Brittish Actors
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.
Cathleen Nesbitt hailed from Belfast where she attended Queen’s University. In 1911 she joined the Irish Players and performed with them in the U.S. in Synge’s “The Well of the Saints” and “The Playboy of the Western World”. She was the love of the poet Rupert Brooke who was to die in World War One. An interesting article on their releationship can be sourced on the Telegraph website here.
Over the next thirty years she made many British theatre and film appearances. In 1951 she was on Broadway with Audrey Hepburn in “Gigi” and made her first American film in 1953 which was “Three Coins in the Fountain”. In 1956 she was back on Broadway again in “My Fair Lady”.Her last film was in 1980 when she made “The Never Never Land” at the age of 92. She died two years later.
IMDB entry:
Diminutive, genteel Cathleen Nesbitt was a grand dame of the theatre on both sides of the Atlantic in a career spanning seven decades. Among almost 300 roles on stage, she excelled at comic portrayals of sophisticated socialites and elegant mothers. Hollywood used her, whenever a gentler, sweeter version of Gladys Cooper was needed, yet someone still possessed of a subtly sarcastic wit and turn of phrase. Cathleen attended Queen’s University in Belfast and the Sorbonne in Paris. Encouraged by a friend of her father – none other than the legendary Sarah Bernhardt – to enter the acting profession, she was taken on by Victorian actress and drama teacher Rosina Filippi (1866-1930). Cathleen’s first appearance on stage was in 1910 at the Royalty Theatre in London. This was followed in November 1911 by her Broadway debut with the touring Abbey Theatre Players in ‘The Well of the Saints’.
From here on, and for the rest of her long life, she was never out of a job, demonstrating her range and versatility by playing anything from villainesses to being a much acclaimed Kate in Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, Perdita in ‘The Winter’s Tale’, Audrey Hepburn‘s grandaunt in ‘Gigi’, the Dowager Empress in ‘Anastasia’ and the gossipy ‘humorously animated’ Julia Shuttlethwaite of T.S. Eliot‘s ‘The Cocktail Party’. Her Mrs. Higgins in ‘My Fair Lady’, Brooks Atkinson described as played with ‘grace and elegance’, which also pretty much sums up Cathleen’s career in films.
Her first motion picture role was a lead in the drama The Faithful Heart (1922), adapted from an Irish play. She then absented herself from the screen for the next decade, resurfacing in supporting roles in British films, though rarely cast in worthy parts, possible exceptions being Man of Evil (1944) and Jassy (1947). Her strengths were rather better showcased during her sojourn in Hollywood, which began in 1952. In addition to prolific appearances in anthology television, she also appeared in several big budget films, most memorably as Cary Grant‘s perspicacous grandmother in An Affair to Remember (1957) and as gossipy Lady Matheson (alongside Gladys Cooper) in Separate Tables (1958). One of her last roles of note was as Julia Rainbird, who instigates the mystery in Alfred Hitchcock‘s final film, Family Plot (1976).
On the instigation of her friend Anita Loos, author of ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’, Cathleen wrote her memoirs, ‘A Little Love and Good Company’ in 1977. For her extraordinarily long career in the acting profession, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Honours List the following year. She retired just two years prior to her death in 1983 at the age of 93.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Her obituary in “The Los Angeles Times” can be accessed here.
Fiery lead of the London stage, in occasional films. Ure’s first husband was playwright John Osborne, for whom she starred in both the stage (1956) and screen (1960) versions of “Look Back in Anger”; she received her widest acclaim for her sensual performance as Clara in “Sons and Lovers” (1960). Her second husband was Robert Shaw, whom she later divorced. Ure died of an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates at age 42.
An article in “Helensburgh Heroes”:
Eileen Mary Ure was born on February 18, 1933 in Glasgow, Scotland to civil engineer Colin McGregor Ure and his wife Edith Swinburne. Colin’s father, and Eileen’s grandfather, was the prosperous flour merchant John Ure, who lived in the magnificent Leiper designed Cairndhu House in Helensburgh, and served for three years as the Lord Provost of Glasgow and was also the City’s first chairman of the Health Committee. Mary, as she was became universally known, spent her early years at her home with her parents in Kilcreggan before being sent away to school in York, attending the Mount, the UK’s only Quaker Day and Boarding School for girls. It was during the lead up to the Festival of Britain in 1951, that Mary was to find her calling. She was chosen to play the Virgin Mary in a major revival of the York Mystery Plays after a nationwide search. The play’s producers, impressed with her performance sent her to study at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art in London.
Despite her first aspiration of wanting to return to Glasgow to teach drama, she was discovered by the impresario Hugh Beaumont whilst performing in Central School productions and in 1954 she made her professional stage debut in Manchester. Her London stage debut was to follow later that year when Mary was to star in Jean Anouilh’s ‘Time Remembered’.
It was in 1955 that Mary’s star was to reach new heights. Whilst playing Ophelia, alongside Paul Scofield, in Hamlet at Stratford, her natural beauty and talent captured the attention of the Hungarian film making brothers the Kordas.
Scofield revealed that he detected an underlying frailty in Mary, stating ‘She was completely enchanting and, on the surface so easy to get along with, but there was elusiveness about her, something unrevealed and dormant.’ Mary was offered a lead supporting role in the 1955 remake of Zoltan Korda’s 1939 ‘Four Feathers’, renamed ‘Storm over the Nile’ and directed by Terence Young, with the publicity posters featuring the credit “Introducing Mary Ure”. In 1956, Mary was offered a lead role that would make her name, and for a period lead to her becoming the new face of British Theatre. The role was Alison Porter, a reserved impassive wife, in the play ‘Look Back in Anger’ by the playwright John Osborne.
Mary had met Osborne earlier during a production of “A View from the Bridge”. At first Osborne, was sceptical that Mary could play the part, but was persuaded by director, Tony Richаrdson, who believed that Mary’s experience of Glasgow would suit the role. Richardson’s instincts proved sound and Mary made the role her own. Mary began an affair with Osborne, with the playwright leaving his first wife, Pamela Lane, shortly before the opening of the play. She married Osborne in 1957 and they set up home in a house in Woodfall Street just off London’s Kings Road, a few hundred yards from The Royal Court Theatre, where the play had been staged. In 1958, the play transferred to Broadway and Mary received rave reviews and a Best Actress Tony nomination, with one critic writing: “As the tormented wife, Mary Ure succeeds in retaining the pride of an intelligent young woman by filling her silences with unspoken vitality, by being alive and by glowing with youth in every sequence.”
The marriage between Mary and John would only last five years with his extremely complicated love life, womanising, abusive behaviour and their differences of opinion on starting a family contributing greatly to the breakdown. It was also noted at this time that Osborne was beginning to resent Mary’s growing dependence on alcohol. Osbornе’s cruelty was observed by the writer Doris Lessing, who watched as Mary was reduced to tears in a bistro by one of John’s verbal attacks: ‘I was there with somebody else and we attempted to defuse the situation, but he never let up for a second. He flayed her, quite like Jimmy Porter.’ The impending breakdown in her marriage, led Mary into an affair with the upcoming steely blue eyed actor Robert Shaw, who she had met in 1959. It is stated that whilst John was at least making some attempt to keep his affairs hidden, Mary was positively indiscreet with hers, going out of her way to leave correspondence from Shaw lying round the marital home for Osborne to discover. It was also in 1959 that Mary transferred her portrayal of Alison to the big screen in the film version of ‘Look back in Anger’ starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. It was later suggested by Burton in his autobiography, that he and Mary had had a brief affair during filming.
In 1960, Mary Ure starred as Clara Dawes in the screen adaptation of DH Lawrence’s ‘Sons and Lovers’ and was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. As an interesting aside, Mary remains one of only two Scottish born women to receive and Acting Academy award nomination – the other being Helensburgh’s Deborah Kerr Despite her success, her personal life was still an extraordinarily tangled web, as evidenced by the fact that whilst John was on holiday in the South of France with his mistress Jocelyn Rickard in 1961, Mary was giving birth to a son. The child was Mary’s son Colin Murray Osborne, named after her Scottish Father, and born on the 31st August 1961. Even though Osborne was named as the Father on the birth certificate, it was widely believed thought the child was Shaw’s, and 24 months later he by formally adopted the young child. Osborne and Mary finally divorced in 1962 and she wedded Shaw on April 13th 1963 in secret in Buckinghamshire. Their honeymoon was spent in Istanbul where Robert was playing the vicious assassin Red Grant in the 1963 Bond film ‘From Russia with Love.’ At the time, and away from a pretty volatile, and at times violent, home life, Mary’s professional career had also started to settle down. Mary continued to star in a few plays in London during the 1960’s, including Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ and ‘Duel of Angels’ with Vivien Leigh.
Mary and Shaw would have four children together (eight in total including four from Robert’s previous marriage to Jennifer Bourke) and everything appeared well, with Mary quoted as saying, “they enjoyed a gloriously loving, combative, thoroughly agreeable relationship.” In 1963, and after an absence of three years, Mary returned to cinema screens with a role in the Sci-Fi drama ‘The Mind Benders’ with Dirk Bogarde, followed by two films with her husband, 1964’s ‘The Luck of Ginger Coffey’ and 1967’s ‘Custer of the West’. This film was then followed by the role for which Mary is perhaps most associated with by the majority of cinema going audience. In 1968, Mary played a beautiful and gutsy allied agent in the block buster adaptation of Alastair MacLean’s ‘Where Eagles Dare’ opposite Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton (apparently Elizabeth Taylor insisted on being on set to prevent Burton re-igniting his feelings for Mary) It was a box office smash but it was also to be Mary’s last big screen role for five years. Robert Shaw was fiercely protective, and some say jealous, of Mary, and he insisted that take a step back and concentrate on being a full time mother and wife. Mary didn’t give up her career entirely but the demands of motherhood, she bore three children during this period, and her growing dependence on alcohol meant her career lapsed. Shaw’s agent, John French, would later state bluntly: ‘Shaw had taken all her cash, demolished her job, made her into a housekeeper.’
As her alcohol dependence increased, Mary tried to resurrect her career in 1973 appearing in what was eventually her final film ‘A Reflection of Fear’ with Shaw. Mary appeared dissipated and it was evident that she was unwell. She attempted a return to Broadway in 1974 in The Phoenix Theatre’s production of Congrieve’s “Love for Love” but she was unceremoniously released after a disastrous Saturday matinee performance, being replaced by her understudy the then unknown Glenn Close. It is reported that whilst residing in New York, Mary was found naked in Central Park. According to Shaw’s agent John French, Mary’s reaction to liquor was very different to that of her husband’s. It launched her into turbulent rages and she became very abusive, feeling compelled to rid herself of her clothing. The couple had by now moved to Ireland for tax reasons, but the cracks in their marriage continued, with Shaw having an affair with his secretary and Mary continuing to seek solace in alcohol.
In 1975 Mary took a leading role with Honor Blackman and Brian Blessed in the Don Taylor stage-play production The Exorcism, adapted from the 1972 BBC TV film production of the same name – a sinister tale of a group of friends trapped in a cottage at Christmas, it was to be Mary’s last role in life. A few hours after it had opened on the London stage Mary Ure was dead. ragically, Mary died on Thursday 3rd April 1975. The circumstances of Mary’s death led the sensational press to talk of a ‘curse’ on the production in which she was appearing. It was her husband Robert Shaw, returning home from a break in filming, who discovered his wife dead in their Curzon Street home. At the time, there was much speculation that Mary had committed suicide. Later, at the inquest the actual cause of her death was revealed as accidental death – a tragic combination of prescription drugs and alcohol.
Since the birth of her daughter, Hannah, six years earlier, and at the start of her break from the limelight, Mary had been on prescription medication for depression and often became careless with the dosage. On the night of her death, Mary had indulged in a few drinks at the play’s opening night party and had arrived home to take some her prescription drugs – a combination that proved fatal. Mary who had once been described as ‘The Scottish Marilyn’, who had ventured from the West Coast of Scotland to the world’s greatest stages, was dead at just 42 years of age. Of Mary’s fairly brief and tragic life, John Osborne wrote poignantly: “Mary, whose destiny dragged her so pointlessly from a life better contained by the softly lapping waters of the Clyde”. Robert Shaw died three years later on 28 August, 1978 on a country road in Ireland of a heart attack.
Eileen Mary Ure is buried in London Road Cemetery, Coventry, Warwickshire, England
This article can also be accessed online at the “Helensburgh Heroes” website here.
“The Times” obituary:
Margaret Leighton died yesterday at the age of 53. She was an actress as intelligent as she was beautiful. From her youth she had rare poise and period sense qualities evident in her final part, a Compton Burnett dowager in last year’s stage version of “A Family and a Fortune.”
Born in Worcestershire on February 26, 1922, and educated at Birmingham, she was one of Sir Barry Jackson’s Repertory Theatre discoveries. In 1938, as a tall, glowingly fair girl of 16, she began by scrubbing the stage and doing the work of a junior ASM. Early in the war she toured with Basil Langton’s company; but it was at the Repertory, especially between 1942 and 1944, that in such parts as
Katharina, Rosalind, Barrie’s Lady Babbie, and the step-daughter in Six Characters”, she made the great regional reputation, justified during three years in London with the Old Vic. During the first three years, 1944-47, of the company’s famous stay at the New Theatre, she acted, among much else, Raina in “Arms and the Man”, Yelena in “Uncle Vanya”, Roxane in “Cyrano de Bergerac”, and a Regan, to Olivier’s Lear.
Always she was far more than decorative. She had a cutting truth, and her repetory training (though she never entirely lost her nervousness) prepared her for anything. From the Vic company she went to to a trio of parts in the Criterion revival of Bridie’s “A Sleeping Clergyman” (1947), welcoming the chance to act with Robert Donat: later she was
with him in the film version of “The Winslow Boy”, her introduction to the work of Terence Rattigan.
She was Celia in the London production of “The Cocktail Party” (1950) and 12 months later appeared as Masha in a revival of “Three Sisters” for Festival of Britain year. In 1952, as Stratford upon Avon’s leading lady again, it was said, as the toast of the Midlands, she was Lady Macbeth, a Rosalind of jetting raillery and an Ariel described by a critic as a silver arrow.
Afterwards, though she remained among the first half dozen of English actresses, she never found the sustained full-scale triumph (long runs aside) for which one had hoped. Certainly there were long runs. After a few months as Orinthia to Noel Coward’s Magnus in the Haymarket revival of “The Apple Cart” (1953) and another Eliot heroine, Lucasta in “The Confidential Clerk”, she had nearly four years, in London and on Broadway, as two amply contrasted characters in the double bill of Terence Rattigan’s “Separate Tables”. Her Rose, a former Midland girl, in his “Variations on a Theme” (Globe, London, 1958) had to be less satisfying. She acted a gleaming Beatrice to Sir John Gielgud’s Benedick in New York (September, 1959). Then, after two more London parts – the second of them Ellida in “The Lady From the Sea” (1961) – she spent five years in New York where she won the Antoinette Perry Award for the best actress of 1961-62, as Hannah in Tennessee Williams’s “The Night of the Iguana”. She was also in Enid Bagnold’s “The Chinese Prime Minister” when the dramatist spoke of her as “an extraordinary and shining woman, made of moonshine and talent and deep self-distrust, astonished at success.”
Her return to London (1967) was in an undemanding play “Cactus Flower”. Within two years at the Chichester Festival, she reached the part many thought she should play, Shakespeare’s Cleopatra (to the Antony of Sir John Clements), royal in her aspect but never theatrically voluptuous. But the Festival period was brief. And of her three later parts, two were at Chichester, Mrs Malaprop in “The
Rivals” and Elena in “Reunion in Vienna” (also for a short time in London). Finally there was the dowager she acted with such sharp assurance in “A Family and a Fortune” (Apollo, 1975). These were all performances, varying in scope, and of much style and vigour in execution, but without the transcendent quality we knew Margaret Leighton could achieve. We hoped she might again. It is too late now;but she is remembered, as “Maggie”, in and out of the theatre, with deep affection.
Margaret Leighton acted in several films besides “The Winslow Boy”. She received a Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance in “The Go-Between” in 1971, and her other credits included “The Loved One” (1965), “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1972), and “Bequest to the Nation” (1973). She was married three times – to Max Reinhardt, to Laurence Harvey, and lastly to Michael Wilding. The above “Times” obituary can also be accessed online here.
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Lewis Collins is probably best known for his tough-guy role as ‘Bodie’ in the TV series “The Professionals”. The series ran from 1977 until 1983 and was one of the most popular shows in the United Kingdom. With the release of DVD boxed set of all the series, the show and its actors are having renewed popularity. Collins also played an SAS officer in the film “Who Dares Win”. He livesdwith his family in California. He died in 2013.
“Guardian” obituary:
In a 1980 episode of the hit British cop show The Professionals, an ill-advised villain tries to threaten the ex-mercenary William Bodie with his snarling doberman pinscher. After a brief altercation, Bodie, all sang-froid and minimally curled lip, inquires: “Would your little dog like to chew this electric fire? Or maybe you’ll just leave.”
This kind of butch badinage, along with rugged good looks, helped make Lewis Collins, who played Bodie in all 57 of the show’s episodes from 1977 and 1983, and who has died aged 67 after suffering from cancer, into a household name. During that time he formed one half of Britain’s answer to Starsky and Hutch, a crime-fighting duo called Bodie and Doyle who worked for a shadowy criminal intelligence agency, CI5, headed by Gordon Jackson’s strait-laced George Cowley. At its height, The Professionals was watched by 12 million viewers a week, and Collins became a heart-throb. He was even considered to replace Roger Moore as James Bond.
Of all the many unreconstructed hardmen of 70s and 80s British TV, Collins was the most unremittingly macho in real life. He was a black belt in jujitsu and a crack shot, and had taken the entrance tests to join the SAS. He and Martin Shaw, who played Ray Doyle, worked out in the gym for their roles; and Collins often did his own stunts.
The actor Anthony Andrews had originally been cast as Bodie, but left after only four days on set. Collins quickly made an impression, not just for his hardman aura, but for comedy, an acting skill he had developed in the mid-70s Granada sitcom The Cuckoo Waltz. “You CI5 boys think you’re the cat’s whiskers, don’t you?” asks a CID sergeant in one episode of The Professionals. “Well,” retorts Bodie, “at least we’re at the right end of the cat.”
His character was never troubled by self-doubt. When asked by a besotted, helpless woman (there were plenty of those in The Professionals) which is Bodie and which Doyle, Bodie replies insouciantly: “Bodie’s the incredibly handsome one.” “That still doesn’t tell me which is which,” she says
Lewis Collins
Perhaps inevitably, Bodie and Doyle were satirised. In a Nissan car ad a few years later, one Professionals-like rogue cop remarks: “This car’s well-sprung,” prompting the reply: “Yeah, just like your perm.” In 1984, Keith Allen and Peter Richardson played Bonehead and Foyle in The Bullshitters, in which two disgraced agents return to crime-fighting to rescue their ex-boss’s kidnapped daughter. But John Simm, who starred in the hit cop show Life on Mars (2006-07), acknowledged Collins’s influence on his portrayal of Sam Tyler, saying: “If there’s anything in my head about the way Sam looks and acts, for me it’s Bodie as played by Lewis Collins.”
Before The Professionals finished its run, Collins starred in the British film Who Dares Wins (1982). He played an SAS officer, Captain Peter Skellen, who goes undercover to foil a group of anti-nuclear terrorists. It was widely derided for its hawkish politics and for its implausibility, with the critic Roger Ebert remarking: “There are so many errors of judgment, strategy, behaviour and simple plausibility in this movie that we just give up and wait for it to end.”
Nonetheless, after the film’s release, Collins was invited to meet the James Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, who was looking for a new 007. “I was in his office for about five minutes, but it was really over for me in seconds,” Collins said later. “He’s expecting another Connery to walk through the door but there are few of them around. He found me too aggressive.”
Collins was born in Bidston, Birkenhead, Merseyside. He struggled at school, but developed an interest in martial arts and shooting. He also learned to play the drums that his father, Bill, a jazz dance band leader, bought him, and by 13 was playing in the Renegades, who were occasionally on the same bill as the Beatles at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. It was even suggested that Collins should audition to replace Pete Best as the Beatles’ drummer.
Instead, he became a hairdresser. Later, he learned to play the guitar and was hired as bassist for the Mojos, featuring on their singles Goodbye Dolly Gray and Until My Baby Comes Home, but he grew exasperated with the music scene and decided to become an actor. “It was like saying you wanted to be an astronaut,” he recalled. “Everyone laughed in the pop business but I really felt I could do it.”
In 1968, Collins auditioned successfully for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduation, he worked at Glasgow Citizens theatre and theRoyal Court, London, before, in 1974, landing his TV debut in the police series Z Cars. But it was in The Cuckoo Waltz, in which he was the lodger to impoverished newlyweds played by Diane Keen and David Roper, that he made his name. As Gavin Rumsey, he played the kind of self-regarding Lothario who was not a million miles away from Bodie.
After The Professionals concluded, Collins went on to play several relatively minor TV roles – including a sheriff of Nottingham in Robin of Sherwood (1986), and Colonel Mustard in six episodes of a British TV game-show adaptation of Cluedo (1991-92). But he was never able to match his success in The Professionals and in later years lived quietly with his family in Los Angeles.
He is survived by his wife, Michelle, whom he married in 1992, and three sons, Oliver, Elliot and Cameron.
• Lewis Collins, actor, born 26 May 1946; died 27 November 2013
• This article was amended on 29 November 2013. The original stated that Lewis Collins played the sheriff of Nottingham in Robin of Sherwood. The character he played, Philip Mark, was briefly appointed sheriff of Nottingham in place of Robert de Rainault, the longstanding sheriff played by Nickolas Grace.
To view his obituary in The Guardian”, please click here.
Jean Shrimpton was the top model in the world in the mid 1960’s. She was an icon that represented Swinging London and Caranaby Street. She only made one film which was directed by Peter Watkins and also starred the pop singer Paul Jones. She had retired from modeling in the 70’s and now runs a hotel in Penzance in Cornwall with her family. To view her hotel, “The Abbey”, please click here.
“Guardian” interview from 2011:
Jean Shrimpton is nonplussed. She has just discovered that Karen Gillan, of Doctor Who fame, is to play her in a forthcoming BBC4 drama about her love affair with photographer David Bailey. Filming of We’ll Take Manhattan, which reprises a heady Vogue photoshoot in 1962, is due to start next month, but the world’s first supermodel could hardly be less interested. “I don’t live my life through the prism of the past,” she says. “I know vaguely about the BBC’s drama, but I don’t look back on my life.” While Gillan chattered excitedly about her delight at “playing somebody who had such a lasting impact on the fashion world”, Shrimpton said she was not in the least bit “bothered” who played her. “It’s of no interest,” she added.
Shrimpton’s lack of enthusiasm about the film is no surprise. She has been reticent to the point of reclusive ever since she quit fashion, once and for all, in her early 30s. A clue to the reasons for her withdrawal from the world that made her famous comes early in our conversation in the drawing room of the Abbey Hotel in Penzance, which she has owned and run for over 30 years “Fashion is full of dark, troubled people,” she says. “It’s a high-pressured environment that takes its toll and burns people out. Only the shrewd survive – Andy Warhol, for example, and David Bailey.” We are talking about British fashion designer John Galliano, who was sacked by Dior last month after allegedly making antisemitic comments. Shrimpton, dressed in a simple, unostentatious black dress – more bohemian than haute couture – is quick to lament the fashion world’s excesses. “No one can condone what he said – it’s reprehensible. But it’s hypocritical to pretend that fashion is normal, that people in it are role models. And it’s stupid to deny that people behave badly.”
We have heard little of “The Shrimp” since she vanished from swinging London and took off to the West Country. She recently popped up in Channel 4’s Country House Rescue, and in 1990 a ghostwritten autobiography appeared, but Shrimpton makes no bones about why she played ball. “I needed some money to renovate the roof of the hotel,” she says, her blue eyes flashing, arms firmly folded. She adds, curtly: “I didn’t want the book to appear. I’ve hated publicity all my life. I didn’t even like it when I was a model.” So quixotic a statement must be mischievous; after all, Shrimpton travelled the world for a decade, enjoyed a life of luxury and appeared so often on the covers of the likes of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Time and Glamour that she, more than any other model of the 60s, can lay claim to having been the world’s first supermodel. And now, aged 68 and despite, as she puts it, having done “precisely nothing” to preserve her looks, her face is still remarkable – high cheekbones, retroussé nose, arched eyebrows above large, dramatic eyes, and a body as willowy as it was in her heyday. But no, Shrimpton is adamant. “I never liked being photographed. I just happened to be good at it.”
But the High Wycombe-born, 5ft 10in Shrimpton was not merely good at modelling – she was a revelation. Steve McQueen, with whom she was photographed by the legendary American photographer Richard Avedon for American Vogue, quickly spotted her preternatural poise in front of the camera. “You just turn it on and off,” he said, after a photoshoot. Shrimpton shrugged. “I told him it was just my job, and it was. The ability to turn on and off again until the photographer is happy is what all the best models have. It’s an automatic reflex.”
David Bailey was the first photographer to capitalise on this quality, taking an ingenue from Buckinghamshire to stardom almost as quickly as the click of a camera. The pair became emblems of London in the early 60s, but little in Shrimpton’s early life suggested that she was destined for international acclaim. “My upbringing was very rural,” she says. “I was brought up on a farm, surrounded by animals. To this day I can remember Danny, a black Labrador we owned. He was trained by my father to collect eggs and bring them to the kitchen.” She recalls a happy childhood, one in which she lived her life for animals – horses were a passion – and did just enough to get through school, without really feeling that she fitted it. “I was a reserved girl. I was never part of a gang, and yet I wanted to please, too.”
Without any real sense of purpose, Shrimpton enrolled at Langham Secretarial College in London when she was 17. “I managed to get 140 words a minute for shorthand and 70 for typing, just about scraping through,” she says, but already her looks – waifish and coltish, she calls them – had been noticed by the film director Cy Endfield. “I was dawdling at a zebra crossing near Langham Place when an American voice asked if he could talk to me. It was Endfield, and he thought I might be suitable for Mysterious Island, a film he was shooting based on a Jules Verne novel. He told me to go along and see the producer.” Shrimpton, mindful of Lana Turner’s discovery in a drugstore, took up the offer, but Mysterious Island’s producer wasn’t keen. “I left feeling crushed,” she recalls, but took up Endfield’s alternative suggestion – that she enrol on the Lucie Clayton modelling course. Before long, Shrimpton was on Clayton’s books and, while still a teenager, worked as a catalogue model. Magazine work soon came her way, and it was on a shoot for Vogue that she met one of the most influential men in her life, David Bailey. “‘Bailey’ was how he introduced himself,” says Shrimpton. “And that was all I ever called him.” Aged 18, Shrimpton rapidly found herself entwined with the East End boy on the up, who was five years her elder. “We were instantly attracted to each other,” she says. Shrimpton broke off a relationship and Bailey ended his marriage so they could be together. “He was a larger-than-life character, and still is. There’s a force about him. He doesn’t give a damn about anything. But he’s shrewd, too. He made a lot of money out of me.
“I’m not bitter,” adds Shrimpton. “But I’m irked. That’s all. Bailey was very important to me. I’m sure today’s models are a lot more switched-on than we were. Image rights didn’t exist back then. What happened – the creation of the fashion industry – just happened.” Shrimpton’s romance with Bailey did not last long. It was the heady, early days of the swinging 60s and the couple worked tirelessly together, but Shrimpton left Bailey to begin a relationship with Terence Stamp. “Our paths first crossed when Bailey photographed us together for Vogue, and then we met again at a wedding. I was aware of him because he was so good-looking. But it was Bailey who accidentally brought us together. Stamp seemed ill at ease, self-conscious and standoffish, but Bailey talked to him, as he always does with people, and ended up inviting him to come with us to see my parents in Buckinghamshire later that day.”
But if Stamp’s looks captivated Shrimpton, his personality was less straightforward. The beautiful duo were soon an item – to Bailey’s dismay – but their three years together left Shrimpton puzzled. Certainly, there is no love lost now: “Terry has said that I was the love of his life, but he had a very strange way of showing it. We lived together in a flat in Mayfair, but he never gave me a set of keys; one day I walked into his room to talk to him and he simply turned his back on me, swivelling his chair to stare silently out of the window. That sort of thing was typical. He was very peculiar.” Why, then, did she stay with him? “His otherness was a challenge,” is Shrimpton’s reply, but she is deadpan about being one half of London’s most gorgeous couple: “We were two pretty people wandering around thinking we were important. Night after night we’d go out for dinner, to the best restaurants, but just so that we could be seen. It was boring. I felt like a bit part in a movie about Terence Stamp.”
Work, though, was good. By her mid-twenties Shrimpton was known the world over, and she’d also made a major, if unwitting, contribution to fashion when she was hired to present prizes for the Melbourne Cup in Australia. Shrimpton’s dressmaker, Colin Rolfe, was given insufficient fabric, but pressed ahead regardless, making four outfits which were all cut just above the knee. The miniskirt was born – to the shock of conservative Australia at the time.
But for all the fame, the exotic travel and approaches from famous stars such as Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson – “they’re the kind who can’t help themselves, it’s in their nature, though Jack was more subtle than Warren” – Shrimpton was not happy. She loathed the name “The Shrimp” and felt disenchanted with the fashion world. With hindsight, she says her true self only began to emerge in her next relationship, with photographer Jordan Kalfus, 12 years her senior, in New York. “I discovered museums, art and literature. It was an awakening. There was so much happening in American literature at the time. Mailer, Bellow, Burroughs, Ginsberg – they were all the rage.”
She began to read voraciously, and bought fine art. Back in Britain a turbulent relationship with the anarchic poet Heathcote Williams was followed by another with writer Malcolm Richey, with whom she moved initially to Cornwall. By now, in her early thirties, Shrimpton was only too pleased to forsake modelling completely. She opened an antiques shop in Marazion and took a series of intriguing black-and-white photographs of local Cornish characters. She has never exhibited the images, and has no intention of doing so, but one was of Susan Clayton, then a waitress at the Abbey Hotel. After Shrimpton met her husband, Michael Cox, and became pregnant with their son, Thaddeus, she was told by Clayton that the Abbey might be up for sale.
“I jumped at it,” she says. “If we’d had a survey, we wouldn’t have bought it, and running it has been a labour of love, but it’s been my life for over 30 years.” She and Michael had their reception at the Abbey, a milllion miles from the fashion-world weddings of St James’s. “We had champagne with fish’n’chips, but the only guests were our two registry office witnesses.”
Shrimpton loves the raw, wild beauty of the far west of Cornwall, but does she have any regrets about turning her back on the life she once led? “No,” she says, “but I am a melancholy soul. I’m not sure contentment is obtainable and I find the banality of modern life terrifying. I sometimes feel I’m damaged goods. But Michael, Thaddeus and the Abbey transformed my life.”
Around us, in the Abbey’s drawing room, are the books she and Michael have collected. There is The Rings of Saturn, by WG Sebald; Russian Criminal Tattoo, an outre encyclopaedia; René Gimpel’s Diary of An Art Dealer and a collection of British short stories featuring The Burning Baby, by Dylan Thomas, one of Shrimpton’s favourite works. It’s an unusual collection, not what you’d expect to find in the homes of the likes of Kate Moss. But Shrimpton is a fan. “I like her. She’s a free spirit. Somewhere in herself she’s honest. She’s a naughty girl – but you’ve got to have a few naughty girls.”
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Michael York garnered very favourable reviews for his first three major films in the 1960’s. They were Joseph Losey’s “Accident” and Franco Zefferelli’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Romeo and Juliet”. After the success of the film “Cabreet” with Liza Minnelli, he went to Hollywood. Although he makes films all over the world, he is now based in the USA. He recently received recognition with younger audiences with his participation in the Austin Powers film where he plays Basil Exposition.
For Michael York’s website, please click here.
TCM Overview:
A classically trained British actor who honed his craft on the stage, Michael York made a smooth transition to the screen with several noted Shakespearean performances in films made by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli. Though not a leading performer, York delivered strong turns as Lucentino in “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967) and Tybalt in “Romeo and Juliet” (1968), before he played more seductively charming men in “Something for Everyone” (1970) and “Cabaret” (1972). While starring as D’Artagnan in “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and Logan in the sci-fi cult classic “Logan’s Run” (1976), he also turned to television to play Pip in “Great Expectations” (NBC, 1974) and John the Baptist in the epic miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977).
In the following decade, York joined the cast of “Knot’s Landing” (CBS, 1979-1993), while stepping back into guest starring spots on shows like “Babylon 5” (TNT, 1993-98) and “Sliders” (Fox, 1995-99). Though he made fewer appearances on the big screen later in his career, York was quite memorable as the affable Basil Exposition in the “Austin Power” series, starring Mike Myers. As he continued forward, York diversified his talents to include voice work for both animated projects and a host of audiobooks, which served to underscore the wide breadth of the actor’s talents.
Born on March 27, 1942 in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, England, York was raised in the London suburb of Burgess Hill by his father, Joseph Johnson, an ex-army officer-turned-executive for Marks and Spencer department stores, and his mother, Florence, a musician. While receiving his education at Bromley Grammar School for Boys, he began his acting career as a teenager in a production of “The Yellow Jacket” (1956). Three years later, York made his West End debut with a one-line role in a staging of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” He continued to study acting at Oxford University, where he was a member of the Dramatic Society, and spent his summers working with Michael Croft’s Youth Theatre while touring Italy in a production of “Julius Caesar.”
From there, he joined the Dundee Repertory Theatre in Scotland, where he played Sergius in “Arms and the Man” (1964) and first adopted the name Michael York. That same year, he graduated from Oxford and was invited to join England’s National Theatre, which led him to be immediately cast by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli in his production of “Much Ado About Nothing” (1965).
With his stage career taking off, York took the logical next stepping of making his screen debut as Young Jolyon in the acclaimed and fondly remembered drama series “The Forsyte Saga” (BBC, 1966). A year later, Michael York made his feature debut as Lucentino in Zeffirelli’s film, “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967), starring the tumultuous Elizabeth Taylor and her on-again/off-again husband Richard Burton. Now a bona fide movie actor, York scored again as Tybalt in Zeffirelli’s next Shakespearean screen adaptation “Romeo and Juliet” (1968).
Later that same year, York married his sweetheart, Patricia, an American photographer, whom he met while filming “Smashing Time” (1969) when she was assigned to photograph the star. The couple remained husband and wife well into the next century. Meanwhile, York went on to effectively portray a variety of well-bred, charming men like the manipulative bisexual of “Something for Everyone” (1970) and the adventurous expatriate in Bob Fosse’s Academy Award-winning “Cabaret” (1972), opposite Liza Minnelli.
From there, his role as D’Artagnan in Richard Lester’s romping version of “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and as Logan in the cult sci-fi classic “Logan’s Run” (1976) cemented York’s cinematic stardom on both sides of the pond. He played opposite Burt Lancaster in the critically panned adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The Island of Dr. Moreau” (1977) and he even played himself in Billy Wilder’s old fashioned missive on Hollywood, “Fedora” (1977). A series of well-received landmark TV miniseries followed, including roles as the Charles Dickens’ hero Pip in “Great Expectations” (NBC, 1974) and a reteaming with his illustrious mentor Zeffirelli in “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977), where he played John the Baptist to Robert Powell’s titular Jesus. York returned to his theatrical roots in the 1979 Broadway production of “Bent,” where he succeeded Richard Gere in the lead role of Max, a homosexual concentration camp inmate who pretends to be Jewish. That same year he produced his first movie, a slow-moving adaptation of Erskine Childer’s prototypical spy thriller, “The Riddle of the Sands” (1979).
Heading into the 1980s, Michael York attempted his first stage musical, “The Little Prince,” which failed miserably during its Broadway previews and led to his decision to return to the comfort of the small screen. York proved he could still be a dashing and stalwart swashbuckler in “The Master of Ballantrae” (CBS, 1984) and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for the ABC Afterschool Special, “Are You My Mother?” He next joined the cast of the long-running primetime serial “Knot’s Landing” (CBS, 1979-1993) for the 1987-88 season, playing the love interest to Donna Mills. In the 1990s, York continued to work on the small screen with episodes of popular shows like “Babylon 5” (TNT, 1993-98) and the time travel adventure “Sliders” (Fox, 1995-99), while tackling prominent roles in TV movies like “Not of This Earth” (Showtime, 1995), “Dark Planet” (Syfy, 1997), “The Ripper” (Starz, 1997) and “A Knight in Camelot” (1998). Of course, York continued making big screen appearances, playing the prime and proper head of British intelligence, Basil Exposition, in the Mike Myers franchise “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (1997), a role he reprised in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999) and “Austin Powers: Goldmember” (2002).
Finding a new audience, York played media mogul Stone Alexander in the religious-themed “The Omega Code” (1999) and its sequel “Megiddo: Omega Code 2” (2001) – two films that were not theatrical blockbusters, but nevertheless performed extremely well in their niche market. Meanwhile, York’s highly distinctive voice made him perfect for recording audio books, in which he was credited with over 70 productions, such as The Book of Psalms, Carl Jung’sMemories, Dreams, Reflections, Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat, and his own children’s book, The Magic Paw Paw.
Of course, York also voiced numerous characters on screen, from Murdstone in “Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield” (NBC, 1993), King Sarastro in “The Magic Flute” (ABC, 1994) and Kanto on “Superman” (ABC, 1996-99) to The King in “A Monkey’s Tale” (2001) and Prime #1 in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (2009).
In live action, he appeared in episodes of “The Gilmore Girls” (The WB, 2000-07) and “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS, 2005- ), before joining Rutger Hauer and Charlotte Rampling for the Polish-made religious drama “The Mill and the Cross” (2011). The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Adam Faith was primarily known as a pop singer in Britain in the early 1960’s. However he did make some very good movies at the same time. Later on he became a very accomplished television actor . He was very effective in “Budgie” and “Love Hurts”. He was badly injured in a car accident and he required extensive plastic surgery. He died at the age of 62 suddenly from a heart attack.
Dave Laing’s 2003 obituary in “The Guardian”
Adam Faith, who has died of a heart attack aged 62, was one of Britain’s leading pop singers in the early 1960s. One of the first generation of home-grown British stars, he vied for popularity with Billy Fury and Cliff Richard. His brief career as a pop idol was eclipsed when guitar groups, such as the Beatles, took over and his style of beat ballad seemed outmoded. But he did not disappear from the limelight. Instead, he reinvented himself several times, as music businessman, financial expert and, in particular, as an actor. His acting career reached a peak in 1971 when he starred in the television series Budgie, scripted by Keith Waterhouse.
He was born Terence Nelhams in Acton, west London, the third of five children of a coach driver and an office cleaner. After leaving school, he worked in the film industry, progressing from messenger boy to assistant film editor. He was inspired to form the Worried Men skiffle group in 1956 by Lonnie Donegan’s recording of Rock Island Line. As Faith said in his first autobiography Poor Me (1961): “Skiffle hit Britain with all the fury of Asian flu. Everyone went down with it.” Faith later repaid his debt by producing a 1978 comeback album for Donegan, Puttin’ On The Style.
While performing at the Two Is coffee bar in Soho, in a live broadcast for BBC TV’s 6-5 Special show in 1958, Nelhams caught the eye of producer Jack Good, who told him that he could be a successful singer with a change of name. Good gave him a book of Christian names from which Terry picked Adam from the boys section and Faith from the girls.
His big break came when John Barry, the musical director of 6-5 Special, recommended him to Stewart Morris, the producer of a new TV series, Drumbeat. Morris created the moody Adam Faith image by ordering him to cut his James Dean-style mass of blond hair and forbidding him to smile on camera, resulting in Faith’s trademark “sunken cheek, hungry look”.
His first recording, in 1959, for the Parlophone label, What Do You Want, was masterminded by John Barry, songwriter Johnny Worth and producer John Burgess. They reinvented Faith as an Anglicised Buddy Holly with Barry’s pizzicato string arrangement and quirky vocal mannerisms like the oddly pronounced “biya-bee” for “baby”. The record was soon selling 50,000 copies a day and became No 1 in the hit parade and the first of Adam’s 16 Top 20 records over the next five years. His other hits included Poor Me, Who Am I, Someone Else’s Baby and Lonely Pup (In A Christmas Shop).
Adam Faith was quickly established as a teen-idol. From 1960 to 1962, he appeared in the films Beat Girl, Never Let Go, What A Whopper! and Mix Me A Person, a psychological drama which established his acting credentials. John Barry’s scores for three of the films provided the springboard for his subsequent work for the James Bond series.
Such was his instant celebrity that in December 1960 Adam Faith was interviewed on the BBC TV programme Face To Face by John Freeman to whom he revealed that his favourite composers were Sibelius and Dvorak and his favourite book Catcher In The Rye. In the words of pop pundit Nik Cohn, Faith thereby introduced “the concept of pop singer as thinker”.
By 1963, in order to compete with the new popularity of groups such as the Beatles, Adam Faith hired the Roulettes to accompany him on his live appearances and commissioned songs from a younger writer, Chris Andrews. Nevertheless, by 1967, Faith’s star had waned and recognising that “the worst thing in the world is to be an ex-pop singer doing the clubs” he focussed on an acting career.
He toured as the lead in Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall’s Billy Liar, appeared as Feste in Twelfth Night and with Dame Sybil Thorndyke in Emlyn Williams’ Night Must Fall. His role in Budgie, as the diffident small-time crook, suited Faith’s stage persona and the show ran for several seasons. In 1988 a stage musical version was produced.
In the early 1970s, Faith returned to the music business as a manager and producer rather than a performer. While touring in 1964 he had discovered the singer Sandie Shaw and now he recognised the potential of Leo Sayer. Faith managed him until 1985 when the relationship soured and Sayer sued Faith for unpaid earnings. Faith also coproduced Sayer’s early albums and the first solo album by The Who’s Roger Daltrey in 1973.
In August 1973 he was seriously injured in a car accident, an event that he described later as the turning point of his career. The crash inspired the title song of I Survive, Faith’s first recording for seven years. Although the album received good reviews, it was not a commercial success and it marked the end of his singing career.
In 1974 he returned to film acting. Producer David Puttnam persuaded him to play the manager of the rock star character played by David Essex in Stardust. In the Guardian, Derek Malcolm enthused that Faith’s “portrait of a rough diamond on the make could scarcely be more authentic”. Faith later starred in Yesterday’s Hero (1979) and McVicar (1980). On the West End stage he appeared in Stephen Poliakoff’s City Sugar (1975).
In the 1980s, Faith reinvented himself again, this time as a financial guru for the yuppie generation. Although he had invested in property since the 1960s, he had less success on the financial markets. He became a columnist for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday but was also associated with Roger Levitt. When Levitt’s investment empire collapsed, Faith was reported to have lost £10m. Faith later became a partner in The Money Channel on cable and satellite television, but its failure in 2001 cost him £32m and forced him into bankruptcy.
In the 1990s, Faith returned to stage and television acting, appearing in the sitcoms Love Hurts with Zoë Wanamaker and The House That Jack Built with Gillian Taylforth. In the West End he starred in a revival of Bill Naughton’s Alfie and in the musical A Chorus Line. In 1996 he wrote a memoir, Acts Of Faith.
He had a history of heart problems and was given open heart surgery to relieve blocked arteries in 1986.
He is survived by his wife, the former dancer Jackie Irving, whom he married in 1967, and their daughter Katya.
· Adam Faith (Terence Nelhams), singer, actor and businessman, born June 23 1940; died March 8 2003
• This article was amended on 3 July 2012. The original stated that Faith married Jackie Irving in 1975. This has been corrected.
Adam Faith’s obituary in “The Guardian” can be accessed online here.
Joyce Grenfell was born in 1910 to a wealthy family. Her mother was American and her aunt was the famous politican Nancy Astor. She made her first stage appearance in “The Little Revue” in 1939. During World War Two she toured India, North Africa and the Middle East to entertain the British troops. After the War she started making films in England, many of which have become classics e,g. “Genevieve” and “The Happiest Days of Your Life”.
She appeared on Broadway in her own one-woman show. In 1956 she was on “The Ed Sullivan Show” alongside Elvis Presley. She continued to perform on British television until she became ill and she died in 1979. Great radio docimentary on BBC Radio 4 on Joyce Grenfell can be assessed here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Toothy Britisher Joyce Grenfell with her stark, equine features charmed and humored audiences both here and abroad on radio, stage, revues, film and TV for nearly four decades. Lovingly remembered as a delightfully witty monologist and raconteur, she inherited her bold talents from her eccentric socialite mother, who just so happened to be American and the sister of Lady Nancy Astor. Born Joyce Irene Phipps in 1910, her father was an architect and she was educated both in London and Paris. Her first job in the entertainment business was as a radio critic columnist. In 1939, she performed in her first revue wherein her spot-on impersonations, characterizations and satirical songs became a big hit. One song “I’m Going to See You Today”, which she herself wrote in 1942, became her signature song. Performing for the troops during WWII, she finally was sought after for films, finding an opening playing gawky matrons in rollicking comedies.
The best of the lot would include The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Laughter in Paradise (1951), The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954), and the resulting ‘Trinian’ sequels. She also put out highly popular comedy albums over the years. Joyce’s last performance was in 1973 before Queen Elizabeth and her guests at Windsor Castle. Her health began to fail soon after. An eye infection resulted in a loss of sight in one eye and she was forced to retire. Six years later the eye was diagnosed as cancerous and, though it was removed, she continued to decline, dying on November 30, 1979 at home. She was later commemorated on a postage stamp.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Immortalised as toothy, gauche games mistress, Gossage (“Call me Sausage”) in The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), former journalist Grenfell invaded over 20 often-unexceptional British films, creating moments of treasurable idiocy.
She is wonderfully exasperated with Alastair Sim’s further postponement of their wedding (“I’ve been home three weeks and I’ve had a bath”) in Laughter in Paradise (1951), is all fringe and jangling beads as the hotel proprietress in Genevieve (1953), was several times hilariously love-lorn Policewoman (later Sergeant) Ruby Gates in the St Trinian’s series.
As a celebrated monologuist, gently caricaturing the middle classes, she showed wider emotional range than films ever explored. Appeared in many revues, as well as her own inimitable one-woman shows, which she wrote and with which she toured extensively. She was living proof that you could be a sharp satirist without – miraculously – descending to malice; she is as English as glee-singing and much more fun. She was awarded an OBE in 1946.
Bibliography
Joyce Grenfell Requests The Pleasure
Brian McFarlane, Encyclopaedia of British Cinema
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.