Louie Ramsay, the screen wife of actor George Baker who became his third wife in real life, has died at the age of 81.

Although the couple were not married until September 1993, they met at the Buckstone Club in London in the 1950s.

They grew to be close friends when Ms Ramsay was cast as Dora, the long-suffering wife of Chief Inspector Reg Wexford, played by Mr Baker, in the long-running Ruth Rendell TV series.

After Mr Baker’s second wife, Sally Home, died of cancer in 1992, they became closer still and Mr Baker was pressed by his daughters to make the relationship official.

Mr Baker recalls in his autobiography, The Road to Wexford, how they were besieged by journalists wanting to know if the rumours about their impending marriage were true.

Mr Baker wrote: “I went upstairs and called to Louie: “are you prepared to marry me so that we can get it over with and I can get back to doing some work.

“By the way, if you don’t want to live in Wiltshire, it’s all off.”

At that time Mr Baker lived in Stibb Hill, West Lavington, though the couple moved to a bungalow in Market Lavington last year after both became increasingly infirm.

Louie Ramsay was born on November 25 1929 in South Africa of Scots parents.

She was brought up in London where her father worked as a specialist in infectious diseases at the Royal Free Hospital.

She was educated at the North London Collegiate School and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she became friends with Alfred Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia, taking a small role in Hitchcock’s film Stage Fright in 1949.

Her promising musical theatre career was cut short in the late 1950s when she was diagnosed with Reiter’s Syndrome, a painful disease that attacks the joints.

She was told she might never walk again but she recovered and in 1971 joined the National Theatre where Laurence Olivier cast her as Lilian in JB Priestley’s Eden End. She also appeared in Equus, The Cherry Orchard and The Misanthrope.

She is survived by Mr Baker, who is himself in poor health, and Matt, her son by her marriage to Ronan O’Casey.