Isla Blair was born in Bangalore, British India, to Scottish expat tea planter Ian Baxter Blair-Hill and his wife Violet Barbara (née Skeoch). After graduating from RADA, Blair made her stage debut at London's Strand Theatre as Philia in a 1963 production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon for a year in 1971 and then embarked on a tour of the Middle East as Viola in Twelfth Night with the Prospect Theatre Company.
Her career on the screen commenced in 1964 with a bit part in the Beatles' musical Yeah Yeah Yeah (1964). A highly versatile actress, Blair has since appeared in films of diverse genres, including Die Luftschlacht um England (1969), Wie schmeckt das Blut von Dracula? (1970) (as an unwilling blood donor), Alien Attack - Die Außerirdischen schlagen zu (1976) (a spliced-together prequel for the TV series Mondbasis Alpha 1 (1975), as a bulbous-headed alien), Indiana Jones und der letzte Kreuzzug (1989) (as the wife of the main antagonist, played by her real-life husband Julian Glover) and Johnny English - Jetzt erst recht! (2011).
On television, she was one of the stars of Granada's highly rated episodic series The Liars (1966). Other roles included the star's on-screen wife in the sitcom The Dickie Henderson Show (1960), titled Lady Caroline in the period drama When the Boat Comes In (1976), manipulative behavioral psychologist Flora Beniform in The History Man (1981), neighbour Laura Miles in The Bounder (1982) and (as co-star) lawyer Katherine Dunbar in The Advocates (1991), a legal drama series set in Scotland. Blair has guest-starred in episodes of Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone (1961) (as a foreign agent), Department S (1969), Sturz der Adler (1974) (as Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna of Russia), Blake's 7 (1978), Taggart (1983), A Touch of Frost (1992), Dalziel und Pascoe - Mord in Yorkshire (1996) and Inspector Barnaby (1997) (as a psychological profiler). A prolific voice actress, she has also narrated audio books and provided voices for audio adaptations of Doctor Who spin-off novels.
Blair has been married to the actor Julian Glover since 1968. Their son Jamie Glover is also an actor. As a family, they have appeared together on stage in Hamlet, with Jamie in the title role, Julian as King Claudius of Denmark and Isla as his wife Gertrude.
