A US actress famous for her raunchy roles has traced her family back to County Durham.

Kim Cattrall, best known as the feisty Samantha Jones in TV show Sex And The City, has been charting her ancestors as part of the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are?

In a show due to air next month, the 52-yearold discovers that her grandfather, George Baugh, was a bigamist who had another family.

The Liverpool-born actress traces his sister- in-law, Maisie Oliver, 87, to Spennymoor, County Durham, and paid her an emotional visit last month.

Mrs Oliver has recounted how they spent hours looking at photographs and sharing stories at her home in Catherine Close.

Mrs Oliver said: “She wanted to know all about him. She had always wanted to know more about him for her mam’s sake, and the programme gave her her opportunity to find out.

“I said to her it was a privilege meeting you, and she got hold of my hand and thanked me. She was very nice to me.”

Cattrall won a Golden Globe for her Sex And The City role in 2002 and spent the Eighties featuring in films including Police Academy and Mannequin.

She and the Who Do You Think You Are? camera crew were also at the Green Tree pub, in Tudhoe, County Durham, after a newspaper article led them to the village.

Cattrall’s grandfather left her mother, Shane, and her sisters when she was eight and never contacted the family again.

Landlady Murrie Hopson said: “She was here about three hours.

“She started off by having lunch with her entourage – fish and chips.

“Then the producer introduced her to us and we helped her figure out whereabouts in the village her grandfather lived. He lived here in the Forties or Fifties and it would have been unusual for him not to have frequented here.

“We were told a celebrity was coming, but we did not know who.

“We thought it would be someone like Kate Adie or Denise Welch, so it was a bit of a jaw-dropper. She was lovely; very pleasant and really charming.”

The programme will be shown on BBC1 at 9pm on Wednesday, August 12.

The Green Tree is planning to celebrate their screening by serving Cosmopolitan and Manhattan cocktails.