Alexandra Lendon Bastedo (9 March 1946 – 12 January 2014) was a British actress, best known for her role as secret agent Sharron Macready in the 1968 British espionage/science fiction adventure series The Champions. She has been cited as a sex symbol of the 1960s and '70s. Bastedo was a vegetarian and animal welfare advocate.

Biography

She dated David Frost and Omar Sharif but turned down the advances of Steve McQueen who, she recalled, propositioned her with the line: “My wife doesn’t understand me.” In the case of Sharif the liaison lasted only a few weeks because of the actor’s bridge-playing habit, his odd hours, and the fact that he took telephone numbers from other women.

In 1980, Alexandra married at Chichester Cathedral Patrick Garland, a director, writer and actor, who was the longest serving director of the Chichester Festival Theatre. Bastedo wrote a memoir, Beware Dobermanns, Donkeys and Ducks, as well as several books on caring for cats and dogs. Her younger brother, Lindsay, died following a long struggle with cancer. Her husband died on 19 April 2013.


Animal welfare
Bastedo was a vegetarian, and is the founder of Alexandra Bastedo Champions (ABC) Animal Sanctuary. In an interview on the BBC television series Where Are They Now? Bastedo provided a glimpse into her private life. She used to be the president of her local RSPCA branch, but gave up her position in 2008 so she could dedicate more time to her own fast-growing animal sanctuary at her home in West Chiltington, West Sussex. A journalist, who interviewed her husband in 2010, described their domestic surroundings:


[W]e sit in his Sussex garden looking towards a small lake with a jetty and a battered rowing boat – a perfect pastoral scene which could be a stage set. He lives with his wife, the actress Alexandra Bastedo, who remains startlingly beautiful, a couple of Dobermans, some territorial cats, and a menagerie of horses, donkeys, pigs and goats – Bastedo runs an animal sanctuary. Garland's domain is largely inside the house where he closes doors to keep animals out of rooms lined with 12,000 books.
She was also a patron to a number of animal welfare organisations including: Compassion in World Farming, Wildlife Aid Foundation, National Animal Welfare Trust, Greyhounds in Need, and Naturewatch.