June Ritchie has one great role on film to her credit – ‘Ingrid’ opposite Alan Bates in “A Kind of Loving” in 1962. She was born in 1938 in Manchester. Her other films include “Live Now – Pay Later” and “Man in the Moon”. .
She attended Stretford Children’s Theatre from the age of nine. She left school in Manchester, aged 16, to train as a secretary, working for the Manchester Ship Canal Company. Her parents lived in Shrewsbury Street and King’s Crescent in Old Trafford.
Ritchie trained at RADA, where she graduated in 1961, having won the Emile Littler Award for Most Promising Actress and the Ronson Award for the outstanding female student.
She came to prominence after starring in the role of Ingrid Rothwell opposite Alan Bates in the 1962 film adaptation of A Kind of Loving.
In 1963, she starred with Margaret Rutherford in the comedy The Mouse on the Moon and appeared as a ‘dance hostess’ with Sylvia Syms in The World Ten Times Over. She also made two movies with Ian Hendry at around the same time, Live Now, Pay Later and This is My Street..
After marrying and starting a family, she cut back on her acting roles, but later made a successful comeback on stage (most memorably in a high-profile musical adaptation of Gone with the Wind in London), and appeared in many British television dramas including The Mallens, The Saint, The Baron, Minder, Tales of the Unexpected, and Père Goriot.
In 1966 Ritchie starred in The Saint (S5,E10 ‘Little Girl Lost’) as Mildred, a fake hostage attempting and failing to get the better of Simon Templar (The Saint).
In 1975, Ritchie joined Ray Davies and the Kinks on their album, Soap Opera, having played the same role in the 1974 single drama, Starmaker, on which the album was based. She sang the role of “Andrea” (“Norman”‘s wife).
