Carteret was born in Bangalore, India, the daughter of Peter John Wilkinson and his wife Patricia Carteret (Strahan). She was educated at Arts Educational Schools in Tring, Hertfordshire (now the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts), where she trained for the stage.

She was married to the television and film director Christopher Morahan for over forty years and often worked with him. The couple had two daughters, theatre director Rebecca and actress Hattie Morahan.

Anna Carteret is best known for her role as police inspector Kate Longton in the BBC's long-running 1980s television series Juliet Bravo.

Other TV credits include: The Saint; The Pallisers BBC 1975; Frederic Raphael's The Glittering Prizes BBC 1976, as Barbara Ransome; Send in the Girls; BBC 1996 Eskimo Day as Harriet Lloyd, Star Maidens; Peak Practice as Dr Yvonne Marshall; Holby City (2007) as Carol Lloyd, mother of doctor Diane Lloyd; and Holby City's sister series Casualty (2010) in a one-off appearance as patient Joany Slavin.

Films, since 1959, include Dateline Diamonds (1965), The Plank (1967) and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005). In 2012 she appeared in Private Peaceful.

She played Vivanti in Cats and Monkeys, co-starring with Jack Shepherd in a radio version of Catherine Shepherd's stage play, for BBC Radio 4's The Afternoon Play last broadcast on 19 November 2007.

Carteret has also voiced every female character in the British children's TV series Forget Me Not Farm and Miriam in the British/Welsh Christian animated TV series Testament: The Bible in Animation. Both of these shows aired on the BBC in the UK but only Testament aired on S4C in Wales.

Early years

Anna Carteret made her first appearance as a Cloud and a Jumping Bean in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk at the Palace Theatre, Watford in December 1957. Her London debut was at the Scala Theatre playing Wendy in Peter Pan at Christmas 1960.

She worked in repertory in 1962 and 1963, including Windsor and Lincoln, and then at the Bristol Old Vic from 1964–1966, where her roles included:

• Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Gloria Clandon in Shaw's You Never Can Tell
• Mariana in Measure for Measure
• Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera
• Cyprienne in Let's Get a Divorce
• Constance in She Stoops to Conquer
• Anitra and The Green Woman in Ibsen's Peer Gynt

National Theatre Company 1967–1976

Following an appearance at the Shaftesbury Theatre in October 1966, playing Fiona Jones in Big Bad Mouse, Carteret joined Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic in 1967, appearing as:

• Chorus in Oedipus (Seneca), director Peter Brook (1968)
• Elena in The Advertisement (Natalia Ginzberg), directors Donald MacKechnie and Laurence Olivier (1968)
• Norma in Rites (Maureen Duffy), director Joan Plowright (1969)
• Nurse Sweet in The National Health (Peter Nichols), director Michael Blakemore (1969)
• Jacquenetta in Love's Labour's Lost, director Laurence Olivier (1969)
• Fusima in Back to Methuselah (Shaw), director Clifford Williams (1969)
• Maria in The Travails of Sancho Panza (James Saunders), directors Donald MacKechnie and Joan Plowright (1969)
• Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, director Jonathan Miller (1970)
• Giacinta in Scapino at the Young Vic, director Frank Dunlop (1970)
• Roxane in Cyrano, NT at the Cambridge Theatre, director Patrick Garland (1970)
• Virgilia in Coriolanus, directors Manfred Wekwerth and Joachim Tenschert (1971)
• Lucile in Danton's Death (Georg Buchner), NT at the New Theatre, director Jonathan Miller (1971)
• The Secretary in Jumpers (Tom Stoppard), director Peter Wood (1972)
• Queen Isabel in Richard II, director David Wiliam (1972)
• Peggy Grant in The Front Page (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur), director Michael Blakemore (1972)
• Anabella in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford) mobile production, director Roland Joffe (1972)
• Maid in The School for Scandal (Sheridan), director Jonathan Miller (1972)
• Gentlewoman in Macbeth, director Michael Blakemore (1972)
• Anya in The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov), director Michael Blakemore (1973)
• Olivia in Twelfth Night, mobile, director Peter James (1973)
• Virginia in Saturday, Sunday, Monday (Eduardo De Filippo), director Franco Zeffirelli (1973)
• Susie Plaistow in The Party (Trevor Griffiths), director John Dexter (1973)

In September 1974 she played Eliza Doolitle in the Bristol Old Vic's production of Pygmalion, before returning to the National in January 1975 to appear as:

• Fanny Wilton in John Gabriel Borkman (Ibsen), director Peter Hall (Old Vic 1975, Lyttelton Theatre March 1976)

Theatre 1977–1979

• Olivia in Twelfth Night, Greenwich Theatre (March 1977)
• Portia in The Merchant of Venice, St George's, Islington (May 1977)
• Isabella in Measure for Measure, St George's (June 1977)
• Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor St George's (August 1977)
• Mrs Cheveley in An Ideal Husband (Wilde), Greenwich (February 1978)
• Doña Elvira in Don Juan (Molière), Greenwich (March 1978)
• Ann Troubridge in Daughters of Men (Jennifer Phillips), Hampstead Theatre (January 1979)

National Theatre 1979–1981

• Various parts in Lark Rise, National Cottesloe, directors Bill Bryden and Sebastian Graham-Jones (1979)
• Adele Natter in Undiscovered Country (Arthur Schnitzler/Tom Stoppard), National Olivier, director Peter Wood (1979)
• Phoebe in As You Like It, National Olivier, director John Dexter, (1979)

She then became a member of Christopher Morahan's ensemble company in the Olivier Theatre. playing three major roles:

• Queen Elizabeth in Richard III (1979)
• Dorcas in Sisterly Feelings (Alan Ayckbourn) (1980)
• Violet in Man and Superman (Shaw), (January 1981)

As an August 1981 sabbatical she was one of the feminist trio ‘ The Raving Beauties’ who performed a cabaret anthology In the Pink, at Riverside Studios (also aired on Channel 4 opening night in 1982 and reprised in 1984 as The Raving Beauties Make it Work); before returning to the National as:

• Beline, in Michael Bogdanov's Olivier Theatre staging of Molière's The Hypochondriac (October 1981)

Theatre 1986–1991

• Mrs Sullen in The Beaux' Stratagem (Farquhar), Lyric Hammersmith (April 1986)
• Wife/Agent in A Piece of My Mind (Peter Nichols), Apollo Theatre (April 1987)
• Nora in A Doll's House (Ibsen). Riverside Studios (September 1988)
• Coral Brown and HM the Queen in Single Spies: An Englishman Abroad/A Question of Attribution; (Alan Bennett), National Theatre tour (1990)
• Mme de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Christopher Hampton), RSC tour (1991)

The Peter Hall Company

She joined the Peter Hall Company in 1992, appearing as:

• Mrs Cheveley in An Ideal Husband (Wilde), Globe (November 1992)
• Maria in On Approval (Frederick Lonsdale) Playhouse Theatre (October 1994)
• Mrs Cheveley in An Ideal Husband (Wilde), Haymarket, Old Vic and Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York (1996)
• Frances Trebell in Waste (Granville Barker), Old Vic (March 1997)
• Polina in The Seagull, (Chekhov) Old Vic (May 1997)
• Goneril in King Lear, Old Vic (September 1997)
• Arsinoe in Le Misanthrope (Molière), Piccadilly Theatre (March 1998)
• Title role in Major Barbara (Shaw), Piccadilly Theatre (May 1998)

Theatre 1999 to date

• Hylda in Semi-Detached (David Turner), Chichester Festival Theatre (May 1999)
• Queen Margaret in Richard III, RSC Savoy (January1999)
• Linda in Death of a Salesman (Miller), Birmingham Rep (March 2000)
• Ariadne in Heartbreak House (Shaw), Chichester (May 2000)
• Elspeth in Naked Justice (John Mortimer), West Yorkshire Playhouse and tour, (January 2001)
• Margrethe Bohr in Copenhagen (Michael Frayn), Duchess Theatre (2001)
• Olga in Three Sisters Two (Reza de Wet), Orange Tree Theatre (March 2002)
• Signora Sirelli in Absolutely (Perhaps) (Pirandello), Wyndham's Theatre (May 2003)
• The Housekeeper in Doña Rosita the Spinster (Lorca) Orange Tree, (March 2004)
• Nancy in Sitting Pretty (Amy Rosenthal), Watford Palace (January 2005)
• Daya in Nathan the Wise (G. E. Lessing), Hampstead Theatre (September 2005)
• Mrs Isabel Linden in The Linden Tree (J. B. Priestley), Orange Tree (February 2006)^[5]
• Rose in Tom & Viv (Michael Hastings), Almeida Theatre (September 2006)
• Nellie Macmillan in Never So Good (Howard Brenton) National Theatre, Lyttelton (March 2008)
• Violet in The Family Reunion (T S Eliot) Donmar Warehouse (November 2008)
• Elena in Burnt by the Sun (Peter Flannery from the 1994 film by Nikita Mikhalkov) National Theatre, Lyttelton (March 2009)
• The Grandmother of The Bride in I Do for theatre company Dante or Die during 2013 and 2014.^[6]