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1-8 of 8
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Although a prolific television character actress for almost half a century, Hilary Mason will be best remembered on screen as the blind, psychic Heather in the macabre supernatural thriller Don't Look Now (1973). The 1973 film starred Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as John and Laura Baxter, a grieving couple holidaying in a wintry Venice after the death of their daughter, Christine, who was drowned in the garden pond while wearing a shiny, red mackintosh. When Laura meets the two spinster sisters in a restaurant toilet, she is shocked to be told that Heather has seen her daughter. "I've seen her and she wants you to know that she's happy," says the old woman:
I've seen your little girl, sitting between you and your husband, and she was laughing. Yes, oh, yes, she's with you, my dear, and she's laughing. She's wearing a shiny little mac. She's laughing, she's laughing - she's happy as can be.
Later, Laura attends a seance with the sisters and - when Heather gets what she claims to be a message from Christine - is disturbed to be told that her husband, John (Sutherland), is in danger. A skeptical John fails to heed the warning and in the final scenes of the film is murdered by a female dwarf in a red, hooded coat. Throughout this eerie film, based on a Daphne du Maurier short story, the director, Nicolas Roeg, leaves us unsure whether Mason's chilling character really is a psychic or a con artist, particularly in a scene showing the sisters laughing after convincing Laura that they have contacted her daughter.
Born in Birmingham in 1917, Mason won a scholarship to the London School of Dramatic Art before gaining repertory theater experience in Preston, Southport, York and Guildford. During the Second World War she performed with the troops entertainment organization Ensa.
Mason made her television debut as Mrs Drummond in the drama series Thunder in the West (1957), and played Mrs Yapp in the Midlands-based local council serial Swizzlewick (1964) and Mrs Timothy in the soccer soap United! (1965). She as well took two roles in Coronation Street (1960); following a bit-part as Mrs Ainsworth (1965), she was then Derek Wilton's mother (1976), who disapproved of her son's relationship with the dithering Mavis Riley and insisted it must end - to no avail.
Adept at character roles, Mason took eight different parts in Z Cars (1962), and another three in Dixon of Dock Green (1955), before playing Lady Boleyn in the acclaimed, six-part drama The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970) (starring Keith Michell in the title role), Mrs Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby (1977), Mrs Gummidge in David Copperfield (1986), and Mrs Fagge in Great Expectations (1989).
In comedy, she acted Mrs Booth, exasperated mother to the chalk-and-cheese twin brothers, in My Brother's Keeper (1975) and Gladys in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men (1989), the children's series written by Tony Robinson - with Mason's real-life husband, the actor Roger Ostime, taking the role of Gladys's father in one episode. She also played Michael Palin's mother in the Ripping Yarns (1976) episode The Curse of the Claw (1977).
After her part in "Don't Look Now", Mason was cast in the horror films Sharon's Baby (1975) (acting Mrs Hyde, alongside Joan Collins as a stripper who gives birth to a "possessed" baby, 1975), Dolls (1986), Afraid of the Dark (1991), and Haunted (1995).
Mason also appeared twice in One Foot in the Grave (1990) during the 1990s.
She died in 2006 in Milton Keynes, England and left a husband of 50 years, Roger Ostime; they had married in 1955 in Surrey.- Born 1955 Lyndam moved with his parents and brother Eric from his native India to England in the early 1960s. On leaving school he worked in a bank but had acting aspirations and trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His first stage role was in 'The Blue Monster' directed by Nick Barter, later head of RADA. In 1984 he married Christine, whom he had met at a church club in Harrow, and they had a daughter Dominique. On television he appeared in numerous popular shows including roles in 'East Enders' and 'Coronation Street' though will probably be best remembered for the medical sitcom 'Surgical Spirit' which ran from 1989 to 1992, as one of the doctors on the receiving end of the sharp tongue of Nicola McAuliffe's Sheila Sabatini.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Musician and composer, Big George Webley was also the overnight radio talk show presenter on BBC Radio London. His partner JoAnne Good most nights hosted the show before George's. His show was very popular with London Cab drivers who often contributed to his show, and they organised a celebration for George at 1:45 am on 11 May 2011 outside the studios where he worked. They sang a rendition of Louis Armstrong's hit "What a Wonderful World" and also held a one minute silence at 2 am, the time his show used to start.- Jack Trevor Story was born on 30 March 1917 in Hertfordshire, England, UK. He was a writer, known for The Trouble with Harry (1955), Wonderful Things (1958) and Dangerous Youth (1957). He died on 5 December 1991 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.
- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Michael Burdle was born on 30 March 1942 in Weymouth, England, UK. Michael was a costume designer, known for Masterpiece Theatre: Bleak House (1985), The Ginger Tree (1989) and The Borgias (1981). Michael died on 9 February 2012 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.- Jim Marshall was born on 29 July 1923 in Acton, Ealing, Middlesex, England, UK [now Acton, Ealing, Greater London, England, UK]. He died on 5 April 2012 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.
- Editorial Department
Chris Hone was born in 1933 in Paddington, London, England, UK. Chris died on 14 April 2013 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Terry Lightfoot was born on 21 May 1935 in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Des O'Connor Show (1963), Ring-A-Ding Rhythm! (1962) and The Good Old Days (1953). He was married to Iris. He died on 15 March 2013 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.