The All Time Top 25 British Actresses
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One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974. She was married to Cross until his death in 1999. She had two sons with Stephens, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who are also actors.
Maggie Smith's career began at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1950s. She made her film debut in 1956 as one of the party guests in Child in the House (1956). She has since performed in over sixty films and television series with some of the most prominent actors and actresses in the world. These include: Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), California Suite (1978) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, A Room with a View (1985), Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent, Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Cher and Gosford Park (2001) with Kristin Scott Thomas and Clive Owen, directed by Robert Altman. Maggie Smith has also been nominated for an Oscar six times and won twice, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978).
Smith later appeared in the very successful 'Harry Potter' franchise as the formidable Professor McGonagall as well as in Julian Fellowes' ITV drama series, Downton Abbey (2010) (2010-2011) as the Dowager Countess of Grantham.A legendary actress. Dame Maggie Smith has appeared in many well known films. Often she is not required to show her full acting range but, when the role allows, she can be absolutely superb. The Prime of Miss. Jean Brodie was one of her best roles. Mrs. Delahunty in My House in Umbria was another great role. As well as being a great dramatic actress, Smith has brilliant comic timing.- Penelope Wilton was born on 3 June 1946 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Match Point (2005). She was previously married to Ian Holm and Daniel Massey.Penelope Wilton is a very versatile and talented actress. She has appeared in many well known films and TV series. For many years she worked steadily, sometimes in good character parts, other times in starring roles. Recently it seems her great talent has finally been recognised and she is now considered by many to be in the very top echelon of actors.
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After forty years of hard work on stage and both television and film, there are not many other actresses who deserved the success, recognition and stardom which Brenda Blethyn has now achieved.
Born in 1946 in Ramsgate, Kent, England, she started her career at British Rail in the 1960s. Saving money during her time there, she took a risk and enrolled herself at the at The Guildford School of Acting in Guildford, Surrey, England and then left her British Rail years behind. Her risk had paid off, by the mid-1970s she was working on stage, eventually joining the National Theatre Company in 1975.
It was the 1980s, however that saw Brenda move onto the small screen when she appeared in a BBC2 Playhouse presentation called Grown-Ups (1980), playing the character Gloria. Other work in television quickly followed and this kept her working throughout the 1980s.
She still remained relatively unknown with the viewing public during the 1980s, despite her consistent work and superb acting abilities. It was not until the dawn of the 90s that her career took off. In 1990, she played the supporting cast member role of Mrs Jenkins in film based on the Roald Dahl novel The Witches (1990), with Anjelica Huston, Jane Horrocks and Mai Zetterling. Film work now became the order of the day in the early 90s, appearing in both A River Runs Through It (1992) and the television film The Bullion Boys (1993). It was then back to a TV series in 1994, with Outside Edge (1994), working on this production for its two-year run.
It is without a doubt that 1997 will be remembered as her biggest year to date. She was cast by her old friend Mike Leigh in the film Secrets & Lies (1996) as Cynthia Rose Purley, opposite highly talented Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The film received storming reviews and Blethyn won a BAFTA Film Award and subsequently received an Academy Award nomination for her role, along with Jean-Baptiste.
Although Brenda came home from the Oscars empty handed, her profile in Hollywood and Britain soared as a result of the nomination and her appearance on The 69th Annual Academy Awards (1997).
Film roles then came thick and fast following Secrets & Lies (1996). Brenda was nothing short of superb in Little Voice (1998). A second Academy Award nomination followed but once again she was the bridesmaid rather than the bride at the Oscars. Since 1996, she has found a new home in film and she has worked consistently in the medium.A brilliant actress. One of her best roles was as repressed housewife Miriam Dervish in TV comedy Outside Edge, alongside Robert Daws. Was also excellent in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies.- Actress
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Daughter of Catherine and Isaac Routledge. Her father was a haberdasher, and, during WWII, the family lived weeks at a time in the basement of her father's shop. She attended Birkenhead High School, where she sang in the choir and ran the Sunday School. She studied English at Liverpool University, and, after graduation, worked without pay at the Liverpool Playhouse. She was asked to join the company, and she later studied at Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol. She then moved to London, where she built an impressive stage career over the next several years, also appearing on Broadway 1966-1968. Patricia has worked in TV since the early 1950s, most recently in Keeping Up Appearances (1990). She also recorded an album, "Presenting Patricia Routledge", and worked in film and radio. She has never married or had children, has said that she will not retire, and lives in Kensington and Surrey when not working.One of the top British TV actresses in the 1990s. Patricia Routledge had a commanding screen presence as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping up appearances. Only such a brilliant actress as Routledge could get away with such over the top acting (one of her trade marks was looking at something twice and only realising what it was the second time). This just made the character even funnier than it already was. Also very versatile, a master of her craft. After Keeping up apperances she played Hetty Wainthropp, a completely different character, but another great Routledge performance.- Celia Johnson was an English actress, once nominated for an Academy Award. Johnson was born in the town of Richmond, Surrey in 1908. Richmond was incorporated into Greater London in 1965, as part of an administrative reform. Celia's parents were John Robert Johnson and Ethel Griffiths. Neither of them was involved in show business.
In 1916, 8-year-old Johnson made her theatrical debut, at a performance of the play "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid". It was a charity performance, to help raise funds for then-ongoing World War I. Nobody intended for her to become a professional actress, but she liked the stage experience.
Johnson attended St Paul's Girls' School in West London, from 1919 to 1926. She graduated at the age of 18. During her school years, Johnson often had acting parts in school plays, and played music in the school's orchestra. Her music teacher at the school was Gustav Holst (1874-1934), a relatively well-known classical composer.
In the late 1920s, Johnson studied acting at both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and the Comédie-Française in Paris. One of her teachers was French actor Pierre Fresnay (1897-1975). One of her classmates in London was Margaretta Scott (1912-2005)
In 1928, Johnson made her professional debut, cast in a performance of the play "Major Barbara" (1905) by George Bernard Shaw. In 1929, she first performed in London, and in 1931 she first performed in New York City. She made a name for herself as a theatrical actress throughout the 1930s, and married journalist Peter Fleming (1907-1971).
Johnson's career and personal life were derailed by World War II. A hit role as the second Mrs. Winter in a 1940 theatrical adaptation of "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier, was cut short. The theatre where Johnson was performing was damaged through London's bombing by the Luftwaffe. Johnson's widowed sister and sister-in-law moved in with her, bringing their kids with. Having to care for 7 kids (both her own children and her nephews), left Johnson with no time to spare for theatrical tours.
Seeking a way to supplement her income during the War, Johnson started appearing in theatrical films. She started with small parts, but got her first major hit with the family drama "The Happy Breed" (1944), which followed the ups-and-downs in the life of a (fictional) family over a period of several decades. For this role, Johnson received a National Board of Review Award for Best Actress.
In 1945, Johnson was starring in another hit film, the romantic drama "Brief Encounter". It featured her in the role of Laura Jesson, a housewife trapped in a dull and monotonous marriage. Laura falls in love with a new man in her life, Dr. Alec Harvey, and he falls in love with her. With circumstances keep this relationship platonic, until Harvey leaves the country to work abroad. Laura contemplates suicide, but is forced to return to her monotonous life. The role gained Johnson a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
For most of the late 1940s, Johnson was in semi-retirement. She had given birth to two daughters and felt that she needed to devote more time to her family. From the 1950s to her death, Johnson was primarily appearing in theatrical plays and television roles. Her film roles were few, but critically well-received.
In 1982, the 76-year-old Johnson was busy with another theatrical tour. During a day-off from the tour, Johnson returned to her home in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire. She invited friends over to play bridge, but suffered a stroke during the game. She died a few hours later, while still in her home. She left an estate worth £150,557. She was survived by three children.
Johnson's fame as a theatrical actress faded away following her death, as there were few filmed versions of her performances. However, her film roles became available on the home video market, and they have helped introduce Johnson to new generations of fans.Dame Celia Johnson was a legendary actress of the past. She was brilliant as headmistress Miss Mackay in The prime of Miss. Jean Brodie, alongside Maggie Smith. - Age has not taken the flower off this Bloom. The well-known and highly respected stage, screen and television actress Claire Bloom continues to be in demand as an octogenarian actress and looks as beautiful as ever.
She was born Patricia Claire Blume on February 15, 1931, in Finchley, North London, to Elizabeth (Grew) and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales. Her parents were from Jewish families from Belarus. Educated at Badminton School in Bristol and Fern Hill Manor in New Milton, Claire expressed early interest in the arts and was stage trained as an adolescent at the Guildhall School, under the guidance of Eileen Thorndike, and then at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Marking her professional debut on BBC radio, she subsequently took her first curtain call with the Oxford Repertory Theatre in 1946 in the production of "It Depends What You Mean". She then received early critical accolades for her Shakespearean ingénues in "King John", "The Winter's Tale" and, notably, her Ophelia in "Hamlet" at age 17 at Stratford-on-Avon opposite alternating Hamlets Paul Scofield and Robert Helpmann. By 1949 Claire was making her West End debut with "The Lady's Not For Burning" with the up-and-coming stage actor Richard Burton.
A most becoming and beguiling dark-haired actress whose photogenic, slightly pinched beauty was accented by an effortless elegance and poise, Claire's inauspicious film debut came with a prime role in the British courtroom film drama The Blind Goddess (1948). It was her second film, when Charles Chaplin himself selected her specifically to be his young leading lady in the classic sentimental drama Limelight (1952), that propelled her to stardom. Her bravura turn as a young suicide-bent ballerina saved from despair by an aging music hall clown (Chaplin) was exquisitely touching and sparked an enviable but surprisingly sporadic career in films.
Despite the sudden film attention, Claire continued her formidable presence on the Shakespearean stage. Joining the Old Vic Company for the 1952-53 and 1953-54 seasons, she appeared as Helena, Viola, Juliet, Jessica, Miranda, Virgilia, Cordelia and (again) Ophelia in a highly successful tenure. Touring Canada and the United States as Juliet, she made her Broadway bow in the star-crossed-lover role in 1956, also playing the Queen in "Richard II". A strong presence on both the London and New York stages over the years, she gave other powerful performances with "The Trojan Women", "Vivat! Vivat! Regina!", "Hedda Gabler", "A Doll's House" and "A Streetcar Named Desire". Much later in life she performed in a superb one-woman show entitled "These Are Women: A Portrait of Shakespeare's Heroines" that included monologues from several of her acclaimed stage performances.
Claire's stylish and regal presence was simply ideal for mature period films, and she appeared opposite a roster of Hollywood's most talented leading men, including Laurence Olivier in the title role of Richard III (1955), Richard Burton and Fredric March in Alexander the Great (1956), Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (1958), and Brynner and Charlton Heston in the DeMille epic The Buccaneer (1958), in which she had a rare dressed-down role as a spirited pirate girl. On the more contemporary scene, she appeared with Burton in two classic film dramas: the stark "kitchen sink" British stage piece Look Back in Anger (1959) and the Cold War espionage thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). In addition she courted tinges of controversy, playing a housewife gone bonkers in the offbeat sudser The Chapman Report (1962) and a lesbian in the supernatural chiller The Haunting (1963).
Claire met first husband Rod Steiger while performing with him on stage in 1959's "Rashomon". They married that year and in 1960 had a daughter, Anna, who grew up to become a well-regarded opera singer. Claire and Rod appeared in two lesser films together, The Illustrated Man (1969) and Three Into Two Won't Go (1969), in 1969. That same year, they divorced after 10 tumultuous years.
As with other maturing actresses during the 1970s, Claire looked toward classy film roles in TV movies for sustenance, appearing in Backstairs at the White House (1979) as First Lady Edith Wilson and in Brideshead Revisited (1981), for which she was nominated for an Emmy. Also lauded were the epic miniseries Ellis Island (1984); a remake of Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables (1983); The Ghost Writer (1984), an acclaimed adaption of Philip Roth's novel ; and Shadowlands (1986), the latter earning her a British Television Award. Claire married Roth the writer (her third marriage) in 1990 after a brief second marriage to producer Hillard Elkins (1969-1972). The union with Roth lasted five years.
Claire appeared in several Shakespearean teleplays over the decades while also portraying a choice selection of historical royals, including Czarina Alexandra and Katherine of Aragon. On daytime drama, she delightfully played matriarch and murderess Orlena Grimaldi on the daytime drama As the World Turns (1956) starting in 1993. She left the role in 1995 and was replaced.
Continuing sporadically in films from the 1970s on, Claire graced such films as the stylish British social comedy A Severed Head (1971), the tender coming-of-age drama Red Sky at Morning (1971) as Richard Thomas's mother, and one of that year's versions of Ibsen's A Doll's House (1973) (Jane Fonda starred as Nora in the other). She also movingly played George C. Scott's estranged wife in Islands in the Stream (1977) and had a very brief cameo as Hera in Clash of the Titans (1981), a small part as a manipulative mother in Déjà Vu (1985), and mature parts in the romantic dramedy Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) and classic Woody Allen drama Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).
In the new millennium, Claire has been seen in such quality films as and The Book of Eve (2002), Imagining Argentina (2003), The King's Speech (2010) (as Queen Mary), And While We Were Here (2012), Max Rose (2013) starring a dramatic Jerry Lewis, and Miss Dalí (2018). She has also made appearances on such TV miniseries as The Ten Commandments (2005) and Summer of Rockets (2019).
Claire wrote two memoirs. The first was the more career-oriented "Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress," released in 1982. Her more controversial second book, "Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir," published in 1996, focused on her personal life.A great actress. She is the master of the disapproving silence, as seen in her role of Lady Marchmain in the 1981 TV version of Brideshead Revisited. This was just one of many fine roles in her long career. - Actress
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Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy to modern-day mysticism and erotica.
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, into a family of thespians -- parents Roger Winslet and Sally Anne Bridges-Winslet were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and uncle Robert Bridges was a fixture in London's West End theatre district. Kate came into her talent at an early age. She scored her first professional gig at eleven, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years, she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms. Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.
Still a relative unknown, Winslet attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood. Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
The role that transformed Winslet from art house attraction to international star was Rose DeWitt Bukater, the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet, swooning over all that face time opposite heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and noting her refreshingly healthy, unemaciated physique. Winslet's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations.
After the swell of unexpected attention surrounding Titanic (1997), Winslet was eager to retreat into independent projects. Rumor has it that she turned down the lead roles in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in order to play adventurous soul searchers in Hideous Kinky (1998) and Holy Smoke (1999). The former cast her as a young single mother traveling through 1970s Morocco with her daughters in tow; the latter, as a zealous follower of a guru tricked into a "deprogramming" session in the Australian outback. The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000). Kate holds the distinction of being the youngest actor ever honored with four Academy Award nominations (she received her fourth at age 29). As of 2016, she has been nominated for an Oscar seven times, winning one of them: she received the Best Actress Oscar for the drama The Reader (2008), playing a former concentration camp guard.
For her performance of Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs (2015), she received her seventh Academy Award nomination.
Off camera, Winslet is known for her mischievous pranks and familial devotion. She has two sisters, Anna Winslet and Beth Winslet (both actresses), and a brother, Joss.
In 1998, she married assistant director Jim Threapleton. They had a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, in October 2000. They divorced in 2001. She later married director Sam Mendes in 2003 and gave birth to their son, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, later that year. After seven years of marriage, in February 2010 they announced that they had amicably separated, and divorced in October 2010. In 2012, Kate married Ned Rocknroll, with whom she has a son. She was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama.Kate Winslet is one of the top British actresses of modern times. Winslet appeared in a major role in a big Hollywood film when only in her early twenties (Titanic), a great performance. Another fine role was in Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Many fine roles may lie ahead.- Actress
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Lindsay Duncan was born on 7 November 1950 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. She is an actress, known for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), About Time (2013) and Gifted (2017). She is married to Hilton McRae. They have one child.This Scottish character actress has had many fine roles over a career that stretches back to the 1970s. She was excellent as Marilyn Truman in Shooting the past.- Actress
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Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.A great actress that has been around a long time. She was excellent as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. She has played many other well known roles.- 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.A great character actress for over fifty years, Anna Massey played many great roles (often supporting roles). Massey was very versatile.
- Joan Sanderson was a well known British television and stage actress. During several seasons at Stratford Upon Avon, she played the roles of Goneril in King Lear, Constance in King John, and Queen Margaret in Richard III. In a single season at the Old Vic she appeared in The Mousetrap, and in 1981 ended her stage career in the production of "Anyone for Denis" at the Whitehall Theatre in London's West End. She was well known for her portrayal of Doris Ewell in the television series Please Sir! (1968), and as the selectively deaf Mrs. Richards in Communication Problems (1979).Joan Sanderson was superb at playing battleaxe characters. She had brilliant comic timing. After a memorable guest appearance in Fawlty Towers, Sanderson appeared alongside Prunella Scales again in After Henry. Watching her in this role (as Scales' interfering elderly mother Eleanor) was very enjoyable. Sadly, Sanderson died not long after filming of the fourth series was completed.
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Lesley Manville was born on March 12, 1956 in Brighton, East Sussex, England. She is a multi award-winning actress of theatre, film, and television, and has worked extensively with director Mike Leigh. She is known for Another Year (2010), All or Nothing (2002), Topsy-Turvy (1999) and Secrets & Lies (1996), and her performance in Phantom Thread (2017), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also had a supporting role in the Disney fantasy Maleficent (2014). Manville's extensive stage career includes roles in "As You Like It", "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and "The Alchemist". Her film debut was in Dance with a Stranger (1985). She was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire at the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2021 Queen's New Years Honours for her services to drama and to charity.Often appearing in Mike Leigh films, Lesley Manville is a great actress. Brings to life quite a small seemingly insignificant part in Secrets and Lies.- Actress
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Eileen Atkins was born in a Salvation Army Women's Hostel in north London. Her father was a gas meter reader; her mother, a seamstress and barmaid. A drama teacher taught her how to drop her Cockney accent, and she studied Shakespeare and Greek tragedies. Her breakthrough role in "The Killing of Sister George" took her to Broadway.Dame Eileen Atkins is a superb versatile actress. Although she has appeared a lot on the stage, Atkins has also had a long movie and TV career. She has never really had the very great film and TV roles that a person of her talent deserves.- Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally Hardcastle in Love on the Dole. She toured extensively, playing in London and New York. She took leading parts in Pygmalion and Saint Joan at the Malvern Festival in 1936.Dame Wendy Hiller was a great actress of yesteryear.
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A beloved, twinkly blue-eyed doyenne of stage and screen, actress Jessica Tandy's career spanned nearly six and a half decades. In that span of time, she enjoyed an amazing film renaissance at age 80, something unheard of in a town that worships youth and nubile beauty. She was born Jessie Alice Tandy in London in 1909, the daughter of Jessie Helen (Horspool), the head of a school for mentally handicapped children, and Harry Tandy, a traveling salesman. Her parents enrolled her as a teenager at the Ben Greet Academy of Acting, where she showed immediate promise. She was 16 when she made her professional bow as Sara Manderson in the play "The Manderson Girls", and was subsequently invited to join the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Within a couple of years, Jessica was making a number of other debuts as well. Her first West End play was in "The Rumour" at the Court Theatre in 1929, her Gotham bow was in "The Matriarch" at the Longacre Theatre in 1930, and her initial film role was as a maid in The Indiscretions of Eve (1932).
Jessica married British actor Jack Hawkins in 1932 after the couple had met performing in the play "Autumn Crocus" the year before. They had one daughter, Susan, before parting ways after eight years of marriage. An unconventional beauty with slightly stern-eyed and sharp, hawkish features, she was passed over for leading lady roles in films, thereby focusing strongly on a transatlantic stage career throughout the 1930s and 1940s. She grew in stature while enacting a succession of Shakespeare's premiere ladies (Titania, Viola, Ophelia, Cordelia). At the same time, she enjoyed personal successes elsewhere in such plays as "French Without Tears", "Honour Thy Father", "Jupiter Laughs", "Anne of England" and "Portrait of a Madonna". And then she gave life to Blanche DuBois.
When Tennessee Williams' masterpiece "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, Jessica's name became forever associated with this entrancing Southern belle character. One of the most complex, beautifully drawn, and still sought-after femme parts of all time, she went on to win the coveted Tony award. Aside from introducing Marlon Brando to the general viewing public, "Streetcar" shot Jessica's marquee value up a thousandfold. But not in films.
While her esteemed co-stars Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden were given the luxury of recreating their roles in Elia Kazan's stark, black-and-white cinematic adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Jessica was devastatingly bypassed. Vivien Leigh, who played the role on stage in London and had already immortalized another coy, manipulative Southern belle on celluloid (Scarlett O'Hara), was a far more marketable film celebrity at the time and was signed on to play the delusional Blanche. To be fair, Leigh was nothing less than astounding in the role and went on to deservedly win the Academy Award (along with Malden and Hunter). Jessica would exact her revenge on Hollywood in later years.
In 1942, she entered into a second marriage, with actor/producer/director Hume Cronyn, a 52-year union that produced two children, Christopher and Tandy, the latter an actor in her own right. The couple not only enjoyed great solo success, they relished performing in each other's company. A few of their resounding theatre triumphs included the "The Fourposter" (1951), "Triple Play" (1959), "Big Fish, Little Fish (1962), "Hamlet" (he played Polonius; she played Gertrude) (1963), "The Three Sisters (1963) and "A Delicate Balance." They supported together in films too, their first being The Seventh Cross (1944). In the film The Green Years (1946), Jessica, who was two years older than Cronyn, actually played his daughter! Throughout the 1950s, they built up a sturdy reputation as "America's First Couple of the Theatre."
In 1963, Jessica made an isolated film appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds (1963). Low on the pecking order at the time (pun intended), Hitchcock gave Jessica a noticeable secondary role, and Jessica made the most of her brittle scenes as the high-strung, overbearing mother of Rod Taylor, who witnesses horror along the California coast. It was not until the 1980s that Jessica (and Hume, to a lesser degree) experienced a mammoth comeback in Hollywood.
Alongside Hume she delighted movie audiences in such enjoyable fare as Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), The World According to Garp (1982), Cocoon (1985) and *batteries not included (1987). In 1989, however, octogenarian Jessica was handed the senior citizen role of a lifetime as the prickly Southern Jewish widow who gradually forms a trusting bond with her black chauffeur in the genteel drama Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Jessica was presented with the Oscar, Golden Globe and British Film Awards, among others, for her exceptional work in the film that also won "Best Picture". Deemed Hollywood royalty now, she was handed the cream of the crop in elderly film parts and went on to win another Oscar nomination for Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) a couple of years later.
Jessica also enjoyed some of her biggest stage hits ("Streetcar" notwithstanding) during her twilight years, earning two more Tony Awards for her exceptional work in "The Gin Game" (1977) and "Foxfire" (1982). Both co-starred her husband, Hume, and both were beautifully transferred by the couple to television. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1990, Jessica bravely continued working with Emmy-winning distinction on television. She died of her illness on September 11, 1994. Her last two films, Nobody's Fool (1994) and Camilla (1994), were released posthumously.This legendary Hollywood actress was born and bred in Britain. She began her career in British films in the 1930s. Near the end of her career she won an Oscar for a brilliant performance in Driving Miss Daisy. Continued working until death in her mid 80s in 1994.- Actress
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Born Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills in London in 1946, she is the daughter of the great actor Sir John Mills and the well-known novelist-playwright Mary Hayley Bell. Her sister is the actress Juliet Mills. She grew up in her parents' home, an outgoing, funny child, and, because she spent so much time with her parents and their friends, very intelligent. When she went to boarding school at age nine, however, she became very shy around kids her own age. She found solace in theater productions at her school. She was noticed playing at her parent's home in 1958 by director J. Lee Thompson, who immediately cast her opposite her father in the thriller Tiger Bay (1959). Her debut performance turned heads around the world, from Germany, where she won an award at the Berlin Film Festival, to Hollywood, when Walt Disney came knocking at her door. He signed her to a five-year contract. For her first film for the studio, Pollyanna (1960), she won critical raves, box-office success, and a special Juvenile Academy Award. Her second Disney film, The Parent Trap (1961), in which she played twins, was even more popular. She continued to appear in routine Disney films like In Search of the Castaways (1962) and Summer Magic (1963), as well as films outside the studio like Whistle Down the Wind (1961), based on her mother's novel, and The Chalk Garden (1964), again co-starring with her father. Though Disney gave her a somewhat more adult role in the mystery film The Moon-Spinners (1964), she had begun to tire of her sunny, innocent Pollyanna image. After completing That Darn Cat! (1965), she left the studio for good. That Darn Cat! (1965) was still a success, as was her first post-Disney film, Columbia's The Trouble with Angels (1966). Then, she shocked her fans by appearing in the comedy The Family Way (1966) with her father. There was an even bigger surprise in store when she fell in love with the film's director, Roy Boulting, who was 33 years her senior. She lived with Boulting for five years after he divorced his wife. They married in 1971 and had a son, Crispian Mills, in 1973. By this time, he'd taken control of her career, and, as a result, she made many bad film choices that left critics and audiences cold. By 1975, her film career had pretty much tanked. She separated from Boulting that year and moved in with actor Leigh Lawson, with whom she had a son, Jason, in 1976. They split up in 1984. She appeared in three TV-movie sequels to The Parent Trap (1961) in the 1980s, and also appeared in the BBC miniseries The Flame Trees of Thika (1981) and the TV series Good Morning, Miss Bliss (1987), later re-titled Saved by the Bell (1989). She hasn't done much film work in several years, preferring to concentrate on her burgeoning career in theater. Her greatest success in theater, so far, has been the role of Anna in "The King and I", which she has played in many touring stage productions throughout the 1990s.As a teenager, Hayley Mills was a brilliant talent. She acted many an adult actor off the screen. Probably the greatest child star of all time. In her early twenties, she gave a good performance in Twisted Nerve. Nearly all of her best roles were in the 1960s.- 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).A top actress on British TV in the 1980s and 1990s, Stephanie Cole's career took off with Tenko. Cole never became typecast, always playing different roles, many of them to perfection. Is best known as Diana Trent in Waiting for god in the early 1990s.- Actress
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Jo (Joanne) Victoria Hartley is an English actress born in Oldham, Lancashire.
Her acting debut was playing Gretl Von Trapp in a theatre production of 'The Sound Of Music'.
In 2002 Shane Meadows cast Jo as Marie in the Film4 cult classic movie 'Dead Man's Shoes', starring Paddy Considine and Toby Kebbell. She reunited with Shane for the award winning movie 'This Is England' and critically acclaimed BAFTA award winning TV show 'This is England 86, 88 and 90' to play Cynthia.
She starred alongside Hugh Jackman, Taron Egerton and Christopher Walken as Janette Edwards in Dexter Fletcher's 'Eddie the Eagle', joined Alice Lowe and the cast for 'Prevenge', starred alongside Heather Graham and Stephen Mangan in David Cross's TV comedy 'Bliss', played the rebellious Angela in hit TV show 'Not Safe for Work' starring Zawe Ashton.
In 2015 Jo was cast as Pauline Gray in Ricky Gervais's hit movie 'David Brent-Life on the Road', she collaborated with Ricky once again to play June, in the award winning TV show 'After Life' for Netflix, then In 2019 Jo played Trina, a woman living with bi-polar disorder, in the Bafta award winning TV show (Best Drama), 'In My Skin' for the BBC and HULU.
Jo was nominated for a British Independent Film Award (Best Supporting Actress) for her role as Tina in Marley Morrison's multi-award winning British coming of-age movie 'Sweetheart' in 2021.
In 2022 she played Nicola Fishwick in 'Bank Of Dave' for Netflix, alongside Rory Kinnear, Joel Fry and Phoebe Dynevor and executive produced her first feature film, 'Swede Caroline', in which she plays the titular role of Caroline Shumpert.Like Lesley Manville in Secrets and Lies, Jo Hartley brought a small seemingly insignificant role to life in Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes. Meadows cast her again in This Is England. Hopefully will go on to have a great career.- 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.A top character actress since the 1970s, Gwen Taylor has played many varied roles, yet has never really been recognised for being the great British actress she is.- Actress
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Prunella Scales was born on 22 June 1932 in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Howards End (1992), Fawlty Towers (1975) and Wolf (1994). She has been married to Timothy West since 26 October 1963. They have two children.A fine versatile British comedy actress that played lead roles in hit sitcoms in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Her 1960s hit was as Kate Starling in Marriage Lines with Richard Briers. In the 1970s she appeared in her most well known role, Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers alongside John Cleese. In the late 1980s and early 1990s she played Sarah France in After Henry alongside Joan Sanderson.- Tall, reedy, thin-browed, light-haired British award-winning theatre actress Margaret Leighton was born in Worchestershire, England, on February 26, 1922, the daughter of a businessman. Expressing an early desire to act, she quit school at age 15 and auditioned and joined Sir Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Becoming one of his star students, he hired her as a stage manager and offered her the small role of Dorothy in the stage play Laugh with Me (1938). The play marked her professional stage debut. The play was immediately taken to the BBC-TV (Laugh with Me (1938). During these productive repertory years, she involved herself in the classical plays Chekov, Shakespeare, and Shaw, among others..
In 1944, Margaret made her London debut at the Old Vic, playing the daughter of the troll king in 'Peer Gynt. Joining the company under the auspices of Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, she earned distinction as a classical stage actress. In 1946, she made her Broadway debut in repertory with productions of Henry IV, Parts I and II (as Lady Percy), Uncle Vanya (as Yelena), and others.
The opulent actress with strikingly odd, yet fascinating facial features stole more than a few plays and films away from the stars with her stunning portrayals of neurotic, brittle matrons. Her unique brand of sophisticated eccentricity went on to captivate both Broadway and London audiences with her many theatre offerings, particularly her portrayals of Celia Coplestone in The Cocktail Party (1950) and Orinthia in a revival of The Apple Cart (1953). Her New York performance as Mrs. Shankland in Terence Rattigan's drama Separate Tables (1956) earned her a Tony Award. She returned to Broadway in 1959, to play Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, before returning in 1962 as Hannah in The Night of the Iguana, and earning her second Best Actress Tony. She'd continue to return to Broadway throughout the 1960's with such plays as, The Chinese Prime Minister, Slapstick Tragedy, and the 1967 heralded production of The Little Foxes,first playing Birdie before taking over the role of Regina.
During the 1950's and 1960's, Margaret would alternate between working on British and U.S. films. She made her British debut as Catherine Winslow in Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1948) starring Robert Donat, then co-starred opposite David Niven in the period biopic Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948). Hitchcock used her next in one of his lesser known romantic crime films Under Capricorn (1949) before entangling herself in a romantic triangle with Celia Johnson and Noël Coward in The Astonished Heart (1950), which was both written and directed by Coward. In the crimer Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951), Margaret plays a Scotland Yard sergeant who pulls the master sleuth (Walter Pidgeon) out of retirement to infiltrate a vicious gang together, while in the mystery crime drama, Murder on Monday (1952), the touching drama The Holly and the Ivy (1952) and the saucy comedy A Novel Affair (1957), she reunited with her Old Vic theatre mentor, Ralph Richardson.
Margaret married (1947) and divorced (1955) noted publisher Max Reinhardt (of Reinhardt & Evans), known for his collection of letters and photographs from playwright and novelist George Bernard Shaw. Her second husband would be actor Laurence Harvey who starred in the British crime thriller The Good Die Young (1954) in which Margaret made a co-starring appearance as his abused wife. They would marry later in 1957.
Margaret earned her first top cinematic billing as Helen Teckman in The Teckman Mystery (1954) and reunited with David Niven in the military film Court Martial (1954). Playing a Southern aristocrat in the U.S. filming of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1959) starring Yul Brynner, she followed that in the 1960's with a co-star part opposite Peter Sellers in the comedy Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) and an all-star American cast headed by Henry Fonda in the potent political drama The Best Man (1964). The black comedy The Loved One (1965) and the dramatic 7 Women (1965), playing one of several ladies in peril at a Chinese mission, followed.
Appearing in TV-movie versions of literary classics including Arms and the Man,As You LIke It. Margaret began to make guest appearances on TV programs, including; Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955),Playhouse 90 (1956), in addition to a recurring role on Dr. Kildare (1961)
Divorced from Harvey in 1961, Margaret's third and final marriage to actor Michael Wilding in 1964 was an enduring match-up. The couple went on to co-star in the period piece Lady Caroline Lamb (1972). Other notable screen credits include Marriage a la Mode (1955), Waltz of the Toreadors (1962), The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) and the made-for-TV, Great Expectations (1974) as Miss Havisham. Margaret would receive her only Oscar nomination for her support role in The Go-Between (1971), as Julie Christie's manipulative, class-conscious mother.
In 1971, Margaret was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but didn't let it slow her down for quite some time. She continued to perform in such films as X, Y & Zee (1972), The Nelson Affair (1973) and the TV horror offering Frankenstein: The True Story (1973). By 1975, when she was no longer capable of walking, she continued to act giving an over-the-top comic performance in A Dirty Knight's Work (1976). Margaret passed away on 13 January, 1976. Margaret had no children by any of her marriages.A fine British character actress of yesteryear, Margaret Leighton sadly died in her mid 50s. Just witness her performance as Madame Orloff in From Beyond the Grave! She turned a good horror film into a comedy for a few brief minutes. - Actress
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Billie Whitelaw first appeared on the radio aged 11. She made her theatrical debut in 1950 and in films from 1953. She has made a speciality of playing intense, single-purposed women. Also, (on stage), she has appeared in many of the stranger plays by Samuel Beckett.Billie Whitelaw was a very versatile actress. In the early part of her career, Whitelaw often played strong willed characters. She gave a brilliant performance in Twisted Nerve in 1968. In 1999 she played a good supporting role in Shooting the past, which was very different to many of her earlier roles.- Actress
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Patricia Hodge was born on 29 September 1946 in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for The Elephant Man (1980), Miranda (2009) and The Falklands Play (2002). She was previously married to Peter Douglas Owen.Brilliant at playing upper class sometimes snooty characters, Patricia Hodge is a superb actress.- Actress
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Glynis Johns was the daughter of actor Mervyn Johns. Best known for her light comedy roles and often playful flirtation, Glynis was born in South Africa while her parents were on tour there (her mother was a concert pianist) but was always proud of her Welsh roots and took delight in playing the female lead (opposite Richard Burton) in the classic Under Milk Wood (1971). She was probably best known for her role as the suffragette mother in Mary Poppins (1964) although she is probably best loved for her fishy roles in Miranda (1948) and Mad About Men (1954). She had earlier showed she could take on the serious roles as well as in Frieda (1947). Most recently seen (at the time of writing) in Superstar (1999). Johns died in 2024, aged 100, having never received the damehood she had richly deserved for decades. Predeceased by her only son, she was survived by a grandson,Thomas Forwood, and three great-grandchildren.A fine Welsh character actress that had a long career.- Actress
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Kate Dickie was born on 24 April 1971 in East Kilbride, Scotland, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Red Road (2006), Prometheus (2012) and Filth (2013).Kate Dickie is a Scottish actress that gave a great performance in Red Road.