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Tall, luminous and leonine, the legendary Colleen Dewhurst must go down as one of the theater's finest contemporary tragediennes of the late 1900s. With trademark dusky tones and a majestically careworn appearance, she possessed an inimitable down-to-earth fierceness that not only earned her the title "Queen of Off-Broadway" but allowed her to put a fiery and formidable stamp on a number of Eugene O'Neill's heroines. She was no slouch in the on-camera department, either, reaping trophies for a host of wryly comedic and electrifying dramatic turns on TV. While most of her towering achievements occurred in mid- to late career, she quickly made up for lost time. In addition, she and two-time actor/husband George C. Scott became an acting force together throughout much of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Colleen Rose Dewhurst was born on June 3, 1924, in Montreal, Quebec, the only child of Ferdinand Augustus "Fred" Dewhurst, a hockey and football player who later became sales manager of a lighting concern to support his family. Her mother, Frances Marie (nee Woods), a homemaker, was a Christian Science practitioner. Raised in the United States from the age of 13 (mostly in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin), she graduated from Riverside High School in Milwaukee in 1942 and then enrolled at Milwaukee's Downer College for Young Ladies. Working such odd jobs as a receptionist and elevator operator in between summer-stock engagements, she prepared for the stage in New York at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she met and later married fellow acting student James Vickery in 1947. She also took up studies with such illustrious teachers as Harold Clurman and Tyrone Guthrie.
Dewhurst played Julia Cavendish in "The Royal Family" while a student at Carnegie Lyceum in 1946. However, it took six years for her to make her professional debut at the ANTA in New York with a small dancing role in O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" (1952). In 1963, she won an Obie Award in the same play's leading role, Abbie. She built up her esteemed resumé gradually. In 1956 Joseph Papp featured her strongly at his New York Shakespeare Festival with roles in "Tamburlaine the Great", "Titus Andronicus", "Camille" (title part), "The Taming of the Shrew" (as Kate), and "The Eagle Has Two Heads". She won another Obie Award for her combined performances in the last three productions mentioned. The following year she portrayed Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth" and Mrs. Squeamish in "The Country Wife".
Dewhurst divorced her first husband, actor James Vickery in 1959 after meeting George C. Scott during the 1958 run of Broadway's "Children of Darkness", for which she won a Theatre World Award. Scott divorced his wife to marry Dewhurst in 1960 (ex-husband Vickery later married actress Diana Muldaur). Scott and Dewhurst had two children, Alexander Robert Scott ("Alex") and Campbell Scott.
Dewhurst's signature O'Neill role was that of Irish-American Josie Hogan in "The Moon for the Misbegotten". She first played the part in 1958 in Italy, then tackled the role again in 1965 in a production in Buffalo, New York. The third time was the charm when she recreated the role on Broadway in December of 1973 at age 49, not only earning the coveted Tony Award (her second), but the Los Angeles Drama Critics and Sarah Siddons awards as well. Over the years, O'Neill's plays would benefit greatly from her searing, impassioned performances, which included Sara in "More Stately Mansions," Christine Mannon in "Mourning Becomes Electra," Mary Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," Essie Miller in "Ah, Wilderness!" and, of course, Abbie Putnam in "Desire Under the Elms". In 1987, she portrayed Carlotta Monterey O'Neill (Eugene's wife) in an acclaimed one-woman show, "My Gene", in New York.
Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, Dewhurst became a frequent contender at the Tony Awards ceremonies. She won her first Tony for James Agee's "All the Way Home" in 1960, and went on to be nominated for "Great Day in the Morning" (1962), "The Ballad of the Sad Café" (1963), "More Stately Mansions" (1967), "All Over" (1971), "Mourning Becomes Electra" (1972) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1976). One of her few career failures was directing the Broadway production of "Ned & Jack", which opened and closed the same night on November 8, 1981. Very much a theater activist, she joined several advisory boards in her time and became president of the Actor's Equity Association in 1985, serving until her death six years later.
While Dewhurst and then-husband Scott were heralded for their explosive appearances together on stage ("Desire Under the Elms" [both won Obies], "Antony and Cleopatra," "The Lion in Winter"), film (The Last Run (1971)) and TV (The Crucible (1967)), the couple's personal relationship was equally turbulent. Separated in 1963 and divorced in 1965, they remarried two years later. After appearing together in "The Last Run", Scott and Dewhurst parted ways again when he took up with another actress from the movie, Trish Van Devere, whom he later married. Scott and Dewhurst had two sons together and remained amicable.
Preferring the stage, Dewhurst was vastly underused on the big screen. Despite showing Hollywood her potential on film with a small but spectacular, spine-tingling role as an asylum patient who nearly does in poor Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story (1959), she offered only a sprinkling of film roles over the years--Man on a String (1960), A Fine Madness (1966), The Cowboys (1972), McQ (1974), Ice Castles (1978), When a Stranger Calls (1979), Tribute (1980), The Dead Zone (1983), The Boy Who Could Fly (1986), Termini Station (1989) and Dying Young (1991).
Better utilized on TV, the multiple Emmy Award winner appeared delightfully as Candice Bergen's brash worldly mother on the popular Murphy Brown (1988), earning two of her Emmy statuettes. The other two came for her strong supporting performances in the mini-movies Between Two Women (1986) and Those She Left Behind (1989). In 1985, she played Marilla Cuthbert in Kevin Sullivan's strong adaptation of Anne of Green Gables (1985) and continued her role in the mini-movie Anne of Avonlea (1987). She graced Sullivan's series Avonlea (1990) with the same character in a recurring format. Sadly, Dewhurst died before her role could be written out of the show properly. A touching death scene was edited into one episode as a tribute.
Diagnosed with cervical cancer, Colleen's fervent Christian Science beliefs led her to refuse any kind of surgical treatment. She died at age 67 at the pet-friendly South Salem, New York, farmhouse she shared with her companion (since 1974), producer Ken Marsolais on August 22, 1991. Two months later, her ex-husband George C. Scott starred in and directed a production of "On Borrowed Time", dedicating the show to her memory. Both of their sons, Alexander Robert Scott ("Alex") and Campbell Scott entered the entertainment field. Alex became a theatrical manager and writer, while Campbell has appeared on stage and in films. He appeared with his mother on Broadway in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "Ah, Wilderness!" (both by Eugene O'Neill) in the late 1980s, and in the film "Dying Young (1991)" (one of her last performances).
Her autobiography, incomplete at the time of her death (she had been working on it for nearly 15 years), finally arrived in bookstores in 1997, six years after her death.- Actress
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Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar served as Honorary Treasurer of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (term 1915), and Mayor of Poplar (term 1924-1925). He was the second Communist mayor in British history, the first being Joe Vaughan (1878-1938). Lansbury's mother was Irish film actress Moyna Macgill (1895-1975), originally from Belfast. During the first five years of Angela's life, the Lansbury family lived in a flat located in Poplar. In 1930, they moved to a house located in the Mill Hill neighborhood of north London. They spend their weekends vacationing in a farm located in Berrick Salome, a village in South Oxfordshire.
In 1935, Edgar Lansbury died from stomach cancer. Angela reportedly retreated into "playing characters", as a coping mechanism to deal with the loss. The widowed Moyna Macgill soon became engaged to Leckie Forbes, a Scottish colonel. Moyna moved into his house in Hampstead.
From 1934 to 1939, Angela was a student at South Hampstead High School. During these years, she became interested in films.. She regularly visited the local cinema, and imagined herself in various roles. Angela learned how to play the piano, and received a musical education at the Ritman School of Dancing.
In 1940, Lansbury started her acting education at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, located in Kensington, West London. She made her theatrical debut in the school's production of the play "Mary of Scotland" (1933) by Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959). The play depicted the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587, reigned 1542-1567), and Lansbury played one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
Also in 1940, Lansbury's paternal grandfather, George Lansbury, died from stomach cancer. When the Blitz started, Moyna Macgill had reasons to fear for the safety of her family and few remaining ties to England. Macgill moved to the United States to escape the Blitz, taking her three youngest children with her. Isolde was already a married adult, and was left behind in England.
Macgill secured financial sponsorship from American businessman Charles T. Smith. She and her children (including Angela) moved into Smith's house in Mahopac, New York, a hamlet in Putnam County. Lansbury was interested in continuing her studies, and secured a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing. From 1940 to 1942, Lansbury studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, located in New York City. She appeared in performances organized by the school.
In 1942, Lansbury moved with her family to a flat located in Morton Street, Greenwich Village. She soon followed her mother in her theatrical tour of Canada. Lansbury secured her first paying job in Montreal, singing at the nightclub Samovar Club for a payment of 60 dollars per week. Lansbury was 16 years old at the time, but lied about her age and claimed to be 19 in order to be hired.
Lansbury returned to New York City in August, 1942, but Moyna Macgill soon moved herself and her family again. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Moyna was interested in resurrecting her film career. Their first home there was a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills.
Lansbury helped financially support her family by working for the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. Her weekly wages were only 28 dollars, but she had a secure income while her mother was unemployed. Through her mother, Lansbury was introduced to screenwriter John Van Druten (1901-1957), who had recently completed his script of "Gaslight" (1944). He suggested that young Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, the film's conniving cockney maid. This helped secure Lansbury's first film role at the age of 17, and a seven-year contract with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She earned 500 dollars per week, and chose to continue using her own name instead of a stage name.
In 1945, Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell (1910-1960), who was 15 years older than she. The troubled marriage ended in a divorce in 1946. The former spouses remained friends until Cromwell's death.
In 1946, Lansbury started a romantic relationship with aspiring actor Peter Shaw (1918-2003), who was 7 years older than her. Shaw had recently ended his relationship with actress Joan Crawford (c. 1908-1977). The new couple started living together, while planning marriage. They wanted to be married in the United Kingdom, but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. They were married in 1949, in a Church of Scotland ceremony at St. Columba's Church, located in Knightsbridge, London. After their return to the United States, they settled into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu. In 1951, both Lansbury and Shaw became naturalized citizens of the United States, while retaining their British citizenship.
Meanwhile, Lansbury continued appearing in MGM films. She appeared in 11 MGM films between 1945 and 1952. MGM at times loaned Lansbury to other film studios. She appeared in United Artists' "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), and Paramount Pictures' "Samson and Delilah" (1949). In 1948, Lansbury made her debut in radio roles, followed by her television debut in 1950.
In 1952, Lansbury requested the termination of her contract with MGM, instead of its renewal. She felt unsatisfied with her film career as an MGM contract player. She then joined the East Coast touring productions of two former Broadway plays. By 1953, Lansbury had two children of her own and was also raising a stepson. She and her family moved into a larger house, located on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica. In 1959, she and her family moved into a house in Malibu. The married couple were able to send their children to a local public school.
Meanwhile she continued her film career as a freelance actress, but continued to be cast in middle-aged roles. She regained her A-picture actress through well-received roles in the drama film "The Long, Hot Summer" (1958) and the comedy film "The Reluctant Debutante" (1958). She also appeared regularly in television roles, and became a regular on game show "Pantomime Quiz" (1947-1959).
In 1957, Lansbury made her Broadway debut in a performance of "Hotel Paradiso". The play was an adaptation of the 1894 "L'Hôtel du libre échange" ("Free Exchange Hotel"), written by Maurice Desvallières (1857-1926) and Georges Feydeau (1862-1921). Lansbury's role as "Marcel Cat" was critically well received. She continued appearing in Broadway over the next several years, most notably cast as the verbally abusive mother in "A Taste of Honey". She was cast as the mother of co-star Joan Plowright (1929-), who was only four years younger.
In the early 1960s, Lansbury was cast as an overbearing mother in "Blue Hawaii" (1961). The role of her son was played by Elvis Presley (1935-1977), who was only 10 years than her. The film was a box office hit, it finished as the 10th-top-grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 on the "Variety" national box office survey. It gained Lansbury renewed fame, at a difficult point of her career.
Lansbury gained critical praise for a sympathetic role in the drama film "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1960), and the role of a manipulative mother in the drama film "All Fall Down" (1962). Based on her success in "All Fall Down", she was cast in a similar role in the Cold War-themed thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962). She was cast as Eleanor Iselin, the mother of her co-star Laurence Harvey (1928-1973), who was only 3 years younger than she. This turned out to be one of the most memorable roles in her career. She received critical acclaim and was nominated for a third time for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Patty Duke (1946-2016).
Lansbury made a comeback in the starring role of Mame Dennis in the musical "Mame" (1966), by Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994). The play was an adaptation of the novel "Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade" (1955) by Patrick Dennis (1921-1976), and focused on the life and ideas of eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis. The musical received critical and popular praise, and Lansbury won her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Lansbury gained significant fame from her success, becoming a "superstar".
Her newfound fame led to other high-profile appearances by Lansbury. She starred in a musical performance at the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted the 1968 Tony Awards. The Hasty Pudding Club, a social club for Harvard students. elected her "Woman of the Year" in 1968.
Lansbury's next theatrical success was in 1969 "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1945) by Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944). The play concerns an eccentric Parisian woman's struggles with authority figures. Lansbury was cast in the starring role of 75-year-old Countess Aurelia, despite her actual age of 44. The show was well received and lasted for 132 performances. Lansbury won her second Tony Award for this role.
In 1970, Lansbury's Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. Lansbury and her husband decided to buy Knockmourne Glebe, an 1820s Irish farmhouse, located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork.
Her film career reached a new height. She was cast in the starring role of benevolent witch Eglantine Price in Disney's fantasy film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). The film was a box-office hit; it was critically well received, and introduced Lansbury to a wider audience of children and families.
In 1972, Lansbury returned to the British stage, performing in London's West End with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1973, Lansbury appeared in the role of Rose in London performances of the musical "Gypsy" (1959) by Arthur Laurents. It was quite successful. In 1974, "Gypsy" went on tour in the United States. with the same cast. For her role, Lanbury won the Sarah Siddons Award and her third Tony Award. The musical had its second tour in 1975.
Tired from musicals. Lansbury next sought Shakespearean roles in the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1976, she appeared as Queen Gertrude in the National Theatre Company's production of Hamlet. In November 1975, Lansbury's mother Moyna Macgill died at the age of 79. Lansbury arranged for her mother's remains to be cremated, and the ashes scattered near her own County Cork home.
In 1976, Lansbury returned to the American stage. In 1978, Lansbury temporarily replaced Constance Towers (1933-) in the starring role of Anna Leonowens (1831-1915) in The King and I. While Towers was on a break from the role, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances.
In 1978, Lansbury appeared in her first film role in seven years, as the novelist and murder victim Salome Otterbourne in the mystery film "Death on the Nile" (1978). The film was an adaptation of the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie (1890-1976); Otterbourne was loosely based on real-life novelist Elinor Glyn (1864-1943). The film was a modest box-office hit, and Lansbury befriended her co-star Bette Davis (1908-1989).
In 1979, Lansbury was cast in the role of meat pie seller Mrs. Lovett in the musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler (1912-1987). The musical was loosely based on the penny dreadful serial novel "The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance" (1846-1847), which first depicted fictional serial killer Sweeney Todd. Lansbury remained in the role for 14 months, and was then replaced by Dorothy Loudon (1925-2003). Lansbury won her fourth Tony Award for this role. She returned to the role for 10 months in 1980.
Lansbury's next prominent film role was that of Miss Froy in "The Lady Vanishes" (1979), a remake of the 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). She was next cast in the role of amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple in the mystery film "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980), an adaptation of the novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" (1962) by Agatha Christie. The novel was loosely inspired by the life of Gene Tierney (1920-1991). The film was a modest commercial success. There were plans for at least two sequels, but they ended in development hell.
In 1982, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, She appeared at the time in the new play "A Little Family Business" and a revival of "Mame", but both shows were commercial failures. In film, Lansbury voiced the witch Mommy Fortuna in the animated fantasy film "The Last Unicorn" (1982). The film was critically well received, but was not a box-office hit.
Lansbury played Ruth in the musical comedy "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983), a film adaptation of the 1879 comic opera by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The film was a box office bomb, earning about 695,000 dollars.
Lansbury's next film role was that of Granny in the gothic fantasy film "The Company of Wolves" (1984), based on a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-1992). Lansbury was cast as the grandmother of protagonist Rosaleen (played by Sarah Patterson), in a tale featuring werewolves and shape-shifting. The film was critically well received, but barely broke even at the box office.
At about that time, Lansbury appeared regularly in television films and mini-series. Her most prominent television role was that of Jessica Fletcher in the detective series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Jessica was depicted as a successful mystery novelist from Maine who encounters and solves many murders. The character was considered an American counterpart to Miss Marple. The series followed the "whodunit" format and mostly avoided depictions of violence or gore.
The series was considered a television landmark for having an older female character as the protagonist. It was aimed primarily at middle-aged audiences, but also attracted both younger viewers and senior citizen viewers. Ratings remained high for most of its run. Lansbury rejected pressure from network executives to put her character in a relationship, as she believed that Fletcher should remain a strong single female.
In 1989, Lansbury co-founded the production company Corymore Productions, which started co-producing the television series with Universal Television. This allowed Lansbury to have more creative input on the series. She was appointed an executive producer. By the time the series ended in 1996, it tied with the original "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980) as the longest-running detective drama series in television history.
Her popularity from "Murder, She Wrote" made Lansbury a much-sought figure for advertisers. She appeared in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.
Lansbury's highest-profile film role in decades was voicing the character of singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated fantasy film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Lansbury performed the film's title song, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, Lansbury lived most of the year in California. In 1991, she had Corymore House, a farmhouse at Ballywilliam, County Cork, built as her new family home. She spend Christmases and summers there.
Following the end of "Murder, She Wrote", Lansbury returned to a career as a theatrical actress. She temporarily retired from the stage in 2001, to take care of her husband Peter Shaw, whose health was failing. Shaw died in 2003, from congestive heart failure at the couple's Brentwood, California home. Their marriage had lasted for 54 years (1949-2003).
Lansbury felt at the time that she could not take on any more major acting roles, but that she could still make cameos. She moved back to New York City in 2006, buying a condominium in Manhattan. Her first prominent film role in years was that of Aunt Adelaide in the fantasy film "Nanny McPhee" (2005). She credits her performance in the film with pulling her out of depression, a state of mind which had lasted since her husband's death.
Lansbury returned to performing on the Broadway stage in 2007, after an absence of 23 years. In 2009, she won her fifth Tony Award. She shared the record for most Tony Award victories with Julie Harris (1925-2013). In the 2010s, she continued regularly appearing in theatrical performances. In 2014, she returned to the London stage, after an absence of nearly 40 years.
In 2015, Lansbury received her first Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress. At age 89, she was among the oldest first-time winners. Also in 2015, November 2015 was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
In 2017, she was cast as Aunt March in the mini-series "Little Women". The mini-series was an adaptation of the 1868-1869 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The series lasted for 3 episodes, and was critically well received.
In 2018, Lansbury gained her next film role in Disney's fantasy film "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018), a sequel to "Mary Poppins". Lansbury was cast in the role of the Balloon Lady, a kindly old woman who sells balloons at the park. The films was a commercial hit, earning about 350 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
In 2019, Lansbury performed at a one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). a farce satirizing Victorian morals. She was cast in the role of society lady Lady Bracknell, mother to Gwendolen Fairfax.
By 2020, Lansbury was 95 years old, one of the oldest-living actresses. She has never retired from acting, and remains a popular icon.- Pamela Bellwood was born on 26 June 1944 in the USA. She is an actress, known for Airport '77 (1977), Dynasty (1981) and Serial (1980). She has been married to Nik Wheeler since 30 December 1984. They have one child. She was previously married to Peter Bellwood.
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Lorna Patterson was born on 1 July 1956 in Whittier, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Airplane! (1980), Goodtime Girls (1980) and Beane's of Boston (1979). She has been married to Michael Lembeck since 13 April 1990. They have two children. She was previously married to Robert Ginty.- The attractive daughter of Austrian-Jewish émigrés who fled their homeland to Paris in 1937 before coming to the United States, "B" actress Vanessa Brown grew up exceptionally fluent in German, French, Italian and English. She developed an early interest in acting.
Auditioning for Lillian Hellman at age 13 sporting a perfect Teutonic accent, she then earned the chance to understudy Ann Blyth on Broadway in the classic stage drama "Watch on the Rhine" in 1941. Vanessa was eventually given a featured role and followed that with a tour of the play using the stage name of Tessa Brind.
A gifted student who also wrote and directed plays at her New York high school, she was a pure natural when she appeared on the radio quiz show "Quiz Kid." Hollywood and David O. Selznick took notice of her charms and transferred her to Hollywood High. She quickly made her film debut in Youth Runs Wild (1944) and continued in secondary teen roles with The Girl of the Limberlost (1945), I've Always Loved You (1946), Margie (1946), and The Late George Apley (1947), the last being her best and showiest of her career.
Following high school graduation, the now-billed "Vanessa Brown" progressed to young adult roles. She received lots of attention when she won the role of Jane opposite Lex Barker's loin-clothed swinger in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950), but abruptly left the series after only one attempt.
In the 1950s, Vanessa moved to TV where she became a perky panelist in such quiz shows as "Leave It to the Girls" (1949) and "Pantomime Quiz," in addition to regular dramatic programming. After a small part in the classic film The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Vanessa found renewed attention on Broadway co-starring as the girl who lives upstairs in the phenomenal hit "The Seven Year Itch" opposite Tom Ewell. Of course, she wasn't given the chance to repeat her sexy role in Hollywood. The meteoric Marilyn Monroe was an absolute sensation in Vanessa's part opposite Ewell in the 1955 movie version.
On TV, Vanessa replaced Joan Caulfield on the sitcom My Favorite Husband (1953) with Barry Nelson, enjoying a couple of seasons of steady paychecks. Politics overrode all other interests in 1956 when she actively served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Acting took a further back seat in the early 60s when she married her second husband, TV director Mark Sandrich Jr., and gave birth to two children. From then on she was glimpsed here and there in small, matronly roles in such films as Rosie! (1967) and Bless the Beasts & Children (1971). In addition she had some running parts on a couple of daytime and nighttime TV programs.
Vanessa's last years were marred by a second divorce (from Sandrich) and ill health. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988, she had successful surgery, but the cancer returned and the 71-year-old actress died on May 21, 1999 at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California. - Actress
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This attractive, happy go lucky blonde actress, educated at the University of Kansas and a former ballet soloist, first broke into both TV and cinema screens in the mid 1970s and through her appearances in several well remembered horror and sci-fi films, and Dee quickly gained a cult following among the fantasy film fans. Poor Dee always seemed to be on the wrong side of some malevolent person or evil creature....she was pursued by a clan of cannibal killers in The Hills Have Eyes (1977), terrorized by a pack of werewolves in the superb The Howling (1981), got a break from the horror, as a sympathetic mom in the mega sci-fi hit E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and nearly ends up lunch for a rabid St. Bernard in the heart stopping Cujo (1983).
In the early 1980s, Wallace-Stone actually shared the screen several times with her then husband Christopher Stone before his unfortunate, early demise from a heart attack in October, 1995.
However, typecasting Dee Wallace-Stone as a horror heroine does not do her justice, as unlike some other scream queens whose careers quickly faded, Dee has gone on to have a very busy and varied acting career, appearing in over 90 feature films to date! Her All-American looks and easy going demeanor has seen Dee often cast as a typical suburban mother, a sympathetic friend, or a trusted ally. Fans warm to her endearing smile and natural warmth, and Dee continues to find herself in constant demand in front of the camera, plus she has her own much visited website.- Actress
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Of regal bearing and imposing stance, flame-haired British classical actress Judy Parfitt is the possessor of the chilliest blue orbs in all of London and has used them to her advantage over the years with her clever portrayals of haughty, bossy, imperious, deliciously malevolent patricians. Born Judy Catherine Claire Parfitt on November 7, 1935, in South Yorkshire, England, she was educated at Notre Dame High School for Girls before enrolling for acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA)
She made her stage debut with "Fools Rush In" in 1954, and continued to impress with such pieces as "Things Remembered" (1955) and "A Likely Talk" (London debut, 1956). She moved to TV and in the early 1960s was spotted in a number of TV guest appearances on such BBC programs as "The Plane Makers," "The Odd Man," "Queen and the Rebels," "Dr. Finlay's Casebook," "Public Eye," "Front Page Story," "Undermind," "Londoners," "Z Cars," "The Saint," "Emergency-Ward 10," "The Avengers" and played the embittered Rosa Dartle in the David Copperfield (1966) TV series. Judy also was a regular on the crime series A Man Called Harry Brent (1965) and portrayed Madame Thenardier in the mini-series Les Misérables (1967).
She drew acclaim on the stage with such roles as "The Daughter-in-Law" at the Royal Court, "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd (title role) (1967), "The Hotel in Amsterdam" (1968), and her portrayal of Gertrude in "Hamlet" in 1969. A year later she recreated the Shakespearean role in the lauded film version of Hamlet (1969) directed by Nick Richardson starring Nicol Williamson in the title role, Anthony Hopkins as Claudius and pop singer Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia. Judy continued to impress on the stage with "The Double Dealer" (1969), the title role in "The Duchess of Malfi" (1971), "Vivat! Vivat Regina! (as Mary, Queen of Scots) (1971), "The Apple Cart" (1973), "Echoes from a Concrete Canyon" (1975), "The Family Dance" (1976) and "The Cherry Orchard" (1978).
In later years the veteran actress appeared on stage in a production of "An Inspector Calls" (1993) and made her Broadway debut co-starring with Matthew Broderick in the revival of "Night Must Fall" (1999). Sporadic film credits would include featured roles in The Mind of Mr. Soames (1970) starring Terence Stamp as a man who awakens from a 30-year coma; the biopic Galileo (1975) starring Topol; a doctor in a biopic about steeple chase jockey and cancer patient Bob Champion entitled Champions (1984); the social comedy The Chain (1984) the gay romantic drama Maurice (1987); the romantic comedy Getting It Right (1989); the psychological thriller Diamond Skulls (1989); as Queen Katherine in the John Goodman comedy vehicle King Ralph (1991); and the war drama Silent Cries (1993).
Outside of Gertrude in "Hamlet," Judy earned her finest role on film with the gloomy-styled thriller Dolores Claiborne (1995), nearly stealing the thunder from stars Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Bates' wealthy, dictatorial employer. Her clever and utterly gripping performance was surprisingly overlooked come Oscar time. Elsewhere, she was lauded for her sterling work in several TV mini-series, including her Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities (1980); her Lady Catherine in Pride and Prejudice (1980); her Mildred Layton The Jewel in the Crown (1984), for which she earned a BAFTA nomination; her Hilda Spearpoint in The Gravy Train (1990); her Martha in Eye of the Storm (1993) her Mercy Woolf in Funland (2005); her Mrs. Clennam in Little Dorrit (2008); her Hester Waterhouse in The Game (2014). In America she was a recurring presence for a time on the medical series ER (1994). Other popular films she has graced are Wilde (1997), Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) (as Queen Marie), and Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), for which she earned a BAFTA nomination,
Judy was long married to actor Tony Steedman, who made a guest appearance as Santa Claus on her short-lived '80s sitcom The Charmings (1987) in which she played the Queen. He died in February of 2001. Since then she has ventured on, an always fascinating character presence especially in elegant and period settings. She has recently been seen in a regular role as Sister Monica Joan in the historical TV series drama Call the Midwife (2012).- Actress
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Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring her future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organization, and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions as Great Expectations (1946) (as the spoiled, selfish Estella), Black Narcissus (1947) (as a sultry native beauty), Hamlet (1948) (playing Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's great Dane and earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950), among others.
In 1950, she married Stewart Granger, and that same year, she moved to Hollywood. While Granger was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures. Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances. Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by Angel Face (1952), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. To further punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount, where William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday (1953); the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn. A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio - she would be lent out. MGM cast her in the lead of Young Bess (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled Affair with a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.
Simmons went over to 20th Century Fox to play the female lead in The Robe (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was The Actress (1953) at MGM alongside Spencer Tracy, despite superb reviews; it was one of her personal favorites. Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's A Bullet Is Waiting (1954). More popular with moviegoers was Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary to Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte. Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). She then starred in the musical Guys and Dolls (1955) with Brando and Frank Sinatra; she used her own singing voice and earned her first Golden Globe Award. Simmons played the title role in Hilda Crane (1956) at Fox, a commercial failure. So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM. Simmons had a big success, though, in The Big Country (1958), directed by Wyler. She starred in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal.
Simmons divorced Granger in 1960 and almost immediately married writer-director Richard Brooks, who cast her as Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960), a memorable adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. That same year, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and played a would-be homewrecker opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960).
Off the screen for a few years, Jean captivated moviegoers with a brilliant performance as the mother in All the Way Home (1963), a literate, tasteful adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family". However, after that, she found quality projects somewhat harder to come by, and took work in Life at the Top (1965), Mister Buddwing (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), The Happy Ending (1969) (a Richard Brooks film for which she was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Actress).
Jean continued making films well into the 1970s. In the 1980s, she appeared mainly in television miniseries, such as North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and The Thorn Birds (1983). She made a comeback to films in 1995 in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) co-starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, and most recently voiced the elderly Sophie in the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She now resided in Santa Monica, California, with her dog, Mr. Gates, and her two cats, Adisson and Megan. Jean Simmons died of lung cancer on January 22, 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday.- Actress
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Musical theater devotees will undoubtedly know that the song "Let Me Entertain You" was from the classic musical "Gypsy", the born-in-a-trunk story of resilient kid troopers Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc who were mercilessly pushed into vaudeville careers by an unbearably headstrong mother. While the lesser-talented Gypsy, of course, became the legendary ecdysiast who turned stripping into an art form, sister June survived her "Baby June" vaudeville child days of old and the tougher road of Depression-era dance marathons to become a reputable actress of stage, screen and TV, among other things. While June may have immortalized in "Gypsy," based on her older sister's memoirs, it was a bittersweet notoriety as she felt it was a very unjust, hurtful and highly inaccurate portrait of her. It also caused a deep rift between the sisters that lasted for well over a decade.
The Canadian-born actress (she was born in Vancouver, not Seattle) entered the world in 1912 (some sources insist 1913 or 1916, but Havoc confirmed her true birth date in 2006), the younger daughter of audacious "stage mother" Rose Thompson Hovick and her husband, John Olaf Hovick, a cub reporter for a Seattle newspaper. Baby June was primed for stardom by Rose by age 2 and was soon dancing with the great ballerina Anna Pavlova and appearing in Hal Roach film shorts (1918-1924) with Harold Lloyd. A flexible, high-kicking vaudeville sensation at 5, she was featured front-and-center in an act completely built around her ("Dainty June and Her Newsboys"). Earning around $1,500 a week at her peak, the delightful child star had audiences eating out of the palm of her little hand while sharing the stage with the likes of "Red-Hot Mama" Sophie Tucker and "Baby Snooks" Fanny Brice. The unrelenting pressures and suffocating dominance of her mother, however, led to a capricious elopement at age 13 with a young boy from the act (Bobby Reed, who inspired the dancing character of Tulsa in "Gypsy"). They married in North Platte, Nebraska with each lying about their age. By the time the Depression hit, however, vaudeville, the nation's economy and her marriage had all collapsed.
Now a mother of a young daughter, April (born out of wedlock in 1930, April Kent acted briefly in the 1950s and died of a heart attack in 1998), June made ends meet by modeling, posing and toiling in dance marathons. The blonde, blue-eyed stunner also found work in stock musicals and on the Borscht Belt circuit. She made her Broadway debut in the musical "Forbidden Melody in 1936". Years passed before she earned her big break as Gladys in Rodgers and Hart's classic musical "Pal Joey" opposite Van Johnson and Gene Kelly in 1940. As a result of their scene-stealing work, the trio earned movie contracts - the two men heading off to the MGM studio and June to RKO.
Unlike her male counterparts, June found herself inextricably caught up in "B" level material. Her film debut in the war-era Four Jacks and a Jill (1942) was followed by the equally ho-hum Powder Town (1942) and Sing Your Worries Away (1942), neither requiring much in the line of acting. Her personality was big for the screen due to her broad vaudeville background, but she nevertheless could show some true grit and talent on occasion, particularly with her support role in My Sister Eileen (1942).
For the next few years she experienced both highs and lows. Her Broadway shows were either hits, such as the musical "Mexican Hayride" (1944) (for which she won the Donaldson Award), and the dramatic "The Ryan Girl" (1945), or complete misses, which included a musical version of the Sadie Thompson saga Rain. June's film acting continued to be a stumbling block, scoring best when asked to play brassy, cynical dames. While she fared well as the femme fatale in Intrigue (1947), the racist secretary in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and the gun moll The Story of Molly X (1949), more often than not, she was handed second-rate fodder to flounder in such as The Iron Curtain (1948), Once a Thief (1950) and Follow the Sun (1951). She appeared on TV in the early 50s, and she received her own short-lived vehicles as a lawyer in Willy (1954) and as host of her own show The June Havoc Show (1964).
After completing her last film Three for Jamie Dawn (1956), June refocused on stage and TV - particularly the former. She earned some of her best reviews both here and abroad in later years: Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Mistress Sullen in "The Beaux' Stratagem," Sabina in "The Skin of Our Teeth," Millicent in "Dinner at Eight," Jenny in "The Threepenny Opera," Mrs. Swabb in "Habeas Corpus," and Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd". In 1982 she pulled out all the stops on Broadway and gave a real Rose's Turn as a Miss Hannigan replacement in "Annie".
June expanded her talents to include both playwriting and directing. In addition to "I Said the Fly," she wrote "Marathon '33" (based on her Depression-era struggles) and received a 1964 Tony nomination for directing the play. June became the artistic director of the New Orleans Repertory Theatre in 1970, and later went on tour with her own one-woman show "An Evening with June Havoc". On stage and broaching age 80, the never-say-die actress appeared in a production of "Love Letters" and "An Old Lady's Guide to Survival".
June's mid-career biography "Early Havoc" was published in 1959. Married three times (her last husband, producer/director/writer William Spier died in 1973), June was long estranged from her sister, none too happy with Gypsy's portrayal of her in the best-selling memoir, "Gypsy" and equally dismayed of her Baby June character in the smash musical hit. The girls, noted for their trademark elongated faces and shapely gams, were estranged as children as well, but eventually patched things up for a time as adults. The sisters didn't truly grow close until Gypsy told June that she was dying of lung cancer in 1970. June elaborated more about her relationship with her sister in her second autobiography, "More Havoc" in 1980.
Ms. Havoc died peacefully on March 28, 2010, at her home in Stamford, Connecticut of natural causes. She was 97 years young.- Lila Kaye was born on 7 November 1929 in Middlesex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Invisible Man (1984) and See No Evil (1971). She died on 10 January 2012 in England, UK.
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Holland Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the third-born (and last) daughter of her mother, Virginia (Davis), a painter, and the only child of her father, C. Tracy Taylor, an attorney. She spent her teen years in nearby Allentown, PA, where Holland got the nickname, "Penny Taylor" because of her coppery hair color. Holland attended Quaker schools, then majored in drama at Bennington College. At the age of 22 Holland moved to New York with the desire to become a "great big Broadway star." After fifteen years of "disappointments and near misses" in New York and California, Holland was cast as Ruth Dunbar in the sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980) with Tom Hanks. It was Holland's "breakout" role and it led to many other TV and film offers including the movie Romancing the Stone (1984) as Kathleen Turner's book publisher and friend. Holland had hesitated to accept the role but her acting coach and mentor Stella Adler encouraged her not to be so "stage minded." In 1992 Holland was still living in Greenwich Village, New York and traveling back and forth between a rented apartment in Hollywood and New York in order to work on both coasts. Holland has said her first love was the theater but the work for her in TV and films was better. However, by 1992, Holland said she was dealing with traveling back and forth "less and less well". Over the next few years, Holland moved to California full-time. In the last couple of years, she gave up her apartment in West Hollywood for her own home in the Hollywood Hills. Holland won an Emmy in 1999 for her work in The Practice (1997).- Actress
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A leading lady on screen, stage and sometimes television, Brenda Vaccaro, was born in Brooklyn but was actually raised in Dallas, Texas.
Her appetite for acting increased following several appearances in high school productions, and she finally started a professional career in the 1960s. Memorable to many in Supergirl (1984), she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar in Once Is Not Enough (1975).
Recently appeared in Just Desserts (2004).- Actress
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Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926 when Kim was only three years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.
According to an in-depth article on Kim Hunter by Joseph Collura in the October 2009 issue of "Classic Images", Kim was quiet and painfully shy as a child and overcame it through the guidance of a local dramatics teacher, a Mrs. Carmine. Included were diction, voice and posture lessons.
She studied at the Actors Studio and her first professional appearance was as "Penny" in "Penny Wise" in Miami in November 1939. Then, she joined a repertory group called "Theatre of Fifteen", but it disbanded in 1942 when WWII took away most of its male members.
She made her Broadway debut performance as "Stella" in "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, in December 1947 that was the 1947-1948 season's success and for which she won the Critics Circle and Donaldson awards.
A one-time student of the Pasadena Playhouse, she was appearing in the 1942 production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" when she was discovered by an RKO talent hunter who signed her to a seven-year contract for David O. Selznick's company. Selznick suggested she change her first name to "Kim" and a RKO secretary suggested the last name of "Hunter". A few years later, Irene Mayer Selznick, David's ex-wife by then, recommended Kim for her reprise role of "Stella" in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which she won an Oscar.- Actress
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Born in Boise City, Oklahoma, Vera Miles attended school in Pratt, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas. The patrician beauty of Miss Miles won her the title of "Miss Kansas" in 1948, leading soon to small roles in Hollywood films and television series. Fame came to the forthright, spirited Miles when she attracted the attention of two master directors, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. Ford cast her in the classic western The Searchers (1956) and Hitchcock, who put her under personal contract and hailed her as his "new Grace Kelly", paired her with the great Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man (1956). Hitchcock cast Miles in the potentially star-making role of Judy Barton in Vertigo (1958), but Miles withdrew from the film when she became pregnant. Hitchcock gave Miles a supporting role in another masterpiece Psycho (1960), as did Ford when he cast her opposite John Wayne and James Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), She also starred in such films as Beau James (1957) opposite Bob Hope, The FBI Story (1959) opposite Stewart, Back Street (1961) opposite Susan Hayward and John Gavin and Sergeant Ryker (1968) opposite Lee Marvin, as well as showing her consistently remarkable and versatile talent on dozens of popular television movies and series including The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), The Twilight Zone (1959), The Outer Limits (1963), The Fugitive (1963), My Three Sons (1960), Bonanza (1959), Columbo (1971) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 1983, she reprised her role as "Lila Crane" in the film sequel Psycho II (1983), starring Anthony Perkins. Although, too often, the stunningly beautiful Miles' gifts were underutilized, before her retirement in 1995, hers was a most intriguing and enduring Hollywood career.- Actress
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Born Angela Maxine O'Brien on January 15, 1937 in San Diego, California. Her film debut was one-minute shot in MGM's Babes on Broadway (1941). Her big moment came when she was cast in Journey for Margaret (1942). This film shot her into instant stardom and also resulted in Angela changing her name to Margaret. Throughout the 1940s Margaret was a major child star. Her unforgettable performance as "Tootie" in Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) won her an Academy Award as "Outstanding Child Actress" of her day. She gave brilliant performances in such films as The Canterville Ghost (1944), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945), The Secret Garden (1949) and Little Women (1949). By the early 1950s Margaret had made a mint for MGM and earned a personal fortune. Then she brilliantly graduated into adolescent roles and she never retired from the screen. She also remained active on TV and on the dinner-theater circuit. She frequently is appearing at prestigious events as Celebrity Host or Guest Star and popular Public Speaker.- Actress
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Katherine Kiernan Mulgrew, or Kate Mulgrew, was born on April 29, 1955. She grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, the second oldest child (and oldest girl) in a large Irish Catholic family. When Kate expressed an interest in acting as a child, her mother, Joan, encouraged her to audition for local theater productions. Kate left Iowa for New York City at age 17 to pursue a career in acting. Kate was accepted into the Stella Adler Conservatory (part of New York University's acting program) and studied there for only a year, as she landed the lead role in the ABC soap opera Ryan's Hope in 1975, vaulting her to instant stardom.
At the same time she was filming Ryan's Hope, Kate played the role of Emily in the American Shakespeare Theatre's production of "Our Town" in Stratford, Connecticut. At age 23, following her success on Ryan's Hope, Kate was offered the lead role of Kate Columbo in "Mrs. Columbo," playing the wife of one of television's most beloved detectives, Lt. Columbo, as made famous by actor Peter Falk. While critically successful, the series was canceled after two seasons.
In 1981, Mulgrew co-starred with Richard Burton and Nicholas Clay in Lovespell, a film set in the era of Arthurian legend, as Irish princess Isolt, whose love story with Tristan is a classic tale of doomed love. That same year, Kate co-starred with Pierce Brosnan in the six-hour miniseries, The Manions of America, set in 19th century America just before the start of the Civil War. In 1985, she had a notable role in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins as officer Major Fleming. In 1986, Kate appeared in a number of of Cheers episodes as congresswoman Janet Eldridge, a love interest for series lead Sam Malone (Ted Danson). In 1987, she appeared in Throw Momma from the Train as Margaret, Billy Crystal's ex-wife.
In 1992, Kate appeared on several episodes of Murphy Brown as Hillary Wheaton, a Toronto-based anchorwoman brought in to replace Murphy Brown during her maternity leave, but who also struggled with alcoholism (just as Brown did at the beginning of the series). Also in 1992, she played a guest-starring role as a soap opera star who kills her husband and tries to cover it up, on Murder, She Wrote, episode #170, titled "Ever After". Kate also guest-starred in three episodes of Batman: The Animated Series as the terrorist Red Claw. Kate has gone on to do a great deal of voice work for animated series and video games.
Shortly after, Kate married theater director Robert H. Egan in 1982. They have two sons, Ian Thomas and Alexander James. The two officially divorced in 1995.
More notably in 1995, Kate received a call that a part for which she'd auditioned but another actress had been chosen for - Captain Kathryn Janeway, the first female Star Trek captain. The first actress quit within two days of beginning production, leading producers to call Kate back and offer her the role. Star Trek: Voyager, as the newly-created UPN's flagship network show, had found its captain. Kate portrayed Janeway for seven seasons, and also appeared briefly in Star Trek: Nemesis as Admiral Kathryn Janeway.
Mulgrew played Katharine Hepburn in the one-woman play "Tea at Five", debuting in Hartford, Connecticut in 2002 and going on to tour across the U.S. after a stint on Broadway. For this role, Kate received a Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress, an Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, Broadway.com's Audience Award for Favorite Solo Performance, and won the award for Best Actress at the 29th Carbonell Awards for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn, all in 2003.
Kate married Tim Hagan, former Ohio gubernatorial candidate and former commissioner of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in April 1999. The two divorced in 2014.
From 2003 to 2013, Kate had many memorable television appearances, including stints on The Black Donnellys, Mercy, cult favorite Warehouse 13, and NTSF:SD:SUV. In 2013, Kate began work on Netflix breakout out Orange Is The New Black as the wildly popular prison chef Galina "Red" Reznikov. OITNB is set to conclude in the summer of 2019.
Kate is also an author of two memoirs - 2016's Born With Teeth (Little Brown) and 2019's How To Forget: A Daughter's Memoir (Harper Collins). She is filming the newest season of Mr. Mercedes, a serial killer drama based on Stephen King's Bill Hodges trilogy. Mr. Mercedes airs on the AT&T Audience network and can be streamed on DirecTV.- Actress
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Shirley Anne Field was one of Britain's most highly respected actresses. She starred opposite Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney, Steve McQueen, Michael Caine, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ned Beatty in such classic films as The Entertainer, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The War Lover, Alfie, My Beautiful Laundrette and Hear My Song.
As a teenager, she returned to London, her birthplace. She worked as a photographic model to pay her way through acting school, and had small parts in films. Her break came when she was cast as Tina the Beauty Queen opposite Sir Laurence Oliver in The Entertainer. She credited Tony Richardson, the director, with starting her (proper) career.
Her role as "Doreen" in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning soon followed. Only 22 years old, Shirley Anne was a major film star. Her next movie, Man in the Moon, was featured in a Royal Command Performance. This resulted in her name being above the title in all the major cinemas around Leicester Square. Apparently this is a record to this day.
A friend of Richardson told Shirley how Tony and he had gone to Leicester Square to see her name in lights. She worked with Albert Finney at the Royal Court in Lindsay Anderson production of The Lily White Boys. They later worked together again, on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, written by Alan Sillitoe.
Hollywood was paying attention. Shirley Anne was cast as the female lead in The War Lover opposite Steve McQueen and Robert Wagner. Then she starred in a Hollywood blockbuster, Kings of the Sun, with Yul Brynner and George Chakiris, filmed in Mexico.
She interspersed her film career with theatre and TV performances in Britain and around the world. She played the lead in Wait until Dark in South Africa. She played the part of "Pamela" in the U.S. television drama Santa Barbara.
In the 1980s, she met up again with Stephen Frears, with whom she had worked when they were both beginners at the Royal Court. He cast her in My Beautiful Laundrette which was a big success and a breakthrough movie Her next big film was Hear My Song, as Cathleen Doyle, was made in the 1990s.
In recent years, she toured in theatre productions such as The Cemetery Club and Five Blue Hair Ladies Sitting on a Green Park Bench. Late in her career, she appeared alongside Flora Spencer Longhurst in Beautiful Relics, a short film directed by Adrian Hedgecock.- Actress
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Sally Kellerman arrived quite young on the late 1950s film and television scene with a fresh and distinctively weird, misfit presence. It is this same uniqueness that continued to make her such an attractively offbeat performer. The willowy, swan-necked, flaxen-haired actress shot to film comedy fame after toiling nearly a decade and a half in the business, and is still most brazenly remembered for her career-maker in the irreverent hit Korean War dramedy M*A*S*H (1970), for which she received supporting Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. From there, she went on to enjoy several other hallmark moments as both an actress and a vocalist.
California native Sally Clare Kellerman was born in Long Beach on June 2, 1937, to Edith (née Vaughn), a piano teacher, and John Helm Kellerman, a Shell Oil Company executive. Raised along with her sister in the San Fernando Valley area, Sally was attracted to the performing arts after seeing Marlon Brando star in the film Viva Zapata! (1952). Attending the renowned Hollywood High School as a teenager, she sang in musical productions while there, including a version of "Meet Me in St. Louis." Following graduation, she enrolled at Los Angeles City College but left after a year when enticed by acting guru Jeff Corey's classes.
Initially inhibited by her height (5'10"), noticeably gawky and slinky frame and wide slash of a mouth, Kellerman proved difficult to cast at first but finally found herself up for the lead role in Otto Preminger's "A"-level film Saint Joan (1957). She lost out in the end, however, when Preminger finally decided to give the role of Joan of Arc to fellow newcomer Jean Seberg. Hardly compensation, 20-year-old Sally made her film debut that same year as a girls' reformatory inmate who threatens the titular leading lady in the cult "C" juvenile delinquent drama Reform School Girl (1957) starring "good girl" Gloria Castillo and "bad guy" Edd Byrnes of "777 Sunset Strip" teen idol fame, an actor she met and was dating after attending Corey's workshops. Directed by infamous low-budget horror film Samuel Z. Arkoff, her secondary part in the film did little in the way of advancing her career.
During the same period of time, Sally pursued a singing career and earned a recording contract with Verve Records. The 1960s was an uneventful but growing period for Kellerman, finding spurts of quirky TV roles in both comedies ("Bachelor Father," "My Three Sons," "Dobie Gillis" and "Ozzie and Harriet") and dramas ("Lock Up," "Surfside 6," "Cheyenne," "The Outer Limits," "The Rogues," "Slattery's People" and the second pilot of "Star Trek"). Sally's sophomore film was just as campy as the first, but her part was even smaller. As an ill-fated victim of the Hands of a Stranger (1962), the oft-told horror story of a concert pianist whose transplanted hands become deadly, the film came and went without much fanfare.
Studying later at Los Angeles' Actors' Studio (West), Sally's roles increased toward the end of the 1960s with featured parts in more quality filming, including The Third Day (1965), The Boston Strangler (1968) (as a target for serial killer Tony Curtis) and The April Fools (1969). Sally's monumental break came, of course, via director Robert Altman when he hired her for, and she created a dusky-voiced sensation out of, the aggressively irritating character Major Margaret "'Hot Lips" Houlihan. Her highlighting naked-shower scene in the groundbreaking cinematic comedy M*A*S*H (1970) had audiences ultimately laughing and gasping at the same time. Both she and the film were a spectacular success with Sally the sole actor to earn an Oscar nomination for her marvelous work here. She lost that year to the overly spunky veteran Helen Hayes in Airport (1970).
Becoming extremely good friends with Altman during the movie shoot, Sally went on to film a couple more of the famed director's more winning and prestigious films of the 1970s, beginning with her wildly crazed "angelic" role in Brewster McCloud (1970), and finishing up brilliantly as a man-hungry real estate agent in his Welcome to L.A. (1976), directed by Alan Rudolph. Sally later regretted not taking the Karen Black singing showcase role in one of Altman's best-embraced films, Nashville (1975), when originally offered. Still pursuing her singing interests, she put out her first album, "Roll with the Feelin'" for Decca Records in 1972.
Films continued to be a priority and Sally was deemed a quirky comedy treasure in both co-star and top supporting roles of the 1970s. She was well cast neurotically opposite Alan Arkin in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) and again alongside ex-con James Caan as a sexy but loony delight in Slither (1973), a precursor to the Coen Bros.' darkly comic films. She also co-starred and contributed a song ("Reflections") to the Burt Bacharach/Hal David soundtrack of the Utopian film Lost Horizon (1973), a musical picture that proved lifeless at the box office. More impressive work came with the movies A Little Romance (1979) as young Diane Lane's quirky mom; Foxes (1980) as Jodie Foster's confronting mother; Serial (1980), a California comedy satire starring Martin Mull; That's Life! (1986), a social comedy with Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews; and Back to School (1986), comic Rodney Dangerfield's raucous vehicle hit.
Sally's films from the 1980s on were a mixed bag. While some, such as the low-grade Moving Violations (1985), Meatballs III: Summer Job (1986), Doppelganger (1993), American Virgin (1999) and Women of the Night (2001) were beneath her considerable talents, her presence in others were, at the very least, catchy such as her Natasha Fatale opposite Dave Thomas' Boris Badenov in Boris and Natasha (1992); director Percy Adlon's inventive Younger and Younger (1993), which reunited her with MASH co-star Donald Sutherland, and in Robert Altman's rather disjointed, ill-received all-star effort Ready to Wear (1994) in which she played a fashion magazine editor.
When her film output waned in later years, Sally lent a fine focus back to her singing career and made a musical dent as a deep-voiced blues and jazz artist. She started hitting the Los Angeles and New York club circuits with solo acts. In 2009, Kellerman released her first album since "Roll with The Feelin'" simply titled "Sally," a jazz and blues-fused album. Along those same lines, Sally played a nightclub singer in the comedy Limit Up (1989) Kellerman's seductively throaty voice has also put her in good standing as a voice-over artist of commercials, feature films, and television.
Among her offbeat output in millennium films were prime/featured roles in the soft-core thriller Women of the Night (2001), written and director by Zalman King, in which she played a lady deejay (she also gets to sing); the real estate musical Open House (2004) in which she played an agent (who gets to sing again); the Florida senior citizens' romantic comedy Boynton Beach Club (2005); the comedy Night Club (2011) where friends and residents start a club in a retirement home; the social dramas A Place for Heroes (2014) and A Timeless Love (2016); and the family dramedy The Remake (2016).
Divorced from Rick Edelstein, Kellerman married Jonathan D. Krane in 1980 and the couple adopted twins, Jack and Hanna. Sally was also the adoptive mother of her niece, Claire Graham. Her husband died unexpectedly in August 2016; less than three months later, daughter Hanna died from heroin and methamphetamine use. Sally died on February 24, 2022 in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Born in London, Jean Marsh became interested in show business while taking dancing and mime classes as therapy for a childhood illness. After attending a charm school and working as a model, she started acting in repertory and took voice lessons. Her repertory work was supplemented by a number of film appearances as a dancer. She then spent three years in America, appearing in Sir John Gielgud's Broadway production of "Much Ado About Nothing" and numerous TV shows, including an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959). Returning to London, she won roles on stage, film and TV. It was during this period that she appeared in Doctor Who (1963), first as Princess Joanna in "The Crusade" and then as Sara Kingdom in "The Daleks' Master Plan." In the early 1970s she co-created and starred in LWT's Upstairs, Downstairs (1971). Since then she has maintained a very busy career in the theatre, on TV - including a starring role in the US sitcom Nine to Five (1982) and films such as Return to Oz (1985) and Willow (1988). She also co-created another successful series, The House of Eliott (1991).- Actress
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Born Margaret Baker in Plymouth, Devon, in 1946, Maggie Steed studied drama with the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, graduating in the late 1960s. However, her first professional engagements were as an assistant stage manager, working behind the scenes in a somewhat lowly capacity, because, she says, she was not considered conventionally pretty enough to be an actress. She does, however, recall that the eccentric English puppeteer Harry Corbett praised her for assisting him with his creation Sooty the Bear. Maggie left theatrical life after only a few months and for several years worked as a secretary. An interest in Theatre in Education lured her back to the stage, this time as an actress, with Sue Johnston and Clive Russell at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Since then she has worked on stage with both the Royal Shakespeare and National Theatre Companies, and in 2002 was a commanding Lady Bracknell in a revival of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. A lady of political awareness, she was a founder member of the Campaign Against Racism in the Media, and in the early 1980s visited Nicaragua with actor Andy de la Tour to view the plight of its citizens, and in 1983, helped stage the televised Concert for Nigaragua. She is, however, best remembered for her television roles, chiefly comical ones, beginning in the early 1980s with 'Shine On Harvey Moon', through 'A Bit of a Do' and 'Pie In the Sky' as the wife of cop-turned-chef Richard Griffiths to, in the mid-2000s. 'Jam and Jerusalem' as the dim but well-meaning Women's Institute leader, a sitcom filmed in her native Devon and reuniting her with her early stage co-star Sue Johnston.- Marian McLoughlin was born on 9 December 1952 in Croydon, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Spice World (1997), Party Animals (2007) and The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson (2009).
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Selina Cadell was born on 12 August 1953 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Wild Child (2008), Match Point (2005) and Doc Martin (2004). She was previously married to Michael Thomas.- Lucy Cohu was born on 2 October 1968 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Becoming Jane (2007), Gosford Park (2001) and The Queen's Sister (2005). She was previously married to Corey Johnson.
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Lorraine Ashbourne was born on 7 January 1961 in Manchester, England, UK. She is an actress, known for King Kong (2005), Child 44 (2015) and Breathe (2017). She has been married to Andy Serkis since 22 July 2002. They have three children.- Actress
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Joan Sims, the "First Lady of Carry On", was born Irene Joan Marion Sims on 9 May 1930. The daughter of an Essex railway station master, Joan was interested in pursuing show-business, and soon became a familiar face in a growing number of amateur productions. In 1946, Joan first applied to RADA, her audition was unsuccessful. She did succeed in being admitted to the academy's preparatory school, and finally, on her fourth attempt, trained at RADA. She graduated in 1950 at the age of nineteen.
A cameo appearance in Doctor in the House (1954) as the sexually repressed Nurse Rigor Mortis led to Joan being first spotted by Peter Rogers; Rogers' wife Betty E. Box was the producer of the Doctor series, in which Joan herself became a regular.
A few years later, in 1958, Joan received another script from Peter Rogers, it was Carry on Nurse (1959). The film had been a huge success at the box office and in the autumn of that year Rogers and Gerald Thomas began planning a follow up. She went on to appear in 24 of the films, making her the longest serving female member of the team.
She first starred in the following three Carry On films: Carry on Teacher (1959), Carry on Constable (1960) and Carry on Regardless (1961), before taking a break from the next four films to concentrate on stage work. She rejoined the team with Carry on Cleo (1964) and remained all the way through to Carry on Emmannuelle (1978) in 1978.
Ironically, she was never proclaimed Queen of Carry On. This title went to saucy Barbara Windsor, even though she had only appeared in nine Carry On films.
One could argue that her final performances in the Carry On films were rather sentimental, as though she knew that the series was coming to an end and two scenes come to mind. The scene in which she plays cards with Peter Butterworth in Carry on Behind (1975) in his caravan late at night, and also in the launderette where she dances with an early Carry Oner Victor Maddern in Carry on Emmannuelle (1978). Both of these are memorable sentimental film scene stealers.
With the end of the Carry On series in 1978, Joan went on to become a familiar face on TV screens, with ongoing roles in a number of highly successful sitcoms On the Up (1990) and As Time Goes By (1992) and the BBC's prestigious classic drama adaptations such as Martin Chuzzlewit (1994).
Joan's autobiography, High Spirits, was released in 2000. She complains in the last few pages of her book at the lack of information on her on the IMDB trivia page, something that was only significantly expanded after her death.
In her later years she became a cult figure and something of a British National Institution as the only surviving major Carry On star from early days. However, years of heavy drinking took their toll and she suffered in her later years with ill health. She was admitted to Hospital in Chelsea in London in mid 2001 and slipped into a coma. She died on 28 June 2001, with her lifelong friend and Carry On Norah Holland holding her hand.
Following her death, surviving Carry On stars celebrated her achievement in the Carry On films. Barbara Windsor, said at the time of her death, "To me she was the last of the great Carry Ons, she was there at the beginning. Her talent was wonderful, she could do any accent, dialect, she could dance, sing, play dowdy and glam. We laughed all the time and giggled a lot. I will sorely miss her." That quote is so true, throughout her whole Carry On career she alone stands apart as the most versatile actress in the whole series. She was never typecast in the films like the other actors and actresses.
Others also paid tribute, even ex-Government Cabinet Ministers. Her agent Richard Hatton said, "It's wonderful to be able to say that she really did have all the qualities that her many fans would have wished. A great sense of humour, a sympathetic and endearing personality, terrific talent and consideration for others.
"Over and above this, she discovered a new side of herself when she wrote her autobiography last year, which was untypical for the genre - honest, frank and intelligent. Everyone who knew her is going to remember her forever."- Actress
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Phyllis Logan was born on 11 January 1956 in Paisley, Scotland, UK. She is an actress, known for Secrets & Lies (1996), Another Time, Another Place (1983) and Downton Abbey (2010). She has been married to Kevin McNally since 15 August 2011. They have one child.- Actress
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Nicola Jane Walker is an English actress, known for her starring roles in various British television programs from the 1990s onward, including that of Ruth Evershed in the spy drama Spooks from 2003 to 2011 and DCI Cassie Stuart in Unforgotten from 2015 to 2021. She has also worked in theatre, radio and film. She won the 2013 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and has twice been nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for the BBC drama Last Tango in Halifax.- A beautiful and durable actress of screen, stage and television, Asherson was born Renée Ascherson in London (dropping the "c" early in her acting career), the younger daughter of Charles Ascherson, a businessman and bibliophile of German-Jewish extraction, and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman, who wed on 14 December 1910. (Her older sister was Janet Elizabeth Ascherson, born 22 May 1914).
Asherson's parents narrowly avoided being passengers on the fateful maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912, after Charles Ascherson reportedly canceled the passage due to suffering from appendicitis.
She played the bride of Laurence Olivier's title character in Henry V (1944) (Henry V (1944)). She later appeared in Maniacs on Wheels (1949), a speedway drama with Dirk Bogarde. A frequent co-star of the actor Robert Donat, whom she married in 1953. The couple separated in 1956, but were due to reconcile at the time of his untimely death in London on 9th June 1958, aged 53. - Actress
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Acclaimed actress Rosalie Crutchley originally trained at the Royal Academy of Music. She made her acting debut in repertory in 1938 at the Liverpool Playhouse. She made her Broadway debut in 1950. The Guild of Television named her best actress of the year in 1956 for Black Limelight (1956). Her darkly Mediterranean complexion and gaunt, severe facial features caused her to be frequently cast as Spanish (eg. Queen Katherine in The Sword and the Rose (1953)), French or Italian women. Her screen persona tended to be either sinister or villainous, or downtrodden and tragic. She played the role of Madame Defarge in both the 1958 film of A Tale of Two Cities (1958) and a later BBC television version, A Tale of Two Cities (1965). She also played in two different BBC television versions of "The Franchise Affair", in the first, The Franchise Affair (1962), playing the daughter and in the second, The Franchise Affair (1988), playing the mother. She played Catherine Parr both in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), for which she won an International Television Award, and in the sequel Elizabeth R (1971).- Anna Massey was born on 11 August 1937 in Thakeham, West Sussex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Peeping Tom (1960), Frenzy (1972) and The Machinist (2004). She was married to Dr. Uri Andres and Jeremy Brett. She died on 2 July 2011 in London, England, UK.
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Joanna David was born on 17 January 1947 in Lancaster, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Pride and Prejudice (1995), You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) and Rogue Trader (1999). She has been married to Edward Fox since 2004. They have two children.- Actress
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Janine Drzewicki was born in the Lancashire town of Lancaster to an English mother and a Polish father. She attended school in Nottingham and later moved to London to train as an actress at the E 15 theatre school. Shortly after leaving she was given a couple of small roles in television dramas but had no agent, and placed an advert in the 'Spotlight' agency catalogue with a photograph. As a result she was approached by the BBC to test for a play about incest, entitled Diane (1975). Although she was in her early 20s the part was that of a 13-year-old girl but her audition was sufficiently convincing to win her the role. The door thus opened to her for more TV and stage roles and, whilst she was appearing in 'Don Juan' at Hampstead Theatre, London, she was spotted by Mike Leigh who offered her the part of Angie in the stage production of Abigail's Party (1977), which she repeated in the television version. A familiar face in television comedy series, she has nonetheless been given very little of note in the cinema, playing typically small roles as mad women in Dracula (1979) and The Madness of King George (1994). Married to the actor Paul Bentall, she has two sons and two daughters, one being the actress Ruby Bentall, and lives in London.- Actress
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Sarah Badel was born on 30 March 1943 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Not Without My Daughter (1991), Just Visiting (2001) and Mrs Dalloway (1997).- Actress
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Tessa Peake-Jones was born on 9 May 1957 in Hammersmith, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Only Fools and Horses (1981), Pride and Prejudice (1980) and Grantchester (2014).- Most famous for her supporting role as Daisy, the sister of Patricia Routledge's Hyacinth Bucket in the hugely popular BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances (1990), Judy Cornwell's grandmother was the music hall singer Sarah Bonner. The London-born actress grew up in England, where she attended a convent school before moving to Australia where her parents, Darcy Nigel Barry and Irene McCullen Cornwell, emigrated. She became a classical stage actress whose theatrical career began as a dancer and singer in pantomime, vaudeville, cabaret and musical revues. She has written a number of novels including "Cow and Cow Parsley" (1985), "Fishcakes at the Ritz" (1989), "The Seventh Sunrise" (1994) and "Fear and Favour" (1996). According to Cornwell, John Nathan-Turner was hoping to make a film of "Fear and Favour" before his untimely death at the age of 54 in 2002.
- Kathleen Byron trained for the stage at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, beginning her work in the movies soon after she finished her training. Her early work with Michael Powell made her name in the UK. She went to Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s but found it difficult to break into the US productions. Mainly because although everyone greatly admired her performance as Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus (1947), she was typecast and only expected to be able to play neurotic characters.
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Imelda Staunton is an English actress and singer from Archway, London. Her ancestry is primarily Irish. She has worked extensively in theater, and has won 4 Laurence Olivier Awards; 3 for leading roles and one for a supporting role. Her best known role in films has been the recurring villain Dolores Umbridge in the fantasy films "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007) and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1" (2010). Her character was depicted as an authoritarian bureaucrat from the Ministry of Magic who was appointed as the new professor of "Defence Against the Dark Arts". The character was driven by both her political agendas and her own prejudice. In television, Staunton's best-known role was portraying Queen Elizabeth II in the 5th season of the historical drama series "The Crown" (2016-). The season fictionalized the events of Elizabeth's reign from 1991 to 1997.
In 1956, Staunton was born in Archway, an area in the London Borough of Islington. Archway has had a large Irish community since the 1830s, when Irish workers from this area were employed in the construction of railways and roads. Staunton's parents were the laborer Joseph Staunton and his wife, the hairdresser and musician Bridie McNicholas. Both parents were first-generation immigrants from County Mayo, Ireland. Bridie played both the accordion and the fiddle in Irish show-bands.
Staunton received her secondary education at the La Sainte Union Catholic School, a girls' school operated by the Holy Union Sisters. She was trained in drama and elocution, and practiced her new skills by starring in school plays. Encouraged by one of her teachers, Staunton applied to several drama schools. In 1974, Staunton was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She was reportedly rejected by both the "Central School of Speech and Drama" and the "Guildhall School of Music and Drama", so her options were rather limited.
Staunton graduated from RADA in 1976. For the next 6 years, Staunton primarily acted in English repertory theater. She portrayed the French military leader Joan of Arc (c. 1412-1431) in a 1979 revival of the play "Saint Joan" (1923) by George Bernard Shaw. In 1982, she started acting for the Royal National Theatre in London. In her first year there, Staunton was nominated for both the "Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical" and the "Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play". Staunton lost the Best Actress Award to Julia McKenzie, and the Newcomer Award to Kenneth Branagh.
Staunton made her film debut in the historical drama "Comrades" (1986). The film dramatized the lives of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of British labor activists who were convicted in 1834 under an obscure act and sentenced to penal transportation to Australia. The group members were pardoned in 1836 after mass protests in their favor, and they became heroes for the early union and workers' rights movements.
Among Staunton's most notable theatrical roles in the 1980s was portraying Dorothy Gale in a British version of the musical "The Wizard of Oz" (1987) by John Kane. It was a theatrical adaptation of the novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1900) by L. Frank Baum. The theatrical production was by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Staunton was nominated for the 1988 "Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical" for this role, but lost to Patricia Routledge.
Staunton had a co-staring role in the comedy film "Peter's Friends" (1992), her first film role since 1986. In the film, Peter (played by Stephen Fry) is the new owner of his family's country house, and invites the former members of his student comedy troupe to a reunion there. Each of the members has had a dysfunctional life, but Peter eventually informs them that he has a worse fate than his friends. He reveals that he is HIV-positive, and that the real reasons for the reunion were the fears for his mortality. The film was nominated for the 1993 "Goya Award for Best European Film", but lost to "Three Colors: Blue".
Staunton portrayed the waiting gentlewoman Margaret in thee romantic comedy "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993), a film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name. In the film, Margaret is mistaken for her charge, Hero (played by Kate Beckinsale). Staunton had her first notable animated roles in the fantasy film "The Snow Queen" (1995), an adaptation of the 1844 fairy tale Hans Christian Andersen. She portrayed both the sentient bird Ivy and Angorra, the self-centered daughter of the Robber King.
Staunton portrayed the witty servant Maria in the romantic comedy "Twelfth Night" (1996), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play. Maria was one of several characters who humiliated the pompous steward Malvolio (played by Nigel Hawthorne), and orchestrated his downfall. Staunton had two new roles in the sequel animated film "The Snow Queen's Revenge" (1996). She voiced both the optimistic servant Elsbeth and the ambitious bounty hunter Rowena.
Staunton voiced the group cynic Bunty in the stop-motion animated comedy film "Chicken Run" (2000). It was the first feature-length film by the animation studio Aardman Animations, and grossed about 224.8 million dollars at the worldwide box office. The film broke a record as the highest-grossing stop-motion film in film history. It has retained this record into the 2020s. This was one of Staunton's most commercially successful films.
Staunton portrayed the malevolent wife Conchita Flynn in the comedy film "Rat" (2000), loosely based on the novella "The Metamorphosis" (1915) by Franz Kafka. In the film, a normal working-class man inexplicably shape-shifts into a rat. His family both turns against him, and tries to profit from his condition. Staunton portrayed the supporting character of police superintendent Janine in the romantic comedy film "Crush" (2001). In the film, middle-aged schoolmistress Kate Scales (played by Andie MacDowell) starts dating a man in his twenties, who was once her student. Janine and another of Kate's friends try to figure out whether the man genuinely loves Kate, or is simply manipulating her. When the man is killed in a traffic accident, the two friends try to help a pregnant Kate with some serious life decisions.
Staunton portrayed the main character Vera Drake in the period drama "Vera Drake" (2004). In the film, Vera is a middle-aged house cleaner who provides illegal abortions for young women during the early 1950s. She provides her services free of charge, and is unaware that her partner is getting payments for arranging meetings with Vera. When Vera is arrested following the near-death of one of her patients, people who previously depended on her kindness are left distraught. Staunton won the "BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role" for this role, and was nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama". The film was met with general critical praise, despite some criticism for its inaccurate portrayal of real-life abortion methods.
Staunton portrayed Ambassador Cochran in the thriller film "Shadow Man" (2006), one of the few genuine allies of the protagonist Jack Foster (played by Steven Seagal). In the film, Jack is a retired CIA agent. Following the disappearance and suspected death of his father-in-law, Jack is mistakenly thought to have the formula for a biological weapon which his father-in-law had stolen. Jack finds himself targeted by multiple intelligent agents and organizations, including several of his former friends and allies. The film was set entirely in Bucharest, Romania, though it was based on a script intended for a period film about post-World War II Japan.
Staunton next portrayed Dolores Umbridge in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007). Staunton's performance was praised by critics, and she was nominated in the "British Actress in a Supporting Role" category at the London Film Critics Circle Awards. Dolores as a character has been praised as one of the better villains from the "Harry Potter" series, because her brand of "authoritarian evil" was reportedly more relatable than Lord Voldemort and his abstract plans. Staunton herself claimed that her performance as Dolores was inspired primarily by her views on the behavior of the controversial Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013, term 1979-1990).
Staunton portrayed motel owner Sonia Teichberg in the comedy-drama film "Taking Woodstock" (2009). In the film, the motel of the Teichberg family is about to be foreclosed by their bank, and their young son is desperate to raise enough money to save the family business. Following a series of the son's money-making schemes, he learns that Sonia had hid nearly 100,000 dollars in her closet and could single-handedly save the motel if she was willing to spend it. Motivating him to strike out on his own. The film was an adaptation of the memoir "Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life" (2007) by Elliot Tiber, one of the people involved in organizing the Woodstock music festival (1969).
Staunton portrayed the housekeeper Maud Hill in the supernatural drama "The Awakening". In the film, a skeptic writer investigates ghost sightings at a boarding school in Cumbria during the early 1920s. She realized belatedly that the boarding house's building used to be her family's residence during her childhood, that the ghost in question was her murdered half-brother, and that Maud used to be her father's mistress. Maud had invited her there in order to kill her and to turn her into the building's newest ghost. The film was praised by critics as an atmospheric, ghost story, though its resolution was thought to be predictable.
Staunton voiced Margaret Claus in the Christmas animated film "Arthur Christmas" (2011). In the film, a family has used the hereditary title of "Santa Claus" for many generations, and the current Santa (Malcolm) is the 20th one. When a child's present is accidentally lost, Malcolm is indifferent to the situation, and Steven (his cynical eldest son and business-manager) considers this to be an acceptable error. But his idealistic younger son Arthur sets out to personally deliver the present, using an outdated wooden sleigh that had been out of use for nearly a century. As the inexperienced gift-bringer tries to complete his mission, Malcolm tries to hide the situation from his wife Margaret while starting to realize that he was never suited for a leadership position. The film earned 147,4 million at the worldwide box office. It was nominated for an Annie Award for the Best Animated Feature.
Staunton voiced Queen Victoria in the animated swashbuckler film "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!" (2012). In the film, the new queen regnant is in conflict with a group of unorthodox pirates, while trying to secure ownership of the last-living dodo bird. Assisting Victoria in her efforts is the young scientist Charles Darwin (voiced by David Tennant). The film earned about 123,1 million dollars at the worldwide box office. It was nominated for an "Academy Award for Best Animated Feature", but lost to the fantasy film "Brave".
Staunton portrayed the Welsh activist Hefina Headon (1930-2013) in the period film "Pride" (2014). The film dramatized the UK miners' strike (1984-1985) and the formation of the activist organization "Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners". The activists organized fund-raising efforts to help the impoverished miners and their families. Staunton was nominated for the "BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role" for this role, but lost to Patricia Arquette.
Staunton portrayed the protective pixie Knotgrass in the fantasy film "Maleficent" (2014). Her character was based on the fairy Flora from the animated film "Sleeping Beauty" (1959), but Knotgrass was intentionally depicted as an inept counterpart to the original character. Knotgrass is one of the legal guardians of the human girl Aurora (played by Elle Fanning), but turns out to be a neglectful parent figure. The film grossed over 758 million dollars at the worldwide box-office, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2014. It was also one of the highest-grossing film's in Staunton's career.
Staunton voiced Aunt Lucy in the comedy film "Paddington" (2014). Her character was portrayed as the aunt and surrogate mother of Paddington Bear. After being widowed in an earthquake, Lucy encourages Paddington to migrate to London, where her only human friend once lived. The film earned 282.8 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and was nominated for a "Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film".
Staunton portrayed the leading role of the aristocrat Sandra Abbott, Lady Abbott in the romantic comedy film "Finding Your Feet" (2017). In the film, Sandra finds out that her husband is cheating on her, and then decides to move in with her estranged, free-spirited older sister Bif (played by Celia Imrie). They bond for a while, just before Bif dies from lung cancer. When Sandra's husband tries to reconcile with her, Sandra is no longer interested in leading a conventional life by his side. The film won the won the "Audience Award for Best Film" at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Staunton portrayed the aristocrat Lady Maud Bagshaw in the historical drama "Downton Abbey" (2019). Her character was depicted as a lady-in-waiting to Mary of Teck, Queen consort of the United Kingdom (1867-1953, term 1910-1936). Maud was portrayed as an estranged cousin to Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham (played by Hugh Bonneville). Maud schemed to allow her property to be inherited by her own illegitimate daughter, rather than by her cousin and his heirs. The Crawley family starts scheming an advantageous marriage of their widowed son-in-law Tom Branson to Maud's heiress. The film was a continuation of the historical drama series "Downton Abbey" (2010-2015), which followed the lives of an aristocratic family of Yorkshire and their efforts to maintain or to increase their wealth. The film earned 194.7 million at the worldwide box office.
Staunton returned to the role of Lady Maud Bagshaw in the sequel film "Downton Abbey: A New Era" (2022). The film opens with Maud marrying her illegitimate daughter Lucy Smith to Tom Branson. The film subsequently deals with the last days in the life of Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (played by Maggie Smith), and with her son's increasing doubts about his own paternity. The film earned 92.3 million dollars at the worldwide box office. The film was nominated for the "Golden Rooster Award for Best Foreign Language Film" in China.
By 2022, Staunton was 66-years-old. She is no longer the up-and-coming stage star of the 1980s. She is considered a respected veteran of the theater and the film industry. She maintains a cult following among fans of fantasy films, animated films, and period films set primarily in the 19th century or the 20th century. She has had an ever-increasing number of well-received roles in films of these types, and she seems likely to continue her film career.- Actress
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Phyllida Law was born on 8 May 1932 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for The Time Machine (2002), Much Ado About Nothing (1993) and The Winter Guest (1997). She was previously married to Eric Thompson.- Actress
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Tricia George was born in 1957 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. She is an actress, known for American Playhouse (1980), Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon (1992) and Testament of Youth (1979).- Phyllis Hannah Bickle was born in Chelsea in 1915 and studied dancing at the Margaret Morris school of dance, until an injury forced her to give up dancing and turn instead to acting. Her 70 year film career began with a bit part in The Arcadians (1927) when she was just 12 years old. Along with over 40 movies, she had a successful stage career, spanning 1925 ('Crossings' with Ellen Terry) to 1994 ('Bed') - appearing in such works as 'Blithe Spirit', 'The Heiress' and 'Peter Pan', as the title role of the boy who never grew up.
Phyllis' film breakthrough came in 1941 in the adaptation of the HG Wells story, The Remarkable Mr. Kipps (1941) in which she was cast as the servant girl, a part which had originally been turned down by Margaret Lockwood. In her next film, she was starring opposite international star Robert Donat, a far cry from the music hall comedians (George Formby, Arthur Askey) she had been acting with only a few years earlier. The Man in Grey (1943) truly catapulted her to stardom and from then on there was no looking back. Phyllis Calvert became one of the names most associated with the Gainsborough costume melodramas of the 1940s, usually as the sweet heroine, or the steadfast non-nonsense leader.
After a small trip to Hollywood in the late 1940s, Phyllis returned to England and earned her one BAFTA nomination for the role of the mother of a deaf girl in Crash of Silence (1952) but after that her film career slowed down, with family taking precedence. While shooting Indiscreet (1958), Phyllis was struck a cruel blow when her husband of 16 years, Peter Murray-Hill, passed away. Her stage career picked up markedly in the 1960s when she began taking more and more roles to better raise their two children solely. She gracefully slid into a niche of character roles, usually the kindly mother or aunt, and in 1970, had her own TV series, Kate (1970). In the 1980s she concentrated more on television, only appearing twice on stage. Her final play was in 1994, film in 1997, and TV appearance in 2000. - Actress
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Deborah Findlay was born in Surrey and studied English at Leeds University. She worked in Leeds with a theatre group touring plays, music, community theatre and cabaret before coming to London to work at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. She was in the original production of 'Top Girls' by Caryl Churchill (OBIE Award) and seasons at the RSC and National Theatre where she received an Olivier Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for 'Stanley'. She has an extensive career in theatre and was nominated for a Tony for the play 'The Children'. She had another Olivier nomination for 'The Cut'. She played in New York on Broadway and in the West End in London including prestigious theatre the Donmar with the play 'The Vortex'.- Actress
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Cheryl Campbell is an English actress, probably best known in the United States for her role as Eileen in Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven (1978), for which she received a BAFTA nomination as Best Television Actress. The following year, she won the award for her roles in three shows: Testament of Youth (1979), Mystery!: Malice Aforethought (1979) and Une maison, une histoire (1980).
Born in 1949 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, she studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), then went on to apprentice in repertory theater, most notably with Birmingham Rep. She was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), during which time she played, among many other roles, Nora Helmer, in Ibsen's "A Doll's House". For her performance as Nora she won the prestigious Olivier Award in 1983 for Best Actress in a Revival. She is a member of the Royal National Theatre.- Le Touzel was born in London to a prominent family from Jersey, Channel Islands. She showed an interest in acting at an early age, enrolling at a Stage School. Subsequent television roles followed, including as Fanny Price in a 1983 adaptation of Mansfield Park (1983), though, in cult television terms, this was eclipsed by a commercial, still long remembered, for Heineken lager where, in a parody of My Fair Lady (1964) she portrayed an upper-class girl being tutored for a cockney role by Bryan Pringle, success only coming when she drank a can of Heineken (which "refreshes the parts other lagers cannot not reach" and enabled her to proclaim that 'the wa'er in Majjawca don't taste like wot i' ough'a'). Married to actor Owen Teale since 2001, they live, with their two children, in Telegraph Hill, London. In 2008 she appeared on the West End stage with Kenneth Branagh in his generally well received revival of the play 'Ivanov'.
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Belinda Lang was born on 23 December 1953 in Marylebone, London, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for 2point4 Children (1991), Sister Boniface Mysteries (2022) and This England (2022). She has been married to Hugh Fraser since 15 October 1988. They have one child.- Actress
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Samantha's early theatre work includes repertory seasons at Coventry, Edinburgh, Derby, and Bristol and 'Never in My Life 'at the Soho Poly in London. After appearing in Kenneth Branagh's production of 'Romeo and Juliet' she went on to West End productions of 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', 'Man of the Moment', 'Three Tall Women' and 'Much Ado About Nothing' which was directed by Judi Dench. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company she acted in 'A Winters Tale' and 'As You Like It' She made her film debut in 'Eric the Viking' Television work includes 'Inspector Morse', 'Rumpole of the Bailey', 'Under the Moon', 'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'The Ruby Ring'- Actress
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English character actress with a penchant for genteel aristocrats and kindly mothers. The daughter of teachers, she "spent some time selling shoes in Reading" before entering the acting profession. Aged eighteen, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made her debut in repertory theatre at Amersham in 1955. Rosemary Leach enjoyed a prolific and varied career in both supporting and leading roles on the screen (though, by her own account, preferred radio and the stage). She became a familiar presence, most notably in television period dramas and sitcoms. Her roles have included Queen Victoria in Disraeli: Portrait of a Romantic (1978) (she also played Queen Elizabeth II on at least four occasions on both stage and screen),scatterbrained Aunt Fenny in The Jewel in the Crown (1984) (which fostered her fascination with India and resulted in several subsequent visits) , the swindled widow Joan Plumleigh-Bruce -- victim of 1930's social climbing con man Ralph Ernest Gorse -- in The Charmer (1987), one of three nannies working for wealthy families in Edwardian London's exclusive Berkeley Square (1998),the verger's wife, Mrs. Tope, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1993) and Zoë Wanamaker's habitually Martini-imbibing mother Grace in My Family (2000). She was twice nominated for BAFTA awards, latterly as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the kindly Mrs. Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985). Her own personal favourite roles have included Miss Adelaide in a 1973 Birmingham Repertory Theatre production of "Guys and Dolls" and that of eccentric real life author Helene Hanff in "84 Charing Cross Road" (1981, Ambassador Theatre, London) for which she received an Olivier Award as Best Actress.- Actress
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Jane Lapotaire was born on 26 December 1944 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Lady Jane (1986), Blind Justice (1988) and Rebecca (2020). She was previously married to Roland Joffé.- Actress
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Celia Imrie is an Olivier award-winning and Screen Actors Guild-nominated actress, a Variety magazine 'Icon' and Women in Film and Television 'Lifetime Achievement award' winner. As well as her acclaimed film, television and theatre work, she is also a Sunday Times best-selling author. Celia is much loved for her film roles including The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel film series, The Bridget Jones film series, Calendar Girls, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Finding Your Feet and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Most recent film work include Mrs Green in independent horror feature, Malevolent and Joan Erikson in Year By The Sea.
Television roles include, Phyllis in Pamela Adlon's semi-autobiographical comedy Better things, Kettle in Sky Atlantic and Showtime's Patrick Melrose, Vera in Barbara Vine's A Dark Adapted Eye and Maggie Pit in unconventional comedy Hang Ups.
Celia also has an extensive list of theatre credits and she has performed in many of London's major theatres. These include, Tony and Olivier Award winning comedy Noises Off at The Old Vic Theatre, Acorn Antiques: The Musical! at Theatre Royal Haymarket in which Celia won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2005, The Sea at The National Theatre opposite Dame Judi Dench and the universally acclaimed production of King Lear at the Old Vic in 2016.
Celia will soon take to the stage in Party Time/Celebration, the sixth double-bill of one-act plays in The Jamie Lloyd Company's Pinter at the Pinter Season, commemorating the 10th anniversary of Nobel Prize-winning writer Harold Pinter.- Actress
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Gillian began acting at school and at the Liverpool Everyman Youth Theatre. Whilst attending, as a fourteen-year-old in 1986, she landed the role of Damon Grant's girlfriend, Debbie McGrath, in Brookside (1982). The character was originally intended to appear in just three episodes, but Debbie proved to very popular and the part went on to last for more than a year. It also led to the spin-off mini-series Damon and Debbie (1987). Gillian passed nine GCSEs at school and stayed on to take A-levels in English, French, History and General Studies. Whilst appearing on stage in plays including "Othello" and "School for Scandal", she decided she wanted to 'do it properly'. At 20, after appearing in a host of other productions including the film version of Shirley Valentine (1989), she decided to enroll at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama. The final exams for her drama degree were based on the best three performances out of four. She was offered the role of Emily Kennedy in the TV adaptation of Catherine Cookson's The Tide of Life (1996) when she had nominated the first three performances, so it became the fourth - it helped her gain a first-class degree. Gillian has since become a familiar face in quality TV drama productions and is a very highly regarded and versatile stage performer. She looks to be well set for a long and successful career in the profession.- Actress
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Claire Price was born on 4 July 1972 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Jump (2012), Hereafter (2010) and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015).- Actress
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Beatie Edney was born on 23 October 1962 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Highlander (1986), In the Name of the Father (1993) and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008).- Actress
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Claire Goose was born in Edinburgh and lived there 'til she was two and a half. She grew up in Norfolk. Her parents are mother, Joy, and father, David, who is a GP in Kings Lynn and has also looked after the Royals. Claire also has an elder sister, Caroline, a nursery nurse, and an elder brother, Duncan, who works in marketing. At the age of 16, she attended the Italia Conti Stage School. Before making it big in acting, she had previous jobs including a silver service waitress, a story-telling raccoon in a theme park, admin work for the NSPCC and has also done modelling. Claire enjoys clubbing, tarot cards, palm reading and playing poker, she has also been dancing since the age of three. Before her big break in Casualty (1986), she nearly got the role of Tiffany in EastEnders (1985), but was beaten by Martine McCutcheon, and she was also down to the last two for a part in Soldier Soldier (1991).- Caroline Harker was born in 1966 in Hampstead, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Madness of King George (1994), Middlemarch (1994) and A Touch of Frost (1992). She is married to Anthony Calf. They have three children.
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Her parents, George and Anne were originally farmers in the Sacriston area of County Durham where she started her education at a village school and eventually attended Durham High School. Her family eventually gave up farming and became haulage contractors in Darlington where she then attended Darlington High School and then Yarm Grammar School where she had parts in school plays., The headmistress, who was very keen on drama encouraged her. While performing in one play she was seen by the aunt of director Anthony Asquith who recommended her to the Central School of Speech and Drama which she joined when 17. After training she made her theatre debut with the Ipswich Repertory Company and eventually her West End debut in 'Mr Kettle and Mr Moon' which was later followed by such as The Constant Wife, Ride a Cock Horse and Peter Pan.She later moved into television series, for which she became best known, such as Butterflies, Not in Front of the Children, And Mother Makes Three,Laura and Disorder and Nanny, which was based on her own idea .but submitted under a pen name so that it could be judged on it's own merit and not on her name. She has always liked writing and with knowing her characters she finds it very fulfilling and creative while acting is just interpretive. She's won numerous awards including Variety Club BBC TV Personality (69), Variety Club ITV TV Personality (73), TV Times Award for Funniest Woman on TV 72/73/74 and Variety Club Woman of the Year 84 and an Honorary Doctorate from Teeside University 94. She was married to journalist Jack Bentley, who died in 1994 and had two sons, Alastair, born 1957 who became an oboist with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Ross, born 1960 who is a writer. All this from seeing her first pantomime at 3 which made her determined to be on the stage.- Actress
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Clare Holman was born on 12 January 1964 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Blood Diamond (2006), Suite Française (2014) and Inspector Lewis (2006). She was previously married to Howard Davies.- Actress
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Gemma Jones was born on 4 December 1942 in Marylebone, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Sense and Sensibility (1995), Bridget Jones's Baby (2016) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010).- Actress
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Gwen Taylor was born on 19 February 1939 in Derby, Derbyshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Life of Brian (1979), The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) and A Bit of a Do (1989). She has been married to Graham Reid since 1996. She was previously married to Frederick Blount.- Actress
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One of four children, Blackman was born in London's East End, to Edith Eliza (Stokes), a homemaker, and Frederick Thomas Blackman, a statistician employed with the Civil Service. She received elocution lessons for her 16th birthday (at her own request), and later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which she paid for by working as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service. She was also a dispatch rider for the Home Office during World War II, playing an important role in the war effort.
Blackman received her first acting work on stage in London's West End as an understudy in "The Guinea Pig". She continued with roles in "The Gleam" (1946) and "The Blind Goddess" (1947), before moving into film. She debuted with Fame Is the Spur (1947), starring Michael Redgrave.
Blackman suffered a nervous breakdown following her divorce from Bill Sankey, a man 12 years her senior, who's jealousy, fraudulent business practices, and emptying of her bank accounts took it's toll. After hospitalisation Blackman began counselling, which would last for years, and began rebuilding her career.
TV series work also came her way again, most notably the highly popular The Avengers (1961), co-starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed. As the leather-clad "Catherine Gale", Blackman showcased her incredible beauty, self-confidence, and athletic abilities. Her admirable qualities made her not only a catch for the men, but also an inspirational figure for the 1960s feminist movement.
Blackman took on the role of Greek goddess Hera in popular movie adventure Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with Ray Harryhausen and melodrama Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey. She then played "Pussy Galore" in the classic James Bond film Goldfinger (1964). Blackman went toe to toe with Sean Connery's womanizing "007" and created major sparks on screen.
Blackman continued to work consistently in films and tv, while also appearing on stage where she earned rave reviews as the blind heroine of the thriller "Wait Until Dark" as well as for her dual roles in "Mr. and Mrs.", a production based on two of Noël Coward's plays. She also enjoyed working with her second husband, actor Maurice Kaufmann, in the play "Move Over, Mrs. Markham" and the film thriller Fright (1971). She proved a sultry-voiced sensation in various musicals productions such as "A Little Night Music", "The Sound of Music", "On Your Toes", and "Nunsense."
In the new millennium, Honor was seen in such films as Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Color Me Kubrick (2005), Reuniting the Rubins (2010), I, Anna (2012) and Cockneys vs Zombies (2012), as well as the British TV serieses Water, Water, Everywhere (1920) The Royal (2003) Coronation Street (1960), long running series Casualty (1986) and finally You, Me & Them (2013), her last role after her retirement several years earlier.
Divorced from Kaufmann in 1975 (although they remained friends until his death, Blackman even cared for him during his 13 year battle with cancer), Blackman never remarried, revealing in an interview that she simply preferred single life, "Basically I'm a shy person and I like my own company". Unable to conceive, the couple adopted two children, Lottie and Barnaby, in '67 and '68 respectively.
The ever-lovely and eternally glamorous star continued to find regular work into her 90s, including co-starring in the long-running English hit comedy series The Upper Hand (1990) and performing her one-woman stage show, "Wayward Women"
Honor Blackman died on April 5, 2020, in Lewes, Sussex. She was 94.- Suzanne Burden was born in 1958. She is an actress, known for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018), Great Performances (1971) and Mark Gertler: Fragments of a Biography (1981).
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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 A Hard Day's Night (1964). A highly versatile actress, Blair has since appeared in films of diverse genres, including Battle of Britain (1969), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) (as an unwilling blood donor), Alien Attack (1976) (a spliced-together prequel for the TV series Space: 1999 (1975), as a bulbous-headed alien), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) (as the wife of the main antagonist, played by her real-life husband Julian Glover) and Johnny English Reborn (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 The Avengers (1961) (as a foreign agent), Department S (1969), Fall of Eagles (1974) (as Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna of Russia), Blake's 7 (1978), Taggart (1983), A Touch of Frost (1992), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996) and Midsomer Murders (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.- Actress
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Denise is an English actress probably best known for her iconic TV character Hazel, the mum all gay men wanted in Russell T Davies' 'Queer as Folk' and 'Cucumber'. Also siren soap characters Denise Osbourne in 'Coronation Street', Joanie in 'Emmerdale' and Denny's mad, bad mum in 'Bad Girls'. She plays Ms Madden, pathologically loyal secretary to Lord Baddingham (David Tennant) in a power packed British cast of the series adaptation of Jilly Cooper's 'Rivals'.
Denise was born in Portsmouth, UK. She also has a passionate interest in theatre and music. She got her equity card with the Actor's Touring Company in the early '80s performing plays around the globe and her first title role in 'La Pasionaria' by Pam Gems at the Newcastle Playhouse. She won the Manchester Evening News award 'Best Supporting Actress' for her portrayal of Mrs Byant in Roots (Wesker) at the Royal Exchange. In 2018 she won 'Best Performance In a Play' at the UK Theatre Awards for 'The Cherry Orchard'.
Denise appears in two great British movies: 'Last Orders' and 'The Last Tree'. She also plays autoharp and writes songs.- Actress
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Anne was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne but the family moved to Redcar when the WWII started. She was educated at White House School where she acted in a school play of Romeo and Juliet with June Laverick, who when older would also take to the stage. When Anne got older she was sent to a boarding school, Penrose College, in North Wales and at 11 was in a choir. Her father became a special correspondent for the Daily Telegraph following in the footsteps of her grandfather, an uncle and 3 brothers who were all journalists. Anne took elocution lessons and did bits in plays with a teacher who recognising her talent helped her to get into RADA after which she worked as as a stage manager and some work in repertory. Her first work in television involved sketches with Benny Hill but gave up acting in 1974 before returning in 1986 eventually making her name in the part of Valerie Barlow in the television soap Coronation Street.- Born in Marylebone, London, versatile character actress Rosalind Marie Knight was born to theatrical parentage. Her father was the accomplished thespian Esmond Knight. Her mother, the comedienne Frances Clare, often featured in Ivor Novello operettas. Rosalind's interest in theatre was first kindled at the age of six when she and her mother attended a staging of Novello's "The Dancing Years" at Drury Lane. Rosalind was evacuated to the countryside with her nanny during the war years. In 1949, she accompanied her father to the Old Vic Theatre and became enthralled by a production of "The Snow Queen", primarily performed by drama school novices. The following year she won an audition and spent two years at the Old Vic Theatre School. This was succeeded by a lengthy apprenticeship in repertory which led to her gaining further experience as assistant stage manager for the West of England Theatre Company, the Midland Theatre Company in Coventry and the Piccolo Theatre Company in Manchester.
In 1955, she made her first impact on screen as a lady-in-waiting in Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955), which also featured her father in the cast. A year later, having come to the attention of a movie producer, she played Annabel, one of the schoolgirls, in Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (1957) (decades later, she would return as a teacher in the sequel The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980)). This set the tone for a number of subsequent comedic roles which included a couple of early Carry On's and the Tony Richardson-directed Tom Jones (1963), in which she played the giddy Mrs. Harriet Fitzpatrick. While doing the Carry On films she was not under any form of contract and was paid a mere $50 a week. In 1957, Rosalind joined her father in an early BBC adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby (1957) as the spiteful Fanny Squeers. In a later miniseries based on Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (1964), she was a splendidly shrewish Charity Pecksniff.
During her prolific career, Rosalind relished every opportunity to portray a diverse range of characters, good and bad, from servants to princesses (Alice of Battenberg in The Crown (2016)) to old maids (Aspasia Fitzgibbon in The Pallisers (1974)) to wealthy socialites (Margot Asquith in Nancy Astor (1982)) and unpleasant aristocratic dowagers (Daphne Winkworth in Jeeves and Wooster (1990)). She even essayed a retired prostitute turned landlady in the sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme (1999). In addition to a staple of period dramas she guested in numerous episodic TV dramas, including Poirot (1989), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996), Heartbeat (1992), Marple (2004), Midsomer Murders (1997) and Sherlock (2010). All the while, she remained heavily engaged in theatrical work with the Old Vic, The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre, her last appearance being the strict, incorruptible governess Mrs. Prism in Shaw's "The Importance of Being Earnest".
Rosalind was married to director/producer Michael Elliott from 1959. In 1976, she helped rebuild and re-open the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, of which her husband was involved as one of five artistic directors. She was also a patron of the Actor's Centre in London and the Ladies' Theatrical Guild (a charity founded in 1891). Rosalind Knight continued to perform as an actress right up to her death on December 19 2020, at the age of 87. - Character actress Helen Lindsay was born of British parentage as Helen Jane Charley in Coimbatore, a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Little is known about her early life, but she made her stage debut as a snake charmer in a 1952 production of Pinocchio at the Library Theatre in Manchester. Her first screen appearance followed a year later. Lindsay specialized in playing haughty royals, dignified noblewomen and imperious or snobby society matrons, often in period drama adapted from literary classics. Her stage roles have included Lady Benbow in Thark (the fourth of the Aldwych farces), Princess Tugo-Ukhovsky in Chatsky and Mme de Rosemonde in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (with the Royal Shakespeare Company, 1993). Busiest on television, Lindsay was notable as the proud Estella, Magwich's daughter, in an early BBC adaptation of Great Expectations (1959), the kindly teacher Miss Temple in Jane Eyre (1970) and as Lady Constantia Lorridaile in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1995). Her performances enriched numerous TV series, ranging from The Avengers (1961) to Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), from All Creatures Great and Small (1978) to Foyle's War (2002). Her prolific gallery of historical personae have included the Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, Eleanor de Montfort, in Churchill's People (1974), Queen Yolande of Aragon in The Disputation (1986) and the Dowager Queen Maria de Medici in an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney (1997).
Helen Lindsay retired from acting in 2009. She was married to the art director and production designer Alan Pickford (best known for his work on The Jewel in the Crown (1984)) who predeceased her in 2002. - Actress
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Lynda Bellingham played many roles during her five-decade professional career, but became synonymous with one. "Being a mum making gravy was not quite how I had seen my career advancing," she said once. But between 1983 and 1999 that's what she did in 42 "episodes" of an award-winning TV ad. Since the early 1980s, her name was rarely mentioned in print without it being prefaced with "Oxo mum".
During her career, though, she starred on TV as the vet's wife Helen Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small in the 80s and as one of two divorcees trying to forge a relationship in the 90s sitcom Second Thoughts, opposite James Bolam. On stage she was best known for playing the lead in a touring production of Calendar Girls between 2008 and 2012. She was also, for four years between 2007 and 2011, a regular member of the team on Loose Women, the daytime TV chat show. She had few regrets about how her career turned out, summarizing its trajectory thus on her website: "Arrived in London at the Central School [for Speech and Drama] in 1966 and never looked back. I had a ball!"
Bellingham, though, knew that gravy, like Lady Macbeth's damned spot, left an indelible mark. "In many ways I was very proud of what we did, but there is no doubt that my credibility as an actress was knocked," she reflected. "Certain people in the industry would never employ me as a serious actress after it. On the other hand, it gave me the financial security to go off and work in the theatre for very little money." Her performances as Mrs Oxo were reportedly responsible for a 10% increase in stock cube sales.
But being typecast in the role of, as she put it in her autobiography, "the nation's favorite mum", wasn't the only reason she missed out on roles that could have sent her career in a different direction. Her friend the writer Lynda La Plante once rang to ask her if she was interested in playing a detective for television. Too busy with sitcom and advertising jobs, she turned down the chance to play DI Jane Tennison, later taken by Helen Mirren. Bellingham used her autobiography, Lost and Found (2010), to complain about the fact that she was never allowed to reprise her 1986 role as a time lord on Doctor Who during its revival under Russell T Davies.
She was born Meredith Lee Hughes in Montreal, Quebec. Her Canadian birth mother, Marjorie Hughes, gave her daughter up for adoption to an English couple. Her biological father, Carl Hutton, was a crewman whom Marjorie met on board ship as she sailed from Canada to New Zealand to meet the parents of her husband, a pilot who was missing in action during the second world war.
Her adoptive parents, Don and Ruth Bellingham, had been staying in Canada, where Don was training pilots for the British Overseas Airways Corporation. The couple returned to the UK and raised the girl they called Lynda on their farm near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, with their two biological daughters, Barbara and Jean. Lynda found out she was adopted only when she was in her teens. She recalled the revelation in her autobiography: "One day, when I skipped school to go to the pictures, my mother blurted out: 'The trouble is, Lynda, we just don't know who you are any more. God knows where you come from. We'll never know. We've dreaded this moment.'" In 1990, she met her birth mother in Canada and they stayed in touch until Marjorie's death.
She developed an enthusiasm for acting at school and in local theatre clubs, but gave her best early performance at the Central School, where, after receiving a rejection letter, she turned up in person and demanded of George Hall, head of stage, that he reconsider. Hall told her he would not but, when she returned home dejectedly, her parents told her that they had just got off the phone - he had changed his mind and given her a place. Why? Bellingham reported it was because Hall believed that "even if I was the worst actress in the world, I would always work because I was so pushy".
Bellingham proved just as dogged as Hall hoped. After graduating she worked in Frinton and Crewe, amassing the 40 weeks of theatre necessary to get an Equity card. Then, she believed, TV and cinema stardom would follow. She was rejected for a role on ITV's early 70s afternoon soap General Hospital because, as she put it, they were casting a pretty nurse and a fat nurse and "I fell into neither category". Undaunted, she put her hair in a bun, rouged her cheeks, sported flat shoes, and wore a dress that cut her legs across the calves, making them look twice their normal size. Thus attired, she demanded a second audition as the fat nurse - and got the part, as Nurse Hilda Price.
Her romantic life, which she detailed unflinchingly in her autobiography, included two disastrous marriages. She married the film producer Greg Smith in 1975. Shortly after the wedding, he cast her in the film Confessions of a Driving Instructor. "I had only been married a few weeks and my husband, the Big Producer, was screwing his way through all the female artists," she recalled. "Just not me." They divorced soon afterwards.
Her second marriage, in 1981, was to a Neapolitan restaurant owner, Nunzio Peluso, with whom she had two children, Michael and Robbie. This turned out worse. He submitted her to 15 years of physical and mental abuse and after their divorce in 1996 was subject to a restraining order. She wrote, with understatement: "Playing the nation's favorite mum on screen and going home to an unhappy and abusive relationship was extremely stressful."
On her 60th birthday, in 2008, she was married for a third time, to a mortgage broker Michael Pattemore, with whom she later ran a property business based in London.
Among the roles she was particularly proud of were playing opposite Janet Suzman and Maureen Lipman in the Old Vic's production of The Sisters Rosensweig at the Old Vic (1994-95) and in the Royal Court production of a drama about sex tourism, Sugar Mummies (2006). She also played the Empress Alexandra in Gleb Panfilov's Russian film The Romanovs: A Crowned Family (2000), about the last year and a half of the lives of Tsar Nicholas II and his family until their execution in July 1918. Her voice was dubbed into Russian. In 2009, she appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, and was eliminated in the fourth week. In 2012, she presented a daytime cookery series, My Tasty Travels, and in 2013 Country House Sunday.
In 2013, she disclosed on Twitter that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
She was made OBE in the 2014 New Year's honors list.
In 2014 she announced that the cancer had spread to her liver and lungs and that she had opted to stop having chemotherapy.
On 3 November 2014, her funeral took place at St Bartholomew's Church in Crewkerne, attended by family and friends. Afterwards, Bellingham was buried in Crewkerne Townsend Cemetery.
Bellingham was survived by her third husband and her two sons Michael and Robert.- Stella Gonet was born on 8 May 1960 in Greenock, Scotland, UK. She is an actress, known for Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Spencer (2021) and How I Live Now (2013). She has been married to Nicholas Farrell since 2005. They have two children.
- Rachel Bell was born in 1950 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Darling Buds of May (1991), Doctor Who (1963) and Dear John.... (1986). She was previously married to Mike O'Neill.
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Maggie O'Neill was born on 15 November 1962 in Buckinghamshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Friday on My Mind (1992) and Mystery!: Cadfael (1994).- Actress
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Richenda Carey (born in Bitton, South Gloucestershire, England) is an English theatre, television and film actress, who is mostly known for her roles in Monarch of the Glen, Jeeves and Wooster, Crush and later, Separate Lies and Criminal Justice. She appeared in an episode of the sitcom Chalk as well with Victoria Wood in an episode of dinnerladies (1998).
She was the third wife of British actor Nigel Stock before he died in 1986.
From July 2009 she appeared in Calendar Girls (2003) at the Noël Coward Theatre.
In 2015 she appeared in the film Colonia Dignidad alongside Emma Watson and Daniel Brühl.- Margery Mason was born on 27 September 1913 in Hackney, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Princess Bride (1987), Love Actually (2003) and Les Misérables (1998). She was married to Peter Daminoff. She died on 26 January 2014 in Swiss Cottage, Camden, London, England, UK.
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Dame Harriet Mary Walter DBE is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.- Incisive, classically-trained English stage and screen actress, latterly often seen on TV as imperious titled ladies or dowagers. She was born Caroline Georgiana Blakiston in Chelsea, London, the daughter of archivist Hugh Noel Blakiston (1905-1984) and non-fiction author Rachel Georgiana Russell (1903-1995). A RADA graduate of 1957, Blakiston began her theatrical career that very same year at the Bristol Old Vic in the play Girls of Summer, written by N. Richard Nash. She appeared on diverse stages throughout England until joining the ensemble of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon between 1993 and 1997. From July 2001 to August 2003, Blakiston enjoyed a lengthy run as Mrs. Higgins in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
On screen from 1962, Blakiston has appeared mainly on television, a notable exception being her role as Rebel Alliance leader Mon Mothma in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). During the 60s, she was often featured in guest spots for ITC productions like The Saint (1962), The Baron (1966), The Avengers (1961) and Department S (1969). Equally frequent were her forays into period drama. Those have included a much-lauded performance as Marjorie Ferrar in the 1967 BBC adaptation of The Forsyte Saga (1967), as well portrayals of Agrippina in The Caesars (1968), Lady Paulton in Raffles (1975), Frances Villiers, the Countess of Jersey, a mistress of the Prince Regent (1979) and governess Anna Brigmore in The Mallens (1979). More recently, she has been memorable as the acerbic, tough-as-nails Aunt Agatha in seasons 1-4 of Poldark (2015).
Blakiston also had a leading role in the cast of Rides (1992), a BBC drama series about an all-female crew of taxi drivers, produced by the Ealing-based production company Warner Sisters. In the compelling drama series Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (1984) she portrayed a British spy chief, known only as the 'Coordinator'. On the comedic side of life, Blakiston has co-starred opposite Timothy West as the alcoholic, aristocratic Lady Patience Hardacre in Granada's socio-economic satire Brass (1983) and as Alice Bannister in the marital sitcom The Last Song (1981). She also popped up in an episode of As Time Goes By (1992) as Margaret, the ex-wife of Lionel Hardcastle (Geoffrey Palmer).
Blakiston was at one time married to Scottish actor Russell Hunter with whom she had appeared on the stage in A Midsummer Night's Dream. - Wanda Ventham was born on 5 August 1935 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. She is an actress, known for UFO (1970), Invasion: UFO (1974) and Sherlock (2010). She has been married to Timothy Carlton since April 1976. They have one child. She was previously married to James Tabernacle.
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Tracie Bennett was born on 17 June 1961 in Leigh, Lancashire, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Shirley Valentine (1989), Coronation Street (1960) and Making Out (1989).- Actress
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Sara Kestelman was born on 12 May 1944 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (2004), Lady Jane (1986) and Zardoz (1974).- Crosbie was born in Gorebridge, Midlothian, Scotland, to Presbyterian parents who disapproved of her becoming an actress. Nevertheless, she joined the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School while still in her teens. Her big break came in 1970 when she was cast as Catherine of Aragon in the BBC television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, for which she won the 1971 BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress. In 1973, she starred alongside Vanessa Redgrave in the BBC serial, A Picture of Katherine Mansfield.
In 1975, Crosbie made a similar impact as another Queen, Queen Victoria, in the ITV period drama Edward the Seventh, for which she won the 1976 BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress. She played Cinderella's fairy godmother in The Slipper and the Rose, which was chosen as the Royal Film Première for 1976. In that film, Crosbie sang the Sherman Brothers' song, "Suddenly It Happens". In Ralph Bakshi's animated movie, The Lord of the Rings, filmed in 1978, Crosbie voiced the character of Galadriel, Lady of the Elves. In 1980, she played the abbess in Hawk the Slayer. In 1986, she appeared as the vicar's wife in Paradise Postponed.
After appearing in the BBC1 drama Take Me Home, Crosbie's next major role was as Margaret Meldrew, the long-suffering wife of Victor Meldrew (Richard Wilson) in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave (1990-2000) for which she is best known. She also played Janet, the housekeeper to Dr. Finlay, in the 1993 revival of A.J. Cronin's popular stories. She also had a poignant role in the thriller The Debt Collector (1999).
Crosbie's other roles include playing the monkey-lover Ingrid Strange in an episode of Jonathan Creek (1997), Edith Sparshott in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1997-2001), and Jessie in the film Calendar Girls (2003). In 2004, Crosbie appeared alongside Sam Kelly in an episode of the third series of Black Books, as the mother of the character Manny Bianco. In the series six and seven of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series Old Harry's Game, she played a recently deceased historian named Edith.
In 2008 she appeared in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit and an AXA Sun Life television advertisement for the over-50s. In 2009, she portrayed Sadie Cairncross in the BBC television series Hope Springs. In 2010 Crosbie appeared in the Doctor Who episode "The Eleventh Hour" and in the New Tricks episode "Coming Out Ball". In 2014 Crosbie appeared in the movies What We Did on Our Holiday and Into the Woods. In 2015 she appeared in a BBC adaptation of the novel Cider with Rosie. In 2016 she appeared in the new film version of Dad's Army .
Crosbie was awarded an OBE in 1998 for services to drama.
Crosbie is divorced from Michael Griffiths, the father of both her children, Owen and Selina (also an actress).
She is a campaigner for greyhound welfare. Since 2003, she has been President of the League Against Cruel Sports. She has also fronted commercials for Sun Life Direct insurance. - Lucy-Ann Holmes is known for Foyle's War (2002), Midsomer Murders (1997) and Trial & Retribution (1997).
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June Whitfield had a long and successful career that has included musical theatre, films and numerous radio and television performances. Her mother was into amateur dramatics and June had elocution and dancing lessons from an early age. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked in theatre. One of her earliest experiences was working with Wilfred Pickles, whose great comic talent and gift for timing made quite an impression on her.
She became a household name on the radio comedy "Take It From Here" in 1953, a time when radio was far more popular than television. When television overtook radio in popularity, June made a successful transition. Over the next few years she worked with most of the biggest names in comedy, including Arthur Askey, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd, Benny Hill, Harry H. Corbett, Wilfrid Brambell, Ronnie Barker, Richard Briers, Eric Morecambe and Dick Emery.
She became a television double-act with Terry Scott on Happy Ever After (1974) and Terry and June (1979). She also appeared in three installments of the popular Carry On film series, Carry on Nurse (1959), Carry on Abroad (1972) and Carry on Girls (1973).
By the 1980s, June Whitfield was viewed by some members of the alternative comedy scene as representing the kind of traditional, safe comedy they were reacting against. However, she still had her talent of perfect comic timing and her range of voices, which enabled her to continue working. She moved back to more theatre and radio, including The News Huddlines, a satirical radio show fronted by Roy Hudd. In 1992 she appeared in Carry on Columbus (1992), a failed attempt to resurrect the Carry On series. The same year she started a more successful venture, Absolutely Fabulous (1992), which became one of the most popular sitcoms of the decade and put her back into the spotlight.- Ruth Gemmell was born in October 1967 in Bristol, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Fever Pitch (1997), Primeval (2007) and Bridgerton (2020). She was previously married to Ray Stevenson.
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Sophie Thompson is a British actress who has worked in film, television and theatre. A six-time Olivier Award nominee, she won the 1999 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the London revival of Into the Woods. Her other nominations were for Wildest Dreams (1994), Company (1996), Clybourne Park (2011) Guys and Dolls (2016) and 'Present Laughter' (2019). Thompson's film appearances include Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Persuasion (1995), Emma (1996), Dancing at Lughnasa (1998), Gosford Park (2001) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010). Her television roles include playing Stella Crawford in the BBC soap opera EastEnders (2006-2007) and Rosemary Piper in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (2018).- Actress
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Elizabeth Spriggs was born on 18 September 1929 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for Sense and Sensibility (1995), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Paradise Road (1997). She was married to Murray Manson, Marshall Jones and Kenneth Spriggs. She died on 2 July 2008 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK.- Actress
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Welsh-born stage veteran Dame Siân Phillips is forever identified on television as the tarantula mother/empress Livia in the classic BBC miniseries I, Claudius (1976) (for which she won a BAFTA-TV award), and as the Reverend Mother in the science fiction epic film Dune (1984). Her broad range of roles went from endearing to downright deadly.
She was born Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips on May 14, 1933, in Wales, to Sally (Thomas), a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker and policeman. Brought brought up bilingual in both English and Welsh, she performed on the Welsh radio station at age 11. She toured extensively for the Arts Council in Wales in original Welsh plays and in translations from the English classics before becoming an award-winning television actress in her late teens.
Siân attended the University of Wales and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), making her London debut in the title role of "Hedda Gabler" (1957). After a brief marriage, she met and married actor Peter O'Toole in 1959 and appeared frequently with him on stage, including "Ride a Cock Horse" (1965) and "Man and Superman" (1965), and in the movies Becket (1964), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) (which earned her a National Society of Film Critics award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for "Best Supporting Actress"), Murphy's War (1971) and Under Milk Wood (1971). They had two daughters, actresses Kate O'Toole and Pat O'Toole.
While her husky resonant voice served her well as an announcer, newsreader and narrator at different stages of her career, her severely chiseled looks and arch, regal bearing entitled her to perform some of the more notable classics, with critically-acclaimed turns in "Saint Joan", "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Duchess of Malfi", being just a few. Siân's occasional patricians have also graced such well-mounted films as Young Cassidy (1965), Nijinsky (1980) and The Age of Innocence (1993).
After 20 years of marriage, Siân divorced O'Toole, known for his carousing and hard-living ways. She quickly remarried a much younger actor, Britisher Robin Sachs, but they too would divorce in 1991. Despite her personal turmoil, she continued to delve into her stage work, beginning a new phase of her career in musicals. Her participation in such productions as "Pal Joey" (her musical debut), "Gigi" and "A Little Night Music" ultimately led to her acclaimed one-woman cabaret show "Marlene", a tribute to legendary Marlene Dietrich, which opened to rave reviews in London in 1997. Two years later, she won a Tony Award nomination for this role on Broadway.
Over the years, Siân has distinguished herself regularly in such quality miniseries as Oresteia (1979), Crime and Punishment (1979), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981) (as Clementine Churchill), Smiley's People (1982) (as Lady Smiley), The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987) (as the Duchess of Windsor), A Killing on the Exchange (1987), The Snow Spider (1988), The Chestnut Soldier (1991), The Borrowers (1992) and its sequel The Return of the Borrowers (1993) (as Mrs. Driver) and Aristocrats (1999).
She has continued to work into the millennium with elderly roles on stage with "My Old Lady", "Calendar Girls", "Crossing Borders" (a cabaret show), "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Playing for Time" and "Les Blancs", while in movies she appeared in The Gigolos (2006), Love Song (2012), Miss Dalí (2018), Be Happy! (2019), Dream Horse (2020) and was the narrator and grandmother in a rather radical retelling, animated version of A Christmas Carol (2020). Siân was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2000 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama. She was also awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2016 Queen's New Years Honours for her services to drama.- Actress
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Julia McKenzie was born on 17 February 1941 in Enfield, Middlesex, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Notes on a Scandal (2006), Bright Young Things (2003) and Cranford (2007). She was previously married to Jerry Harte.- Actress
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Sandra Voe (born in the Shetland Islands) is a Scottish actress of film, television and theatre.
Voe began her on screen career in 1966, appearing in an episode of Dr. Finlay's Casebook. She has also appeared in Coronation Street (1960), London's Burning, Taggart, Casualty, Monarch of the Glen, The Bill, Midsomer Murders and Shetland.
Her film credits include Breaking the Waves, Felicia's Journey and _Vera Drake_ by Mike Leigh.
Voe has worked in theatres all over the UK, including Sheffield Crucible, Leicester Phoenix, Leicester Haymarket, Oxford Playhouse, Birmingham Rep, Manchester Royal Exchange, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Nottingham Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic, Bloomsbury, Hampstead, Lyric Hammersmith, Almeida, and at the Bush Theatre.- Josette Simon was born on 1 January 1960 in Leicester, England. She is an actress, known for Wonder Woman (2017), Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019) and Red Lights (2012). She was previously married to Mark Padmore.
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Harriet Thorpe was born on June 8, 1957. She attended London's Central School of Speech and Drama before having success in television, playing the depressed and emotionally-unfit mother in The Brittas Empire (1991), and Fleur in Absolutely Fabulous (1992); the character first seen in Season One with her friends and coworkers Magda (Kathy Burke) and Catriona (Helen Lederer).- Actress
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Linda Bassett was born in the Kentish village of Pluckley - location for the television series The Darling Buds of May (1991). She was brought up in Pimlico, South London, by her typist mother and police officer father. She became interested in acting as a child when she was frequently taken to see plays in London, most notably at the Old Vic, the famous classical theater. On leaving school, Linda went to work at the Old Vic as an usherette and catering manager, before going to read English at Leeds University. However, she dropped out after a year and became involved in a local drama group which put on plays in community-based locations, such as schools. She regards this as her theatrical schooling, having had no formal training. She made her London stage debut at the age of thirty-two in 1982 and, in 1991, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Although she was a well-regarded stage performer, it was the 1999 film version of the play East Is East (1999) (in which she had been an original stage cast member) which brought her to a larger audience and, throughout the 2000s, she has been a familiar face in a variety of films and television series. In the late 1980s, she returned to live in Pluckley.- Actress
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Born in Detroit and grew up in the nearby suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Moved to England to pursue music career. Had tremendous success as a rock singer in Britain and worldwide, but only managed one hit in her native America. Was reportedly asked to audition for the part of Happy Days (1974)'s "Leather Tuscadero" after one of the show's producers saw her picture on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine hanging the wall of his daughter's bedroom. Currently lives in Germany with her second husband, concert promoter Rainer Haas.- Actress
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Stephanie Cole was born in Warwickshire, England, UK. At the age of 15 she auditioned for, and was accepted to, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She began her career at the age of 17 playing a 90-year-old woman. She went on to play notable television roles, which included appearing in all 30 episodes of the prisoner-of-war drama Tenko (1981) and playing memorable characters in comedies such as Open All Hours (1976), A Bit of a Do (1989), Waiting for God (1990) and Doc Martin (2004), as well as legendary soap opera Coronation Street (1960).- Actress
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Marcia was born on 26 November 1943 and trained as an actress at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1963. From there on she took the path of many of her performing contemporaries, acting in repertory throughout the country - beginning as a assistant stage manager in 'David Copperfield' in Salisbury. By 1964 she was playing in the West End, picking up an Olivier award as best supporting actress for the play 'Stepping Out' - and garnering another in 2002 for her role in 'Humble Boy'. Deprecatingly she claims that she could never have been a leading lady because she has "a funny face" but has delighted in television comedy in a variety of roles from 'No Place Like Home' in 1986 to 'Vicious' in the 2010s, stealing whole scenes as an extremely foul-mouthed old lady.- Actress
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Blythe Danner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Katharine (Kile) and Harry Earl Danner, a bank executive. She has German, as well as English and Irish, ancestry. Danner studied acting and got her degree from Bard College and began her career in Boston theater companies. By 25, she won the Theater World Award for her work in Molière's "The Miser", at Lincoln Center. She also won the 1970 Tony award for her role in "Butterflies Are Free". She made her film premiere in the same year in the television production of Dr. Cook's Garden (1971). For 25 years, she has been a regular performer at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival. She has also been nominated for Tonys for performances in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Betrayal". Married to director Bruce Paltrow, she is the mother of two acting children, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Paltrow.- Tamsin Margaret Mary Greig is an English actress, narrator, and comedian. She played Fran Katzenjammer in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, Dr. Caroline Todd in the Channel 4 sitcom Green Wing, Beverly Lincoln in British-American sitcom Episodes, and Jackie Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Other roles include Alice Chenery in BBC One's comedy-drama series Love Soup, Debbie Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's soap opera The Archers, Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma, and Beth Hardiment in the 2010 film version of Tamara Drewe. In 2020, Greig starred as Anne Trenchard in Julian Fellowes' ITV series Belgravia.
Greig is also an acclaimed stage actress; she won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2007 for "Much Ado About Nothing", and was nominated again in 2011 and 2015 for her roles in "The Little Dog Laughed" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". - Frances Cuka was born in 1936 in London, to Joseph and Letitia Cuka. The family eventually moved to Hove, where Frances was educated at Brighton and Hove High School. She trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, then made her stage debut in 1955 in 'Meet Mr. Callaghan' in Warrington. Following work with several repertory companies, she joined the Theatre Workshop and appeared with them at the Zurich Festival and the Moscow Art Theatre in 1957. She then played the part of Jo in 'A Taste of Honey' in 1958 at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, East London, transferring with it to the West End then Broadway, followed by an American tour. Her further West End appearances included 'Vanity Fair', 'Sweet Bird of Youth', 'Waters of the Moon', 'The Wild Duck' and a number with the R.S.C. in 'Days in Trees', 'Travesties,' and 'Nicholas Nickelby.' She made her television debut in 1964 in Twelve Good Men (1964) of The Hidden Truth (1964) series, which was followed by episodes of Adam Adamant Lives! (1966), The Informer (1966), The Champions (1968), Within These Walls (1974), Crown Court (1972), Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987), The Bill (1984), Doctors (2000), and Casualty (1986) amongst others. She made her film debut in the little-known comedy Over the Odds (1961) in 1961 and didn't appear on screen again until 1970, when she played Bob Cratchit's wife in the musical version of Scrooge (1970). The best known of her films is Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), in which she played Catherine of Aragon.
- Maggie Ollerenshaw, proud Mancunian and supporter of Manchester City football club since childhood, made her television debut in 1974. She is especially famous for playing comedic Northerners, particularly in the sitcoms 'Last of the Summer Wine' and its prequel 'First of the Summer Wine' and 'Open All Hours' and its belated follow-up 'Still Open All Hours' . The late Thora Hird, no mean comic actress herself, declared Maggie to be one of the finest light comedy actresses in the country but her versatility is shown by the range of her stage roles - playing intense American leads in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire', as well as Shakespearean roles in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' and 'King John' for Barrie Rutter's Northern Broadsides company. In addition she has toured internationally in her own show 'Sincerely Yours', a tribute to singing icon Vera Lynn and adapted works to be broadcast as plays on BBC Radio 4. In 2007 she married fellow actor Geoff Leesley in New York.
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Olivia Colman was born on 30 January 1974 in Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for The Favourite (2018), Tyrannosaur (2011) and The Lost Daughter (2021). She has been married to Ed Sinclair since August 2001. They have three children.- Actress
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Monica was born in March 1969 into an Irish family and has a sister Gabrielle. She studied drama at the Guildhall School in London, graduating in 1991 and soon afterwards went into television. A supremely versatile character actress, she has tended to specialize in stunning portrayals of the darker side of life, as real-life stalker Maria Marchese in U Be Dead (2009), demure but deadly Miss Gilchrist in the superior Poirot adaptation After the Funeral (2006) and, particularly, as serial killer Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult (2011) for which she, along with fellow Guildhall graduate Dominic West, deservedly received a BAFTA award. Therefore it was rather a surprise when she was not the killer in Midsomer Murders episode The Great and the Good (2009), though she sort of made up for it by playing twin sisters, one nice, one less so, in Call the Midwife episode Episode #2.3 (2013). On stage she has not let the villainous side down as Regan in 'King Lear' with Ian McKellen and an unusual version of 'Macbeth', set in Africa, with her Lady Macbeth the only white protagonist. In 2014, despite a lighter role in the TV sitcom W1A (2014), she was back to being enjoyably horrid as George Mackay's bigoted mother in the film Pride (2014).- Actress
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Paola Dionisotti was born in 1946 in Turin, Italy. She is an actress, known for Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced (1985), Les Misérables (1998) and Florence Foster Jenkins (2016).- Actress
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Nancy Carroll was born on 28 November 1974 in Bristol, UK. She is an actress, known for An Ideal Husband (1999), Will (2017) and Midsomer Murders (1997). She has been married to Jo Stone-Fewings since 2003. They have two children.- Actress
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This alert and classy actress seemed poised for Hollywood stardom in the early 1970s. Although it wasn't meant to be, Janet Suzman has remained one of the more respected classical stage players of her time. Born in 1939, she was raised in a staunchly liberal household in South Africa at a time when the country was moving toward the formal racial discrimination of apartheid. Suzman studied languages at the multi-racial Witwatersrand University in the late 1950s and was an active member of the drama society. She left South Africa during the height of her country's oppression, and moved to England in 1959.
Making her professional stage debut with "Billy Liar" in 1962, she almost immediately joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and received rave notices for her Joan of Arc in "The War of the Roses." She made her official London debut in a production of "A Comedy of Errors" in 1963. In the ensuing years Janet built up an impressive classical resumé portraying most of Shakespeare's illustrious heroines including Rosalind, Portia, Ophelia, Beatrice and the shrewish Kate. She also appeared in several BBC-TV versions of the classics.
In 1969 she married director Trevor Nunn and together they collaborated on some of England's finest stage productions during the early 1970s, notably "Antony and Cleopatra" (1972), "Titus Andronicus" (1972) and "Hello and Goodbye" (1973), which won Suzman the Evening Standard award. She won a second for her role of Masha in the 1976 production of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters." They had a son, Joshua, before they divorced in the 1980s. Later work included notable roles in "She Stoops to Conquer," "The Good Woman of Setzuan" and her "Hedda Gabler."
In the early 1970s she branched out into films. Following an auspicious turn in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972), she won the coveted role of Czarina Alexandra in the florid historical piece Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) co-starring Michael Jayston, in which she enjoyed a sterling British cast in support - including Harry Andrews, Jack Hawkins, Ian Holm, John McEnery, Laurence Olivier and Michael Redgrave. Suzman received an Oscar nomination for her performance, and bigger things seemed inevitable. She went on to grace a number of films, including Voyage of the Damned (1976), Nijinsky (1980) and Priest of Love (1981).
In a reprise of her real life family's activism, Suzman co-starred in the anti-apartheid film A Dry White Season (1989) portraying the wife of the Donald Sutherland character. The cast included other progressive activists such as Susan Sarandon and Marlon Brando (who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor). In a change-of-pace role, she played a Mother Superior in the hysterical farce Nuns on the Run (1990).
In the 1980s Suzman was inspired to direct and coach. She was a visiting professor of drama at Westfield College, London, and later returned to South Africa to provide multi-ethnic castings in versions of Shakespearean plays. Making her directing bow in a production of "Othello" at the Market Theatre in 1987, some of her more notable assignments included "Death of a Salesman" (1992) and a reworked politicized version of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" set in South Africa, titled "The Free State" (1997). In 2002 she returned to the RSC to perform in "The Hollow Crown," and most recently appeared in a London production of "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" (2005) starring Kim Cattrall.
Into the millennium, other than a couple of films such as Max (2002) and Felix (2013), Suzman appeared primarily on the smaller screen in such TV series as Tinga Tinga Tales (2010) (as the voice of the Ostrich) and Sinbad (2012), and a role in the mini-series Labyrinth (2012).- Actress
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Frances Barber has worked in a string of award-winning productions for the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking roles as diverse as Eliza in Pygmalion and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Among her film appearances are roles in Stephen Frears' Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), Dennis Potter's Secret Friends (1991) and John Irvine's Shiner (2000) with Michael Caine, Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts (1985), Peter Capaldi's Soft Top Hard Shoulder (1992), and Still Crazy (1998). Most recently she has appeared in The Escort (1999) (The Escort) with Daniel Auteuil and Esther Kahn (2000). Frances made her television breakthrough in Mike Leigh's Home Sweet Home (1982). Subsequent TV work includes Kenneth Branagh's Twelfth Night, or What You Will (1988) as Viola, a role she reprised for Branagh on stage, BBC's Annie Besant, Inspector Morse (1987), Spitting Image (1984) and the BBC's adaptation of the Nancy Mitford classic Love in a Cold Climate (2001). On stage, Frances won the 1984 Olivier award for Most Promising Newcomer as Marguerite in the RSC production of Camille. She has worked in some of the UK's most prestigious theatres, including the Royal National Theatre, the RSC, Hull Truck, Oxford Playhouse, the Royal Exchange, the Donmar Warehouse and the Royal Court. Frances was most recently seen on stage in Patrick Marber's production of Closer at The Lyric, Hammersmith. She attended Bangor university.