied by literary texts by Dante, Gottfried Benn and Samuel Beckett. The texts were spoken by actors such as Ernst Schröder and Will Quadflieg. The collaboration with artists such as Michael Schwarze, Bernhard Heiliger and Edith Türckheim led to the emergence of the films Aleph, Licht Skulptur Raum and Yang and Ying. He died on December 24, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.