Sunetra Sastry

Sastry was born in 1957 in England to an Indian father and British mother. Her mother grew in an affluent English family but after she married Sunetra’s father, her family disowned her. Sastry later attempted to ask her mother about it; in response, she simply said that it was worth it.

Having grown up in England in the 1960s, Sastry was confronted with her share of racism because of her father’s ethnicity. Despite the civil movements that were going on all over the world during that period, they had not changed the ground reality yet.

She finished school and enrolled at a beauty college. Her parents, sceptical at first, eventually accepted their daughter’s decision when they saw her passion for it in action.

After completing her education, she began to work in London as a make-up artist. Sometime in the early 1980s, she was hired by BBC and subsequently started working as a crew member on ‘Black Adder’, the BBC1 pseudo-historical situational comedy.

Initially, she did the make-up for Stephen Fry, who later confessed that Sastry was one of the few women that he had been attracted to. The openly gay actor admitted in his 2010 book ‘The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography’ that he wanted to ask her out, writing that Sastry was “bright, funny and as captivatingly alluring as any girl I had met for years”. However, one day Atkinson approached him and requested to switch make-up artists with him. At first, Fry thought that Atkinson might not be satisfied with the one he had but it dawned on him soon enough that Atkinson wanted to ask her out himself.

Sastry and Atkinson met in 1986 and dated for three years before getting engaged in late 1989. They got married in February 1990 at the famous Russian Tea Room in New York City. Fry served as Atkinson’s best man.

They welcomed their first child, a son whom they named Benjamin, in 1993. Their daughter, Lily, was born two years later, in 1995. After working on ‘Black Adder II’, Sastry served on the television film ‘Smack and Thistle’. She eventually quit working and decided to focus on raising her children instead.

At the time they got married, Atkinson was already a well-respected actor and comedian for his extensive work on radio, television, theatre, and films. Sastry provided the support from home as he brought to life one memorable character after another, from Mr. Bean to Johnny English to Enrico Pollini.