Sylvia Anderson: Pioneering producer and writer who with her husband Gerry Anderson found fame with Thunderbirds

Sylvia was a great deal more than just the woman behind Lady Penelope - she was a significant pioneer of woman in the television industry, blessed with creativity, determination and cordiality

Anderson with Lady Penelope, who she voiced with an air of class and sex appeal (Rex Features)

The work of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson belongs in a special box, along with, perhaps, Tom and Jerry, Alan Bennett and log fires, labelled "things it is possible that no one has ever said they don't like". Their action-packed puppet adventure series, awash with colour and glistening with Sixties chic, had the pizzazz (and frequently the accents) of glossy US imports, but were blended with an English wit and eccentricity exemplified in Thunderbirds' Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, who, voiced by Sylvia, exuded class, sex appeal and that essential air of unattainability. During the production of the original series, the puppet's wardrobe of silks, leathers and furs was provided by Liberty and Dickins & Jones.

But Anderson was a great deal more than just the woman behind Lady Penelope. She was a significant pioneer of woman in the television industry, blessed with creativity, determination and cordiality. She went from co-creating some of the most popular, imaginative and perennial children's entertainment of the late 20th century to writing novels, working for 20 years as a talent scout for HBO – and, above all, triumphing as a female producer in what was very much a man's world, a state of affairs she played no small part in changing.

The daughter of a champion boxer and a dressmaker, Sylvia Thomas was born in south London in 1927. She studied sociology and political science at the LSE and worked briefly as a social worker before moving to the US, where she worked in journalism.

After two failed marriages, she returned to Britain in 1955 with a daughter and answered an advertisement that read: "Small production company looking for holiday PA". She was engaged by Polytechnic Films, a cottage industry in Buckinghamshire that made title sequences and commercials. She reflected years later of the board of directors: "Oh they were like babies... didn't even know how to look after petty cash!" It was here that she met editor and director Gerry Anderson.

When Polytechnic folded, she, Gerry, pro-ducer Reg Hill and cinematographer John Read set up their own company and soon received a commission to make a puppet series based on a set of children's books. With special effects wizard Derek Meddings also on board, the team was in business. Despite the tiny budgets, The Adventures of Twizzle (1957) and Torchy the Battery Boy (1960) were great successes, broadcast in the 6-7pm slot which had traditionally been known as the "toddlers' truce", when the BBC and ITV temporarily ceased broadcasting to allow mothers to get their children off to bed.

After their first original series, a puppet western called Four Feather Falls (1960), Lew Grade cottoned on to them, and as the 1960s got underway a galaxy of sci-fi adventures ensued. Fireball XL5 (1962) was blessed with a cute and poppy theme song, "I Wish I Was A Spaceman", which not only captured beautifully the charm of the Andersons' output but also was the first proof of the skills of composer Barry Gray, whose soundtracks would become an essential part of the brand. His commanding, majestic fanfares on shows like Thunderbirds (1965), and the sheer exhilaration of the theme to UFO (1970) were all part of the magic.

The Andersons, who married in 1961, were unstoppable. Their series were imaginative escapism, tales of honour and derring-do. Sylvia was devoted to costume and characterisation; she fought for and won an hour-long slot for Thunderbirds because she didn't feel a half-hour show would allow the characters to graduate beyond caricature. She wrote storylines, directed voice actors, and was part of the creation of Supermarionation, the technology that allowed the puppets' lips to be synchronised with pre-recorded dialogue.

Although the darker Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967), and Joe 90 (1968) with its geeky hero, were moderate successes, Thunderbirds remains the couple's masterpiece. Among its many merits, it was their funniest work. Blessed with Sylvia's gorgeous voice, Lady Penelope became a star, and her double act with resourceful Cockney servant Parker even spawned an array of novelty singles.

At the end of the decade, after a couple of unsuccessful Thunderbirds films, the Andersons moved into live action. Lew Grade gave them huge budgets, but the results were mixed. UFO (1970) was a fascinating curio, well produced but lacking warmth and characterisation. Set within a secret organisation protecting Earth from alien invasion (oddly, precisely the format Doctor Who adopted the same year), it bombed in prime time. Its tone was fatally inconsistent, some episodes gung-ho adventures, others surprisingly domestic, one even featuring an LSD trip, although Sylvia's costume designs were something to behold ("No one minded me doing the clothes because that was a feminine thing to do.")

There were also tensions in her marriage, in part because Sylvia was more approachable, sociable and communicative; interviewers flocked to her and men adored her. Gerry announced their split at the wrap party for the first series of Space: 1999 (1975), another live action series with wonderful production values but populated by characters less engaging than their puppet predecessors.

After their divorce in 1981 Sylvia became Head of Production at one of the first video production companies in the UK, and wrote a novel, the lightly fictionalised Love and Hisses (1983), set in the world of advertising. Later in the decade she joined HBO as their representative at Pinewood Studios, setting up co-productions and scouting for talent. She also published her autobiography, My FAB Years, in 2007.

She had come a long way from the days when she had spent an entire meeting with a producer staring at her legs before patting her on the head and saying, "Don't worry your pretty little head about that." Although by being immortalised as Lady Penelope she will be forever remembered as the woman behind a heroine, Sylvia Anderson was in fact something of a heroine herself.

Sylvia Thomas, producer, writer, voice actress and television executive: born London 27 March 1927; married 1946 Jack Brooks (marriage dissolved; one daughter), 1952 George Thamm (marriage dissolved), 1961 Gerry Anderson (divorced 1981; one son); died Bray, Berkshire 15 or 16 March 2016.