British Actors Archives

Alan Lake

Alan Lake studied at RADA and commenced his professional acting career in 1964. Four years later while making a television film “The Inquisitors”, he met and subsequently married Diana Dors. In 1970 they appeared together to acclaim at the Royal Court Theatra in London in the play “Three Months’s Gone”. He guest starred in many television productions throughout the 1970’s. Diana Dors died in May 1984 and Alan Lake died five months later. They had a fourteen son Jason. To view article on Alan Lake’s career, please click here.

by Pete Stampede

When it comes to their public profile, some performers are doomed to be always (sometimes only) mentioned in the same breath as their more famous partner, and Alan Lake was one such, forever linked with the ultimate sex symbol for 1950’s Britain, Diana Dors, whose third husband he was. And, despite a promising start, the nearest Lake (born 1940) got to a tailor-made acting category was an endless succession of “third villain from the left” roles in series episodes, of which this segment is a typical example. Added to which, in 1964, ABC, scared by Honor Blackman moving on, reputedly considered replacing The Avengers with a series starring Dors (who had been a Rank starlet along with Honor), to be called The Unusual Miss Mulberry. It was never made (and, considering The Avengers was on the brink of its greatest commercial success, shows how much TV executives know!), but at least makes Lake’s casting in this transitory episode strangely apt.

His first TV credit was as a policeman in The Midnight Men, “The Man From Miditz” (BBC, 1964), directed by live TV pioneer Rudolph Cartier, and starring another 50’s film star, Eva Bartok, supported by Andrew Keir and future Doctor Who Patrick Troughton. He also had minor roles in Dennis Potter’s Stand Up Nigel Barton (BBC, 1965), singing in a pub where the Oxford-educated hero tries to show his Dad that he hasn’t changed, and in one episode of a BBC2 serial of Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls (BBC, 1965), with John Ronane, seen in “Murdersville” and “Take Me To Your Leader”, as the main character Robert Jordan. Films included John Boorman’s incongruous feature debut, the Dave Clark Five vehicle Catch Us If You Can (1965, US: Having A Wild Weekend), and two directed by actors, Sky West and Crooked (1965), directed by John Mills and starring daughter Hayley, with Lake as a gypsy (he was actually of gypsy extraction), and Albert Finney’s Charlie Bubbles(67), on which he was also Finney’s stand-in.

His episodic television run had already started, with The Saint, “Locate and Destroy” (ATV/ITC, 1966), as one of a trio of Israeli agents – the others were Harry Landisand, by an odd coincidence, Honor Blackman’s then husband Maurice Kaufmann, Redcap, “The Moneylenders” (ABC, 1966) starring John Thaw, and Department S, “Dead Men Die Twice” (ATV/ITC, 1969), as ‘The Dandy’, giving Peter Wyngardesome competition in the flared, frilled fashion victim stakes. His roles in more serious dramas included Thirty Minute Theatre, “Thief” (Rediffusion, 1968) with Sian Phillips, written by Alun Owen and directed by Alan Clarke, and another anthology series entry, The Company Of Five, “Arthur Gifford Is Alive And Well In Stoke Newington” (LWT, 1968), with John Neville, once a leading classical actor and rival of Richard Burton, now, sadly, probably best known as the Well-Manicured Man in The X-Files. The Contenders (Granada, 1969), directed by future film man Mike Newell among others, was a four-part serial from a novel by John Wain, about bare-knuckle boxing in the North of England, with the tragic, in retrospect, teaming in the leads of Lake and Victor Henry, an actor specialising in angry young men roles, who just as his career seemed on an upswing had a major car accident, leaving him in a coma from which he never recovered.

Lake married Dors in 1968, at a time when her attempt to launch herself on Hollywood had decisively failed (second husband Richard Dawson, a regular on Hogan’s Heroes and host of Family Feud, actually did better there than her), her films were largely supporting roles, and she was even resorting to personal appearances in Northern working men’s clubs to keep in the public eye. (And, to be honest, her increasing weight didn’t help matters either.) In 1970, the couple collected good reviews for a play at the Royal Court, Three Months Gone; but shortly after this, Lake was arrested and briefly imprisoned following a fight in a pub. Not long after his release, he suffered a near-fatal riding accident. And to cap it all, once he started working again, he hardly seemed to play anything other than threatening types in TV episodes; his style of acting seemed to become fixed around this time too, with a constant trademark (intentionally or otherwise) being his accompanying the end of a sentence with a menacing glare of his already bulging eyes. Examples were: Madigan, “The London Beat” (NBC/Univeral, 1972), as a local henchman of David Bauer; The Adventurer, “Icons Are Forever” (ATV/ITC, 1972) with Gene Barry, one of the last and weakest ITC series; Softly, Softly, Task Force, “See What You’ve Done” (BBC, 1974), with Stratford Johns; and the first episode (barring the pilot telefilm Regan) of The Sweeney, “Ringer” (Thames, 1975), as partner in crime to Ian Hendry and Brian Blessed. (I’ve really gone off on one here David, so cut this down if you like!) An indication of Lake’s role is that he didn’t have any really notable dialogue or action, in an episode full of bits worth rewinding the tape for; Hendry, looking alarmingly like one of the henchmen in 101 Dalmations, right down to the flat cap, croaking “Aw, the bloody Sweeney! That’s all we need, innit!”; Blessed spitting “Cozzer!” (derogatory slang for policeman) at John Thaw, after knocking him to the ground; and most famously, Thaw’s warning to one of Blessed’s underlings, “We’re the Sweeney, son! and we haven’t had any dinner!”

Probably, Lake’s best film role was as an incompetent singer, appropriately called Jack Daniels, replaced by his fellow band members, in Flame (1974), starring the rock group Slade more or less as themselves; it’s better rated now than then, seen as being more of a realistic drama than the expected musical lark. In his recent autobiography, lead singer Noddy Holder eloquently described Lake at the time as “a well-known character in acting circles of the early 70’s, but he was also a notorious nutter.” The same year had Lake in the title role of The Swordsman (1974), a sequel by exploitation director Lindsay Shonteff to his earlier, equally obscure Big Zapper(1972); two years earlier, Lake and Dors had both been in The Amorous Milkman(1972), one of the endless run of British sex comedies that regrettably characterised the decade, incongruously written and directed by an actor usually seen either as Nazis or camp villains. It set the tone for the couple’s films, which together and separately, throughout the 70’s and early 80’s, just got steadily worse; the details really are too embarrassing to go into.

In contrast, though still in supporting roles, Lake kept appearing in entries in the prestige drama slot Play For Today, most notably Trevor Griffiths’ Destiny (BBC, 78), and Alan Bleasdale’s The Black Stuff (BBC, 1980), the pilot for Bleasdale’s landmark series The Boys From The Black Stuff, as one of a suspicious pair who may or may not be sincere in offering the unemployed Scousers work. The guest roles kept coming: Doctor Who, “Underworld” (BBC, 1978) was a space-set reworking of Jason and the Argonauts, with James Maxwell as ‘Jackson’, and Lake as ‘Herrick’; the latter also did Blake’s 7, “Terminal” (BBC, 1980). It was back to detective series, and (mainly) straightforward villainy for Lake in; Hazell, “Hazell Settles the Accounts” (Thames, 1978), a series about a Cockney private eye, and another one well-liked at the time but which never gets repeated; Juliet Bravo, “Trouble At T’Mill” (BBC, 1980), as a loudmouthed tycoon in an utterly routine (but long-running) series about a policewoman; Rumpole’s Return (Thames, 1980), a feature-length comeback for Leo McKern, leading to Rumpole Of The Bailey resuming as a series; Dick Turpin, “The Secret Folk” (Seacastle/LWT, 1982), as a refugee, in a popular Saturday evening series with Richard O’Sullivan as the highwayman; The Gentle Touch, “Joker” (LWT, 1982), a show with the same premise as Juliet Bravo, really; Hart To Hart, “Passing Chance” (ABC/Columbia, 1983), filmed in Greece but with a largely British cast, including Lake, playing Greeks and Cypriots—that’s US TV casting; Bergerac, “Tug of War” (BBC, 1984), a middlebrow, long-running effort set in Jersey, and Lytton’s Diary, “Lady in the Mask” (Thames, 1985), starring Peter Bowles. The latter, and an episode of Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense, “Paint Me A Murder” (TCF, 1985) which took some time to work its way round the ITV regions, were broadcast posthumously. His last film was Don’t Open Till Christmas (84), as a loon killing Santa Clauses, in an inept British slasher directed by and starring the well past-it Edmund Purdom, with Caroline Munro in a cameo.

1999 saw The Blonde Bombshell, a tacky TV movie biopic of Dors, played by two actresses, neither of whom looked anything like her; this is an indication of the way British TV is going, trying to do the kind of thing Americans have been doing for years. It ended by depicting Lake, overcome with grief after Dors’ protracted death from cancer in 1984, shooting himself shortly afterwards, on the anniversary of their first meeting. This sounds like just the sort of conclusion a sensationalist TV movie would have. What makes it even sadder is it’s true.

Art Malik. TCM Overview.

Art Malik was born in Punjab in Pakistan in 1952. His family emigrated to England when he was four. When he was in his late teens he started acting with the Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He acheived international fame for his role of Hari Kumar in the television epic about the Indian Raj “The Jewel in the Crown”. He had a major role in the Timothy Dalton 007 film “The Living Daylights”. He is featured in the 2010 film “The Wolfman”.

TCM Overview:

Art Malik will be remembered for quite some time as Aziz, the terrorist going to his death riding a missile in James Cameron’s “True Lies” (1994), but he is a well-traveled stage actor and is familiar for his many miniseries and features based in India. Born in Pakistan but raised in London, Malik began acting after losing interest in his business studies. He spent the 1970s on stages throughout England performing in the classics and contemporary plays alike.

Billed as Athar Malik, he made his film debut in Peter Brook’s “Meetings With Remarkable Men” (1979), based on the memoirs of the meditative cult figure G.I. Gurdjieff. 1984 proved to be a breakout year for Malik. He first came to the attention of American audiences as Zarin in the HBO miniseries “The Far Pavilions,” co-starring Ben Cross and Amy Irving. He was seen on the big screen as Mahoumed Ali in David Lean’s final feature, “A Passage to India,” about the waning days of British influence. And he gained critical acclaim and widespread notice as Hari Kumar, the gentle Indian who romances an Englishwoman (Susan Wooldridge) much to the consternation of a British officer (Tim Piggott-Smith).

The success of these ventures brought Malik to Hollywood, where he appeared in the short-lived medical drama “Hothouse” (ABC, 1988) as a young therapist involved with an older female doctor (Michael Learned). On the big screen, he was an Afghan rebel leader who teams with James Bond (Timothy Dalton) in “The Living Daylights” (1987). In Roland Joffe’s “City of Joy” (1992), Malik portrayed a brutal gangster who demands graft from the local inhabitants of the area. Opposing him are an American doctor (Patrick Swayze) and a woman who operates a medical clinic (Pauline Collins). While the film was uneven and failed to win an audience, Malik’s villainous turn caught the attention of James Cameron who cast the actor as Aziz in “True Lies” without even meeting him. Aziz gave Malik a chance to demonstrate further his range, making the portrayal of the fanatic terrorist believable even in the cartoon aura of the film. He subsequently was featured in the acclaimed British drama “Clockwork Mice” and appeared as the sinister rival to the King in the Disney-produced “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court” (both 1995).

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Interview with Art Malik on “Digital Spy” can be read here.

Hugo Speer TCM Overview

Hugo Speer began his acting career with roles in such British series as “The Bill” and Heartbeat”. He played the part of Guy in the hughly successful “The Full Monty”. In “The Interpreter” he played the brother of Nicole Kidman. He has also appeared in episodes of “Skins”.

TCM Overview:

English actor Hugo Speer first became known to audiences for his role in the smash-hit comedy “The Full Monty” and later had recurring roles on the TV shows “Echo Beach” and “Sorted.” Born in the Yorkshire city of Harrogate, he studied acting at the Arts Educational School. His first roles came in the ’90s, playing a small part in the feature “Bhaji on the Beach” and appearing in the TV drama “The Bill.” In 1997, he earned a recurring role on the drama “McCallum” and achieved international fame as one of the six unemployed steel workers in “The Full Monty.”

He had a subsequent starring role in the musical comedy “Swing” in 1999, and appeared in the 2005 Hollywood thriller “The Interpreter.” On television, he played Sergeant George in the acclaimed miniseries “Bleak House” and starred in the drama “Sorted.” He subsequently co-starred with Martine McCutcheon and Jason Donovan in the family drama “Echo Beach” and went on to appear in the supernatural series “Bedlam.” In 2011, he was featured in another show involving the paranormal, the Syfy series “Haven,” and the same year he appeared in the romantic drama “Late Bloomers,” starring William Hurt and Isabella Rossellini.

Interview on the BBC Website can be read here.

Nicholas Clay obituary in “The Guardian” in 2000.

Nicholas Clay was born in London in 1946. He acted on stage throughout the seventies and also made some films. In 1980 Hohn Boorman cast him as Sir Lancelot in “Excalibur” which was a huge success. He also starred in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “Evil Under the Sun. He made many guest appearances on British television. He was married to the actress Lorna Heilbron. Nicholas Clay died in 2000.

His “Guardian” obituary:Nicholas Clay, who has died of cancer aged 53, was a superb Lancelot in John Boorman’s film Excalibur (1981), a prominent player during Sir Laurence Olivier’s golden Old Vic period in the 1970s, a television star, and an actor who loved teaching – and was good at it.

Nicholas Clay in “The Road Builder” 1971 MGM ** B.D.M.

We first met in the early 1970s, at the Old Vic. Nick had named parts, I was “as cast”. He was quite the most beautiful man I had ever seen, gallingly handsome and awesomely athletic. Olivier’s company enjoyed hit after hit – and Nick was in most of them, notably Jumpers, The Misanthrope, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Equus. After that, he went with The Misanthrope to Broadway.

His first film had been The Night Digger in 1971. A year later, he played Charles Darwin in The Darwin Adventure, and the decade ended with Zulu Dawn (1979). In the 1980s, he appeared in Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981), Evil Under The Sun (1982), Sleeping Beauty (1987), Lionheart (1987), and, of course, Excalibur. He wore a lot of armour – but that comes with heroic acting, and Nick did that with epic braggadocio. He could swash a buckle.

He also appeared in numerous television series. He was the Earl of Southampton in John Mortimer’s William Shakespeare (1978) and starred in Virtual Murder, Picture Of Dorian Gray, The Three Musketeers and Gentlemen And Players, in which he shared top billing with Brian Protheroe. Nancy Banks Smith wrote: “Brian Protheroe looks as if he’s been pressed between the leaves of a book. Nicholas Clay looks like he’s been hit over the head by a brick.” He loved quoting that. Self-deprecation was not a problem.

His stage work continued. There was a world tour of She Stoops To Conquer, and, at Chichester, he played in The Confederacy and A Month In The Country, opposite Dorothy Tutin.

Nick was born in Streatham, south London, to Rose and Bill Clay, a sergeant in the Royal Engineers. After a nomadic army childhood, the family settled in Kent. There is a clan of Clays in Kent – with no tradition of theatre or the performing arts. Dan Willis, a teacher at Upbury Manor school, kick-started Nick’s love of theatre and he was soon performing with the Little Medway Theatre Club; he would later become its patron. But his defining moment was seeing Leo McKern in Peer Gynt at the Old Vic. The dye was cast. He worked as a hod carrier for two years to pay his way through the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; in later years, he became an associate there, active in development and fundraising work.Advertisement

Nick married Lorna Heilbron, a psychotherapist and actress, in 1980, and they had a daughter, Ella. After our Old Vic period, we had drifted apart for a bit. Our friendship rekindled and developed at about the time his second daughter, Madge, was born, 14 years ago. He and Lorna had been visiting Gillian Barge at her cottage at Sibton, in Suffolk; I was there as her partner.

He loved nature, and he loved that place. It suited his spiritual and practical sides. He was a very practical man, a collector of tools that he could use expertly. His favoured charity was the John Muir Trust For The Conservation Of Wild And Open Spaces.

Lately, Nick had been terrific as Ernest in Design For Living. It transferred from the Donmar Warehouse to the Gielgud theatre. Last year, he appeared in Max Gold’s 50 Revolutions at the Whitehall. It was interesting, experimental stuff. He was a regular in Channel 4’s Psychos, quite the most interesting drama series of last year. He was doing a lot of teaching at the Actors Centre and the Academy Of Live And Performing Arts.

Nicky faced his illness with enormous bravery, as I knew he would, without self-pity, sentimentality or “why me?” anger. He was open and candid about it, and thrilled when he heard that his old school was naming its new arts facility the Nicholas Clay Centre. He was a lovely man, and I am a better person for having known him.

At the end of Le Morte D’Arthur, Sir Ector Maris addresses the corpse of his friend and brother, Lancelot: “Thou were the courtliest knight that ever bare shield; and thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse . . . and thou were the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and thou were the goodliest person ever came among the press of knights . . . Then there was weeping and dolour out of measure”

Nick is survived by Lorna, their two daughters and his mother, Rose.

Clive Merrison

Nicholas Anthony Phillip Clay, actor, born September 18 1946; died May 25 2000

His “Guardian” obituary can be viewed here.

Daniel Day-Lewis Tribute by David Shipman

Laurence Oliver died in 1989, just as Kenneth Branagh was launching the film of ‘Henry V’, which he wrote and directed and in which he starred. The coincidence made some journalists, especially in the U.S. wonder whether Branagh as the new Olivier.

Then, when Branagh’s performance was nominated for the annual awards at the end of the year he seldom looked like being strong competition against Daniel Day-Lewis.

For ‘My Left Foot’ this second young British actor swept all before him. That is not to say that Day-Lewis is the next Oliver, for which over the years there have been many failed claimants.

Certainly it does not look likely that Day Lewis will seek greatness on the stage, as Olivier did. But it would seem that we have a chameleon, one gifted with sensitivity and authority.

Because of his looks and the Oscar won while so young he may become a leading romantic actor in Hollywood – of that is what he and Hollywood want ( and with the British film industry in its depressed state let us at least hope he will dazzle us with his versatility from there). But the closest analogy with Olivier is one that both actors probably would appreciated – that other actors are in awe of him”. – David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The Independent Years”. (1991).

One Sheet; Movie Poster; Film Poster; Cinema Poster;

Daniel Day-Lewis has created a gallery of terrific characters since his first major film in 1985. He was born in 1957. His range is astonishing. Witness his Christy Brown in “My Left Foot” and compare it to Hawkeye the scout in *Last of the Mohicans”, Bill the Butcher in “Gangs of New York” or the right-wing punk in “My Beautiful Launderette”. As he is very selective about what work he takes on, one can be deprived of his great acting for long periods of time. Each new performance is always highly anticipated.

When he was making “The Boxer”, I met him when traveling to London from Dublin when we were beside each other on the plane. He was very friendly and spoke about his various films especially about “The Last of the Mohicans”.

Interesting interview in “The Guardian” can be accessed here.

Barbara Mullen (Wikipedia)

Barbara Mullen was an Irish actress well known in the UK for playing the part of Janet McPherson, the housekeeper in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook. Although the role of Janet brought her fame in later years, she already had made her mark in the theatre.

Mullen’s parents, Pat and Bridget, were from a fishing family on Inishmore island off the coast of County Galway, Ireland. The family had emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, where Mullen was born. She made her stage debut as a dancer at the age of three. When her father returned to Aran, later contributing to the making of Man of Aran, the classic documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty,^[3] her mother stayed in the U.S. to bring up the 10 children. Mullen sang and danced in various theatres all over the U.S. and then moved to the UK in 1934, where she trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

She wrote Life is my Adventure, her autobiography, at 23. A year later she made her London debut, acting the title role in the London West End production of Jeannie, a comedy about a Scottish girl taking a European holiday after coming into money. She became an overnight star.

She later succeeded Celia Johnson as Mrs. De Winter in the Daphne du Maurier‘s Rebecca, played Maggie in a revival of What Every Woman Knows by J.M. Barrie, and played the aged sleuth Miss Marple in The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie.

Mullen repeated the role of ‘Jeannie’ on television and in the 1941 British film, which was her cinema debut, alongside Michael Redgrave, and she followed this with appearances in 20 more films, including A Place of One’s Own, Corridor of Mirrors and Innocent Sinners. She also played a notable role in the 1942 film version of Robert Ardrey‘s Thunder Rock as Ellen Kirby, the feminist who is jailed for her subversive ideas.^[4]

She was married to documentary film-maker John Taylor, Man of Aran’s cameraman, ^[1]and they had two daughters, Briged and Susannah.

She appeared on television in America and Britain in programmes such as Juno and the Paycock and The Danny Thomas Show before being offered the role in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook, which began on the BBC in 1962. Her character, Janet McPherson, was the ever-efficient housekeeper to Doctors Finlay and Cameron at Arden House in the fictional Scottish village of Tannochbrae. When the series finished on television nine years later, it transferred to radio, running until 1978.

She was the subject of This Is Your Life in March 1964 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in central London.

Barbara Mullen died of a heart attack in London, England on 9 March 1979.

Barbara Mullen was born in 1914 in Boston U.S.A of parents who came from the Aran Islands. When she was 24 she wrote her autobiography “Life Is My Adventure”. In 1935 she became an overnight star on the London stage with her performance in the lead in the play “Jeannie”. She later replaced Celia Johnson in the London stage adaptation of Daphene Du Maurier’s “Rebecca”. Her greatest fame though came from the long-running BBC series “Dr Finlay’s Casebook” where she played the housekeper Janet. The series ran from 1962 until 1971 and then ran on radio until 1978. Barbara Mullen died in 1979. Interview from 1974 in “The Catholic Herald” can be accessed here. Good biography on Oxford database here.

Ann Todd obituary in “The Independent” in 1993.

Ann Todd, actress: born Hartford, Cheshire 24 January 1909; married 1933 Victor Malcolm (one son), 1939 Nigel Tangye (one daughter), 1949 David Lean (died 1991; marriage dissolved 1957); died London 6 May 1993.

The Seventh Veil (1945) was the perfect film for its time; a heady brew of psychiatry, classical music and a long-suffering heroine who finally has to choose from four handsome leading men, it was an epitome of the Hollywood melodramas being turned out for stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Enormously popular all over the world, it made Todd an international box-office name and consolidated James Mason’s status. The scene in which he smashes his cane down upon the keyboard at which Todd sits (‘Well, Francesca, if you won’t play for me you shan’t play for anyone else ever again’) has become one of the most famous in film history.

Born in 1909 in Hartford, Cheshire, Todd studied at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art with the intention of becoming a teacher of elocution and fencing, but after being asked to play a ‘Faery Child’ in WB Yeats’s The Land of Heart’s Desire at the Arts Theatre, London, in 1928, she decided to be an actress. She made her film debut in Keepers of Youth (1931) but during the next decade spent more time on the stage (including roles in The Middle Watch, Cynara, When Ladies Meet, No More Ladies, Flood Tide and The Man in Half Moon Street) than in films. Screen appearances included The Ghost Train (1931), The Water Gypsies (1932) The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1934), Things to Come (1936) and The Squeaker (1937).

The first of three films in which she was directed by David Lean, The Passionate Friends (1949, updated by Eric Ambler from HG Wells’s novel) had excellent performances by Todd, Trevor Howard and particularly Claude Rains as wife, lover and husband. (It was retitled One Woman’s Story in the US, where the Production Code forbade the use of ‘passionate’ in a title). After its completion, Todd and Lean were married and he acceded to her request to portray Madeleine Smith on screen.

She made a strong impression as Ralph Richardson’s neurotic wife in South Riding (1937), in one sequence riding her horse up a mansion staircase before beating Richardson with her riding crop, then played a sensitive ingenue in Poison Pen (1939) and a seductive singer (her voice dubbed) in Ships with Wings (1941) before returning to the London stage to play the title roles of Peter Pan (1942) and Lottie Dundass (1943). She wanted to make a film version of the latter, but the producer Alexander Korda told her that she was not yet ready to play a murderess on the screen.

Todd’s next West End role was that of Madeleine Smith, the enigmatic suspected murderess in The Rest is Silence (1944). Todd became fascinated with the real-life character and conceived an ambition to play her on screen. She returned to films with the small but effective role of Robert Donat’s understanding nurse in Perfect Strangers (1945) and this led to her casting in The Seventh Veil.

An international star with the film’s success, Todd made Gaiety George and the bleak Daybreak (both 1946) before journeying to Hollywood, where her experience was to be no happier than that of Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert and Patricia Roc before her. Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947) gave her the thankless role of Gregory Peck’s wife in a static thriller which put its emphasis on the accused murderess played by Alida Valli, while Lewis Allen’s So Evil, My Love (made in England) was a darkly brooding film noir which was not popular.

Though not a commercial success (the public awareness that the story ended with a ‘not proven’ verdict and the question of guilt undetermined was doubtless a deterrent), Madeleine (1950) remains one of Lean’s most impressive works in which he makes brilliant use of the glacial blonde Todd’s cool, Garboesque quality, allowing the viewer to read a myriad of emotions and motives into her sphinx-like features.

Todd next performed in a stage version of The Seventh Veil, which was not successful, and starred in Lean’s The Sound Barrier (1952) as the wife of the test pilot Nigel Patrick.

The theatre again began to dominate her acting life: a period with the Old Vic Company (1954-55) featured her as Lady Macbeth, Katharine and other Shakespeare heroines, and was followed by a revival of The Doctor’s Dilemma (1956) and her debut on Broadway in The Four Winds (1957)

. The following year she took over from Claire Bloom in the London production of Duel of Angels. Her sporadic films, The Green Scarf (1954), Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity (1957), Taste of Fear (1961), The Son of Captain Blood (1962), 90 Degrees in the Shade (1965), The Fiend (1971),

The Human Factor (1979, a dull thriller despite being a Grahame Greene story, adapted by Tom Stoppard and directed by Otto Preminger) and The McGuffin (1985) were not impressive.

Divorced from Lean in 1957, Todd became a film-maker herself with two well-regarded documentaries Thunder of the Gods (1966) and Thunder of the Kings (1967).

She also wrote her autobiography The Eighth Veil (1980), and continued to make occasional television appearances. Last year she was featured on television (looking extremely frail) in an episode of Maigret.

Her obituary in “The Independent” can be accessed here.

Judy Geeson. TCM Overview.

Judy Geeson’s first major film role was as the young teenager in Sidney Poitier’s class in the East End of London in “To Sir With Love”. The film was a huge hit in the mid 1960’s helped somewhat by the No 1 hit of the title song sung by Lulu. Judy Geeson went on to star in several British films and then was Hollywood bound. She was featured in the hit U.S. television series “Mad About You” with Helen Hunt. A mini-biography on IMDB can be accessed here.

TCM Overview:

Frequently called “fresh faced” during her ingenue period, and still sweet-smiled in middle age, Judy Geeson made her stage debut at age nine, and began appearing on British TV by age 12. Her screen debut as Pamela Dare, a thoughtful and awakening schoolgirl with a crush on Sidney Poitier’s upright schoolteacher, in “To Sir With Love” (1967) brought her notice and acclaim. She went on to play provocative leads in a number of British and other films, including “Prudence and the Pill” (1968), “Brannigan” (1975), the thriller “Dominique” (1977) and “Horror Planet” (1980). She seemed to have a predilection for screen pregnancies: in “Prudence and the Pill,” she played David Niven’s sexually-active niece who finds herself with child while in “Horror Planet,” she was impregnated by a monster and becomes a killer. Geeson spent much of the 80s concentrating on stage and film roles. She returned to features in 1991 to co-star in “Young Goodman Brown,” based on a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but it went unreleased for almost six years.

The attractive blonde found a better range of roles on the small screen. While still in her ingenue stage, Geeson spent two years (1965-67) as the teenaged daughter in a family that moved from London to the countryside in the British drama series “The Newcomers” and essayed the role of Lucy Honeychurch in a BBC 1973 adaptation of “A Room with a View.” As she matured, Geeson performed in a range of comic and dramatic roles, including a role as a leader on a planet ruled by women where men were slaves in “Star Maidens” (syndicated, 1977-78). She was Emmy-nominated for a guest appearance on “Archie Bunker’s Place” (CBS, 1981), and often guest-starred on primetime series, including “Murder, She Wrote,” “The A-Team” (NBC, 1986), “MacGyver (ABC, 1988) and “Star Trek: Voyager” (UPN, 1995), the latter in the recurring role of Sandrine. Geeson achieved a more lasting recurring role on the highly regarded and popular Helen Hunt-Paul Reiser comedy series “Mad About You” (NBC, 1992- ), playing their snooty British neighbor Helen. Other notable credits include “Poldark II” and “Danger U.X.B.,” both seen in the USA on PBS’s “Masterpiece Theatre.” She came full-circle in 1996 when she reprised the role of Pamela in the CBS TV-movie “To Sir With Love II,” making a cameo appearance in a scene in which a retiring Sidney Poitier is being honored.

Geeson, whose younger sister Sally is also an actress, was formerly married actor-director Kristoffer Tabori, with whom she appeared in the Off-Broadway play “The Common Pursuit.”

Julia Arnall (Wikipedia)

Although Julia Arnall was born in Vienna, Austria, her film making career was based totally in the United Kingdom. Her first major role was in the film “Lost” in 1956. This suspense film is worth seeking out for the amazine number of actors it has in supporting roles. It is a virtual who’s who of British 50’s cinema. Her other films include “Chain of Events” and “The Trunk”. She retired from acting in the late 60’s. Julia Arnall died in 2018 in Brighton.

Collection of Classic Brittish Actors

Alan Lake

Art Malik

Art Malik. TCM Overview.

Hugo Speer

Hugo Speer TCM Overview

Nicholas Clay

Nicholas Clay obituary in “The Guardian” in 2000.

Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis Tribute by David Shipman

Barbara Mullen

Barbara Mullen (Wikipedia)

Ann Todd

Ann Todd obituary in “The Independent” in 1993.

Judy Geeson

Judy Geeson. TCM Overview.

Julia Arnall

Julia Arnall (Wikipedia)

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