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Brittish Actors

Collection of Classic Brittish Actors

Carole Lesley
Carole Lesley
Carole Lesley
Carole Lesley
Carole Lesley

Carole Lesley was born in 1935 in Chelmsford.   She had a brief career in British films of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s including “These Dangerous Years” with Frankie Vaughan, “Woman in a Dressing Gown” with Sylvia Syms and Yvonne Mitchell and “Doctor in Love” with Michael Craig.   Sadly her career waned very quickly and she died in 1974.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Shapely, scintillating, peroxide British blonde Carole Lesley wound up another sexy statistic alongside other vibrant and promising, photogenic stars and starlets who pervaded the film industry with their undeniable photogenic assets only to be left achingly unfulfilled and die unhappily by their own hand.

In the case of Ms. Lesley, she was one of a few starlets who briefly rivaled notorious blonde bombshell Diana Dors as Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The stunning actress, whose slim face was slightly reminiscent of comedic actress Kay Kendall and the more contemporary Sean Young, willingly exploited her obvious physical endowments in an elusive attempt to drum up public attention. Like so many others before and after her, she wasn’t able to sustain interest; middle age crept in and depression took over. Carole’s career (which included less than a dozen films) lasted a mere half a decade.

She was born on May 27, 1935 and christened Maureen Lesley Carole Rippingale in Chelmsford, Essex, England. As a child she became interested in the idea of show business and made her film debut at age 12 with the British drama The Silver Darlings(1947) directed by Clarence Elder. Later the naive but very pretty and starry-eyed sixteen-year-old ran away from home in search of fame and success.

With her drop-dead good looks and curvaceous figure Carole eventually found a job as a chorine at London’s Cabaret Club wherein she was able to sharpen her dancing skills. From there she trekked to Paris and worked up some notoriety as a nude glamour and pin-up model under the sexier moniker of Leslie Carol(e). Eventually she returned to England.

Following an unbilled role in The Embezzler (1954) at Kenilworth Productions, she managed to obtain a seven-year contract at Associated British Pictures wherein she reverted her marquee name to read “Carole Lesley”. From 1957 on, she would appear in a mixed bag of quality drama and comedy programmers. Typical studio protocol had the lovely starlet attending premieres, parties, film festivals, beauty pageants, and various big-time social events in order to build up her name. She was more than game to doing what it took to having her face plastered all over town in such movie magazines (such as Picturegoer) and assorted newspapers.

Carole was seen to good advantage in the Associated film Woman in a Dressing Gown(1957) starring Yvonne MitchellAnthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms. The film, which won a Golden Globe for “Best English Language Foreign Film,” has the actress playing a young neighbor and confidante to dowdy wife Mitchell whose husband (Quayle) is having an affair with his secretary (Syms). Dangerous Youth (1957), which was an early Liverpudian musical dramady built around 29-year-old “teen” pop idol Frankie Vaughan, has Carole and equally gorgeous Jocelyn Lane (billed as “Jackie Lane” here) as provocative distraction who weave in and out of Vaughan and George Baker‘s lives. Carole plays Vaughan’s girl who, interestingly, is forced to slinging hash at a coffee shop when her own dreams of show business stardom falls apart. The star of singer Vaughan, who evolves from a gang leader to a rock-and-roll singing star in this picture, was eclipsed soon after by skyrocketing American sensation Elvis Presley.

It was not for a lack of trying, but Carole did not have the same “wow” factor as such buxom, publicity-starved starlets as Jayne Mansfield, who easily overshadowed her in the eye candy department at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. Carole struggled to get firmly noticed despite her avid attendances in everything from toothpaste pads to charity races to the openings of bowling alley.

The 1950s ended with two more films for Carole. The well-done crime drama No Trees in the Street (1959) again had Carole supporting Sylvia Syms, while she and Barbara Murrayplayed female members of the military (lady privates) in the romantic war comedyOperation Bullshine (1959) which co-starred Donald Sinden and Ronald Shiner. Although it kept her visible, neither helped her longing desire to become a full-fledged star. The beginning of the 1960s had Carole appearing on TV as legendary temptress Helen of Troy. She also showed up in one of British film’s most popular slapstick comedy series at the time. This entry was Doctor in Love (1960) and had handsome doctor Michael Craigsubbing for a vacating Dirk Bogarde while Carole and Virginia Maskell (who, in real life, died a suicide at age 31 in 1968), played standard love interests.

Playing a sexy, straight foil in light comedy seemed to be a viable platform for Carole and she went on to appear in three more light comedies during the early 1960s. Nothing out of the ordinary, however, came out of her appearances in Three on a Spree (1961),What a Whopper (1961) and The Pot Carriers (1962), and Associated decided to release her from her contract.

The devastated actress pulled a virtual disappearing act following the unhappy news, retreating completely from the limelight. In August of 1964 it was learned that she had married Michael Dalling and that she eventually bore him two sons. Very little was heard of Carole until 1974 when it was revealed that on February 28th she had died by her own hand from an acute overdose of pills at age 38 in New Barnet, England. Although relatives later insisted it was an accident, it was nevertheless a sad, seemingly inescapable fate for this incredibly beautiful woman. Carole’s photography from her early days as a  model and pin-up has more recently served as a source of inspiration for British artist Paul Harvey.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

The Allisons

The Allisons

 

The Allisons

The Allisons were a singing duo who represented the UK in the Euovision Song Contest in 1961 with their song “Are You Sure”.

“Wikipedia” entry:

The Allisons were an English pop duo consisting of:

  • Bob Day (born Bernard Colin Day; 2 February 1941 – 25 November 2013)
  • John Alford (born Brian Henry John Alford; 31 December 1939)

They were marketed as being brothers, using the surname of Allison.

The Allisons represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961 with the song “Are You Sure?“. They came second with 24 points. The song was released as a single on the Fontana Records label, and climbed to number 1 on the UK NMEpop chart. However, the chart compiled by The Official Charts Company shows the song spent six weeks at number 2 and a further three weeks in the top 4. ‘Are You Sure” sold over one million records, earning a gold disc.  In Germany the single reached number 11. Despite a couple of minor follow-up hits, the duo disbanded in 1963.

Alford initially tried songwriting, but he and Day teamed up for short tours to keep ‘The Allisons’ name alive. Additionally, in the 1970s and 1980s Alford was joined by other “brothers” — Mike “Allison” and Tony “Allison”. By the 1990s, Day and Alford regularly reunited to perform on the oldies circuit.

Bob Day died on 25 November 2013, aged 71, after a long illness.

The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.

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Jonathan Hyde
Jonathan Hyde
Jonathan Hyde

Jonathan Hyde was born in 1948 in Brisbane, Australia.   One of his first roles was in the TV series “The Professionals” in 1978.   His movies include “Richie Rich” and “Titanic”.   Recently he was featured in the hit British TV series “Endeavour”.

IMDB entry:

Jonathan Hyde was born on May 21, 1948 in Brisbane, Australia. He is an actor, known for Titanic (1997), Jumanji (1995) and The Mummy (1999). He is married to Isobel Buchanan. They have two children.Trade Mark (2)   Rich baritone voice   Often plays posh upper-class figures   Is a respected member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.   Graduated from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).   An Associate Member of Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).   Is a leading member of the Royal National Theatre Company.   Father of actress Georgia King.   On the opera visits during his youth: I remember seeing Joan Sutherland sing Semiramide, a wonderful production. Carmen, I remember well, and going to see Robert Speight in “A Man for All Seasons” and then these fantastic trips to Florentino’s. Any boarding school kid really learns the value of good food.

On his role in The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (2006): And then I went to India to shoot an absolutely ghastly pile of tosh, but we were in Jaipur for seven weeks; I’d never been to India and I found it the most astonishingly beautiful, wonderful and nourishing country I’d ever been to in my life. Thank you very much: where next?
On his role as the Egyptologist in The Mummy (1999):…you end up with a bunch of people who are really fun, and find you are all in Marrakesh for a couple of weeks, then the middle of the desert for five weeks. What could be more wonderful?
 
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
 

Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott

Denholm Elliott was born in Ealing, London in 1922.   His first major movie role was “The Cruel Sea” in 1953.   His other roles include “The Heart of the Matter”, “Trading Places” and “A Room With A View”.   He died in 1992.

David Shipman’s “Independent” obituary:

Denholm Mitchell Elliott, actor, born 31 May 1922, CBE 1988, married 1954 Virginia McKenna (marriage dissolved 1957), 1962 Susan Robinson (one son, one daughter), died Ibiza 6 October 1992.A FEW weeks ago, Noises Off limped in and out of some of the country’s cinemas. It had been a co-production between two companies adept at making box- office successes, Disney and Amblin, ie Steven Spielberg, but likely to strike horror into the breasts of the more sensitive of us. In fact, Noises Off was hastily replaced by a revival of Spielberg’s Hook, a film as misconceived as any ever made. On stage, Michael Frayn’s farce ran for several years, and even though he endorsed the film version in a long article in the Observer no one seemed to believe him. The few of us who did see it laughed immoderately – and one of its joys was the wonderful teamwork of a cast including Michael Caine and Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve and Denholm Elliott. Elliott was in his element as an ageing British actor (the rest of the cast, except Caine, played Americans), prone to tipple, forget his lines and turn up in the wrong place at the wrong time. As so often with this actor he stole every scene in which he appeared.

After an unhappy childhood, he studied acting at RADA (on the advice of his psychiatrist), but he left after a year. He spent the war with the RAF, and it was his three years as a prisoner of war in Germany, playing in amateur productions, which intensified his interest in acting. He began his career in 1945 and went in to high gear when Laurence Olivier selected him to play his son in Christopher Fry’s comedy, Venus Observed, in 1950. Later that year, Elliott went to New York to play the dual role – done by Paul Scofield in London – in Fry’s adaption of Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon. Both performances won awards for Elliott, who had already made his film debut in Dear Mr Prohack in 1949, based on a novel by Arnold Bennett. Cecil Parker played the title-role and Elliott was a minor civil servant who marries his daughter, Sheila Sim.

His performance suggested a career as a character actor, as did the one he gave as Ralph Richardson’s cowardly son in The Sound Barrier (1952) but the acclaim in London and New York brought him some straight leading roles, as in The Cruel Sea (1953), as the officer married to a two-timing actress (Moira Lister). He was much better cast as the civil servant who cuckolds Trevor Howard in The Heart of the Matter (1953), but in Lease of Life (1954) and The Man Who Loved Redheads (1954) he was merely just another jeune premier. He was not movie-star material, as he proved in the lead of Pacific Destiny (1956), based on Sir Arthur Grimble’s autobiography, A Pattern of Islands. Elliott’s rather remote, semi-aristocratic style (though this he would late use to good advantage) were never likely to make him a popular stage favourite. This he realised, continuing to act on the stage, notably in TS Eliot’s The Confidential Clerk in 1953 and in Tennessee Williams’s Camino Real in 1957.

The film offers became thin on the ground with the advent of Albert Finney and a sturdier kind of British hero. What changed Elliott’s career was a king-sized character role in Nothing but the Best (1964), a title which referred to what Alan Bates wanted, as he looks for his ‘room at the top’. However, this was not John Braine rehashed, but a clever social satire by Frederic Raphael, with Elliott wonderfully cast as the black sheep of an aristocratic family. Bates realises that the Elliott character can teach him much of what he needs to know in his ascent and Elliott, who has little of his past except a monthly cheque, is happy to accept. The film was directed by Clive Donner, but when he tackled something similar later, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, the result was disastrous. Elliott this time played the father of the girlfriend of the man on the make, Barry Evans, and was briefly amusing as the wine-snob given to chasing the maid. He did his first film in Hollywood, King Rat (1965), as one of the most cynical of the prisoners, but it was his role as a sleazy back-street abortionist in Alfie (1966) which really attracted national attention. He returned to Hollywood to play a self-appointed vice-finder in The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968). He had established himself in light villainy, and although too varied as an actor to be type-cast he was seldom to escape from this, but he did in Sidney Lumet’s film of Chekhov’s The Seagull (1968), in which he was the doctor.

He had a leading role in Patrick Garland’s version of A Doll’s House (1973), with Claire Bloom, as Krogstad, the conniving bank official aiming to replace Torvald (Anthony Hopkins), but was back on familiar ground with The Apprentice of Duddy Kravitz (1974), as a drunken has-been British director ‘used’ by Richard Dreyfuss in his rise to the top. He worked almost non-stop in films thereafter, in parts big and small, and the latter would include Harrison Ford’s academic superior in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the second of its sequels, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Among the larger ones was the immensely snooty but bribable butler in Trading Places (1983) and Mr Emerson in A Room wth a View (1986): perhaps because this last was an unexpectedly big success Elliott was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor, but by the time the director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala had finished with Forster’s novel even an actor of Elliott’s skill could not make the character anything but unfathomable.

Apart from Noises Off, perhaps his best screen work during the last decade was as an ageing but brave Fleet Street hack in Defence of the Realm (1985). Gabriel Byrne, who played the lead, observed: ‘I amended the actor’s cliche to ‘Never work with children, animals or Denholm Elliott’.’

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Blythe Duff
Blythe Duff
Blythe Duff

Blythe Duff was born in 1962 in East Kilbride, Scotland.   She is best known for her performance as D.I. Jackie Reid in the long running television series “Taggart”.   She has worked extensively on the stage.

“Express” article on Life Choices from 2009:

FoodAlways the same or always game?

I’m much more adventurous than when I was younger. I used to be a fussy eater but having travelled a lot I’m much better now. In the past three years I’ve cut some things out of my diet like red meat and tomatoes and feel better for it. I have a tendency to find something I like then eat it all the time. At the moment it’s pesto.

Cooking

Experimental or tried and tested?

Neither. I can’t cook at all. I’ve no interest in cooking but I don’t have to because my husband loves cooking and one of my stepdaughtersis following in his footsteps. Between the two of them I get cared for. Tuna and mayonnaise or a toastie are my limits. Why do something if you’re no good at it?

HolidaysBeach or piste?

I love going on holiday because it’s a chance to catch up with the family and visit other cultures. I’m not a beach person as I’m not very good in the sun – I’m very Scottish in that respect. America does it for me. I’ll go to New York at the drop of a hat – I must have been eight or nine times – and I’m off to West Virginia this summer.

Housekeeping

Aggie & Kim or Wayne & Waynetta?

I’m not manic about it. I don’t think I’m the cleanest person in the world but I’ve got my own sense of tidiness. I’ll make the bed and generally tidy up a room but I leave the rest to a cleaner.Drink

Beer or Bolli?

I don’t drink and never have. My husband is delighted as there’s never a fight about who’s driving home. People think it’s weird I’ve never been drunk but I’ve never liked the taste of alcohol.

Approach to Life

Mañana or right now?

Right now, my approach is to get on with things. If I put them off, I get really annoyed. I’m meticulous and organised about certain things but I have my own filing system – no one else would understand it.Cars

Boy racer or Sunday driver?

I am a big fan of the luxury car. You know, the Range Rover with the heated seats, heated steering wheel, the one people hate. When I start work at 5.30am in the middle of a Scottish winter, those warmed up seats and steering wheel help soften the blow. I enjoy driving but I’m not a boy racer. If you put your foot down in a car like that you could cause serious damage.

MoneyRainy day or live for today?

I’m a bit of both. I enjoy the fact I have a nice lifestyle but I’ve accounted for it and I spend only what I have. At least I’ve thought about what will happen when it all goes horribly wrong, which it’s bound to. However I make sure I enjoy myself too.

Property

Urban chic or rural retreat?

I like a balance. I live near the city and have a holiday house on the Isle of Bute. I couldn’t be stuck in a cottage far away in the country with no street lights. I would struggle with that.

ChildrenMary Poppins or Cruella de Vil?

Cruella de Vil, I’m afraid. It’s not that I don’t like children but I think we’ve lost the art of parenting. I try to be fair and listen to the kids’ point of view but they need to be told: “No, that’s not going to work.” I’m the disciplinarian in our house. Not that I need to be too firm as my stepdaughters are bright and sharp and lovely.

Décor

Minimal or cosy?

I’m a bit of a hoarder and keep clutter. Then it gets to the annoying stage and I’ll take everything away. When I was touring recently I stayed in a lot of minimalist apartments and it was lovely. I had to keep the places tidy and when I came home I felt my house was too cluttered. However I love colour and art and couldn’t live for too long without it.Fitness

Jane Fonda or Jim Royle?

I think I’m Jane Royle. I go through fits and starts with exercise. I’ve had a trainer which is the only way I can do it because there’s no escape. I can be quite diligent but then do absolutely nothing for months.

Blythe Duff appears in Taggart on ITV3.

The above “Express” article can also be accessed online here.

Lisa Gastoni
Lisa Gastoni
Lisa Gastoni
 

Lisa Gastoni was born in Italy in 1935.   Virtually all her career has been in British films starting with “Doctor in the House” in 1954.   Her other movies include “The Baby and the Battleship”, “Three Men In A Boat” and “Blue Murder At St Trinians”.

“Wikipedia” entry:

Daughter of an Italian father and an Irish mother, Gastoni moved to England after World War II and there began her film and modeling career. She appeared in various B-movies throughout the 1950s, as well as co-starring as Giulia in the Sapphire Films TV series The Four Just Men (1959) for ITV.   Gastoni returned to Italy in the 1960s, at first appearing in sword-and-sandal and swashbuckler films, but eventually gaining the attention of respected directors. The turning point in her film career was her role in Grazie, zia by Salvatore Samperi. This would set the tone for the roles she would play for the next decade; bourgeois women who were seductive yet sexually frustrated, cruel and arrogant yet sad and sympathetic, manipulating the people around them to try and fill the emptiness in their own lives.   After 1979, she retired from acting for over 20 years, focusing on painting and writing. She returned to the screen with an appearance in the film Cuore Sacro.

The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.