Vivien Merchent was a brilliant actress who made films in Britain mainly in the 1960’s and 70’s. She was born in Manchester in 1929. She gave searing performances in “Alfie” with Michael Caine in 1966 and “Accident” was the Oxford wife of Dirk Bogarde, directed by Joseph Losey. She died in 1982.
TCM overview:
Stage-trained actress who came to attention for her Oscar-nominated performance in “Alfie” (1966). Merchant was also memorable as the dotty housewife in Alfred Hitcock’s “Frenzy” (1972). Formerly married to playwright Harold Pinter.
“New York Times” obituary:
Vivien Merchant, the British actress who starred on the West End and Broadway in many of the enigmatic plays written by her former husband, Harold Pinter, died Sunday at her home in London, her family announced yesterday. She was 53 years old.
Although Miss Merchant appeared in many films, she was best remembered for her one appearance on the New York stage in 1967 in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Mr. Pinter’s ”The Homecoming,” in which she played the role of what some critics called a ”whore-mother” in an otherwise all-male family on stage. Reviewing the play in The New York Times, Walter Kerr described her as ”hard-headed, cool and with great reserve.”
In England, her theatrical sensuousness caused The Sunday Times of London to describe her once as the ”sex Merchant,” but her range of roles included the classics and Shakespeare, in which she played Lady Macbeth. Her subtle emotional power made her what Mr. Pinter called his ideal interpreter in ”The Birthday Party” and ”The Caretaker.”
Among her movie credits were ”Alfie” with Michael Caine in 1966, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award; ”Accident” in 1967, directed by Joseph Losey from a screenplay by Mr. Pinter, and Alfred Hitchcock’s ”Frenzy” in 1972.
Miss Merchant, born Ada Thompson in Manchester, England, made her stage debut at the age of 14 in a touring production of ”Jane Eyre.” She chose the name Vivien after Vivien Leigh -”I thought it would give me glamour” – and Merchant because of her brother: ”I was proud of his service in the merchant marine.”
She met Mr. Pinter when they were acting in provincial companies, and they married in 1956. He began to write plays and she began to appear in them. ”If he writes a part of a secretary flashing her legs, I’ve got to do it,” she said, ”but I really preferred comedy roles.”
The couple were divorced in 1980, the same year in which Mr. Pinter married Lady Antonia Fraser, a biographer with whom he had lived for five years in a much-publicized relationship. Miss Merchant, who at one point said she thought her husband was ”possessed” by Lady Antonia, had bitterly refused to go along with a divorce.
Surviving is a son, Daniel.
The above “New York Times” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Edward Fox was born in 1937 in Chelsea, London. He is the older brother of actor James Fox. He came to prominence in the cinema as Julie Christie’s suitor in “The Go-Between” in 1970. Career highlights include the leading role in Fred Zinneman’s “The Day of the Jackel” in 1973 and on television as King Edward in “Edward and Mrs Simpson” in 1978. His children by Joanna David are the actors Emilia Fox and Freddie Fox. His brother is the actor James Fox.
Fox made his theatrical début in 1958[clarification needed], and his first film appearance was as an extra in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962). He also had a non-speaking part as a waiter in This Sporting Life(1963). Throughout the 1960s he worked mostly on stage, including a turn as Hamlet. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he established himself with roles in major British films including Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Battle of Britain (1969) and The Go-Between (1970). In The Go-Between, he played the part of Lord Hugh Trimingham, for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor. His acting ability also brought him to the attention of director Fred Zinnemann, who was looking for an actor who wasn’t well-known and could be believable as the assassin in the film The Day of the Jackal. Fox won the role, beating out other contenders such as Roger Moore andMichael Caine.
It was very gratifying to see Joan Hickson play the lead as Miss Marple in the acclaimed television series in 1984 at the age of 78. She had been wonderful in many many supporting artis in British films since the 1930’s. Highlights include “The Card” in 1952, “Value for Money”, “Doctor at Sea”, “The Man Who Never Was”, “Carry On Nurse” and “Theatre of Blood”. She made twelve Miss Marple televison films the last being “The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side” in 1992 when she was 86.She died in 1998 at the age of 92.
The “Independent” obituary by Alexandra Younger & Tom Vallance:THE OLDEST actress ever to take the lead in a major television series, Joan Hickson was a sprightly 78 when she was chosen to play the role for which she will be best remembered, Agatha Christie’s spinster detective Miss Marple. It was the first of 12 murder mysteries in a television series that was to run for eight years, ending only when Hickson insisted on retiring at the age of 86.
Previous stars who played the veteran spinster sleuth included Helen Hayes, Angela Lansbury, and Margaret Rutherford (Hickson had a small role in Rutherford’s first Miss Marple film, Murder She Said in 1961), who first popularised the character of Miss Marple in the Sixties and brought the portrayal of eccentric old ladies to a fine art.
In 1962 Christie dedicated her novel The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side to Rutherford, “in admiration” – although after the author’s death, it was revealed in her husband, Sir Max Mallowan’s memoirs, that she believed Rutherford was totally miscast as Miss Marple. She was conceived as being a small delicate woman – said to be loosely based on Christie’s maiden aunt – far closer in appearance to the petite and birdlike Hickson, with her piercing, hooded ice-blue eyes, than the more corpulent Rutherford with the expressive face and “the chins”.
Regarded by many as the definitive Miss Marple and someone who “inhabited” the part, Hickson was described by fellow actors as “Justice in a hand- knitted cardigan”. However she was convinced that she was not right for the part of Jane Marple, “I thought I was the wrong shape, that Miss Marple would be much fluffier than me, much more wearing shawls and things. But I was persuaded and now, well – I can only do it my way.”
Marple creates order out of chaos, conducting her own private investigations at a polite distance from the official police murder inquiry. The tools of her trade are frequent cups of Earl Grey tea, her needle sharp eyes and her acute hearing, which enables her constantly to overhear crucial conversations from considerable distances.
Looking inconspicuous in tweed suits, neat felt hats, lace-up shoes and crocodile-skin handbags, Miss Marple’s manner is friendly and unobtrusive; she often punctuates other people’s sentences with “Oh how kind” and “Oh reaally”. By asking rhetorical questions she answers everyone else’s. In an uncertain world she radiates infallibility.
Hickson had been an actress since the age of 20 and her stage career in particular had been a distinguished one – she had won Broadway’s prestigious Tony Award – but it was the television series that made her a household name, though she would never acknowledge that she was famous. Refusing to go on the Wogan show, she stated, “I have never been a star, I’m just an old character bag.”
She was born in Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire in 1906, and taken to her first pantomime, Cinderella, at the age of five. She knew at once what she wanted to do. “I was utterly entranced,” she said later, “and asked my parents to move as near to the theatre as possible. I knew immediately that the life I wanted was there.” Though her family did not encourage her early ambitions, she spent three years at Rada after leaving school. Her first stage appearance was as Lady Shoreham in a provincial tour of His Wife’s Children (1927). The next year she made her London debut at the Arts Theatre as the Maidservant in The Tragic Muse, following this with the role of Miss Mould in A Damsel in Distress (1928). She soon established a flair for comedy, and for playing middle-class housewifes, flustered maids and slightly dotty relations.
She made her screen debut in Trouble in Store (1933), a vehicle for the comedian James Finlayson in which store employees capture a team of burglars, the first of over 50 films in which she was featured. They included The Guinea Pig (1948, recreating a role she had played on stage), Seven Days to Noon (1950), The Card (1952), Doctor in the House (1954), Clockwise (1986), Happy Is The Bride (1957) and several of the “Carry On” series. Robert S. Baker, who produced the taut “B” thriller Deadly Nightshade (1953), recently stated, “It is notable for having Joan Hickson in it . . . of course such people were the bread and butter of the British film industry for years and years.”
On the set of Michael Winner’s The Wicked Lady (1983), Hickson celebrated 50 years in films, but it was the theatre that gave the actress her finest opportunities, with such roles as Mrs Read in The Guinea Pig (1946) and Emma Hamilton in Rain Before Seven (1949). In 1967 she had a major success in Peter Nichols’s disturbing black comedy about a couple raising a spastic daughter, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
Hickson made her Broadway debut in 1968 in the same play and repeated her role in the 1970 film version with Alan Bates and Janet Suzman. Another Peter Nichols play, Forget-Me-Not-Lane (1971) gave Hickson another major role which she played superbly, and in 1974 she joined the National Theatre Company. Her performance for them in Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce won particular acclaim and when she went to Broadway with it she won the Tony Award as Best Supporting Actress, prompting the Guardian to comment that “This actress has long been undervalued in Britain”.
Hickson herself maintained that her roles became better as she grew older because “I was never really pretty, so for someone like myself it’s more useful to be a character actress than a leading actress . . . in television especially, they want real wrinkles.”
In 1946, Agatha Christie had written the actress a letter after seeing her during a West End production of Appointment with Fear in which Hickson acted the part of “a little spinster lady, saying, “I hope that one day you will play my dear Miss Marple.” Her wish was not carried out for another 38 years.
The Body in the Library (1984) was the first of the 12 Miss Marple mysteries in which Hickson starred for the BBC, and which were seen (and still are) in 32 different countries. Jean Simmons, who played alongside her in her final Miss Marple story The Mirror Crack’d (1991), called Hickson “a dear, sweet, soft lady with a sense of humour that you miss if you’re not paying attention”.
Hickson admired her alter ego enormously and once said of Miss Marple, “I think she’s a wonderful woman with a very clear outlook on life.” Of her screen character, she said, “Miss Marple believes in justice and has very high standards. There is nothing you could say or do that would shock her. “Amusingly vague and properly indiscreet” like Miss Marple, Hickson too enjoyed village life and was averse to change.
When Joan Hickson retired from the role, believing that she should stop while the programme was still at the peak of its popularity, she stated that she had no intention of retiring from acting altogether. “Retirement is fatal,” she recalled. “If you retire you go POP.”
Alexandra Younger
and Tom Vallance
Joan Hickson, actress: born Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire 5 August 1906; married 1932 Dr Eric Butler (died 1967; one son, one daughter); died Colchester, Essex 17 October 1998.
To read the “Independent” Obituary on Joan Hickson, please click here.
TCM overview:
This British stage and occasional film actress made her stage debut in 1927, but it was not until the late 1980s that American audiences became most aware of Joan Hickson when she began playing Agatha Christie’s sleuth Miss Marple. She began in the role in 1984 for the BBC and retired for not only the role but from her acting career in 1992.
With her big blue eyes and pronounced cheek bones which can be adapted for sympathy or stern menace, Hickson made her London stage debut in “The Tragic Muse” (1928). It was nearly a decade before she first stepped before the cameras in “Love From a Stranger” (1937), based, as much of her future work would be, on an Agatha Christie story. Film work remained rather sporadic, however, until she began working for John and Roy Boulting in 1948 with “The Guinea Pig”. Hickson began playing small roles, often landladies or parents. She was the proprietor whose tenant was a German spy in “The Man Who Never Was” (1955) and the mother in “Carry On, Admiral” (1957). Hickson scored critical raves playing an uproariously funny drunken maid in “Upstairs and Downstairs” (1961) and also for playing a grandmotherly type in both the 1967 stage and 1972 film version of “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg” (The film was actually shot in 1970, but held for release for two years.) Hickson played the bookshop lady eyeing the young lovers in “Friends” (1971), and was Aunt Agatha to Faye Dunaway’s “The Wicked Lady” (1983). Her film continued well into the 90s, with roles as the haughty Duchess of Marlborough in “King of the Wind” (1990), and her final screen appearance in “Century” (1993).
Hickson had been a regular on several British TV series over the years. She was the receptionist in the anthology series “The Royalty” (BBC, 1957-58), set in a hotel. In “Our Man at St. Mark’s” (BBC, 1963-65), Hickson was the faithful housekeeper to a county vicar (played first by Leslie Stephens and later Donald Sinden). She continued to be active on TV after the age of 70, portraying Miss Havisham in 1982 BBC miniseries remake of “Great Expectations” followed by her turns as Miss Marple. Over the years, she also continued to make stage appearances, scoring a triumph on Broadway reprising her London stage role in the 1978 Broadway production of “Bedroom Farce”. Paired with fellow veteran Michael Gough, Hickson won a Tony Award for her performance.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Reece Dinsdale was born in 1959 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. In 1984 he scored on television in the play “Winter Flight”. He was also featrued that year in the film “A Private Function” with Michael Palin and Maggie Smith. He was then cast as John Thaw’s son in the series “Home to Roost”. In 1994 he won many critical plaudits for his leading role in the film “I.D”. a drama about football violence. Recently he was Joe McIntyre in “Coronation Street”. He is married to actress Zara Turner.
IMDB entry: Dinsdale was born in Normanton West Yorkshire, England in 1959. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the late seventies and early eighties. This eventually led to him being cast as Albert in the Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime(1983) series, making his first appearance in the episode The Secret Adversary (1983) in 1982. He continued in that role for two years. In 1984 director Mick Jackson writer Barry Hines cast him in their powerful nuclear war docudrama Threads (1984), as Jimmy Kemp, a soon to be father and husband to Karen Meagher‘s Ruth Beckett, who is killed when a nuclear bomb explodes over Sheffield, England. Interestingly that same year Dinsdale also starred in the Cold War drama Winter Flight (1984), in which he played a shy, introverted RAF man who falls in love with a feisty barmaid. Also in 1984 Dinsdale appeared in his first feature, the Maggie Smith comedy, A Private Function (1984). His largest role to date, however, came in 1985 as Matthew Willows when he co-starred withJohn Thaw in the British sitcom Home to Roost (1985). Dinsdale played Thaws unruly teen-aged son Matthew who comes to live with his estranged father after his mother put him out of the house. The core of the shows comedy came from constant clashing between Henry Willows (Thaw’s character), who resented his son for imposing on his bachelor solitude, and Matthew adolescent antics which clashed with his father’s conservatism. The show ran for five series between 1985 and 1990.
Dinsdale co-starred in many other British television shows and mini series in the nineties. From 1990-1992 he co-starred in Haggard (1990), a comedy set in the late 1700s. In 1995 he starred in the mini-series Bliss (1995), and more recently he has co-starred in the British series Born and Bred (2002), The Chase (2006), and Dalziel and Pascoe (1996). Film roles have included 1995’s _ID_, 1996’s _Hamlet_, in which he played Guilderstern alongside Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet, and 1998’s _So This Is Romance_.
Privately Dinsdale resides with his wife, British actress Zara Turner, in Yorkshire, England. The couple have two children, a daughter Elwy, and a son Luca. Dinsdale is also a great supporter of Huddersfield Town Football Club. He presented the video ‘Beyond the Touchline’ that went behind the scenes at Huddersfield’s former Leeds Road ground.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: garryq after Anon
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Patrick Ryecart was born in 1952 in Leamington Spa. He made his television debut in an episode of “The Goodies” in 1975. He had a popular success with the mini-series “My Sob, My Song” from the novel by Howard Spring in 1979.His films include “Tai-pan” ,”Twentyone” and more recently “The King’s Speech”.
Patrick Ryecart
“Wikipedia” entry:
Ryecart was born in Warwickshire. His first West End appearance was in Bernard Shaw’s Candida at the Albery Theatre, playing the young poet Marchbanks opposite Deborah Kerr, directed by Michael Blakemore. Among a string of fine reviews Bernard Levin in the Sunday Times described his performance as “supernova” and that he had not seen “such a talent in embryo since the young Richard Burton”. Ryecart has continued working in theatre, television and film (his last film role Lord Wigram in “The Kings Speech”) with lead roles in the classics of Shaw, Sheridan, and Shakespeare to light comedies, TV situation comedy, thrillers and musicals. Among his notable credits in London are Jack Absolute in “The Rivals” with Michael Hordern as his father and Geraldine McKewan as Mrs Malaprop, and Lord Goring in Peter Hall’s “An Ideal Husband”. He has acted on many British television shows since the mid-seventies including Lillie, Romeo and Juliet, The Professionals, Minder, Rumpole of the Bailey, Lovejoy, Coming Home and Holby City. In 1986 he appeared in the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord in the Mindwarp segment. He was one of the lead characters in the BBC TV comedy series The High Life playing Captain Hilary Duff. He also appeared in the 1997 Agatha Christie’s Poirot episode, Dumb Witness., and for the BBC in My Son My Son. Also Dalziel & Pascoe episode and many mini series for the U.S.
Patrick Rycart
His extensive theatre credits include The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B by J P Donleavy in London’s West End which he also produced, first playing Balthazar to Simon Callow’s playing Beefy, ( who was later replaced by Billy Connolly ). Numerous tours include “Donkeys Years”, “Rebecca”, “Tunes of Glory” and “The Millionairess” opposite Raquel Welch. He also produced, at the Garrick Theatre London (and later redirected for tour and the Edinburgh Festival 2011) “Jus’ like That!” the highly successful affectionate tribute to the great Tommy Cooper, written by John Fisher.
He was married to English actress Marsha Fitzalan from 4 July 1977 until their divorce in 1995. She was the third daughter of the late 17th Duke of Norfolk and they met at drama school The Webber Douglas Academy. They have three grown up children: Mariella Celia (born 1982), Jemima Carrie (1984), (both married) and Frederick William Hamlet (1987). Ryecart lives in London.
The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.
Dandy Nichols was born in Hammersmith, West London in 1907. She is best known as the wife of Warren Mitchell in the classic television series “Till Death Us Do Part” in the 1960’s. Her films include “Hue and Cry” in 1947, “The Winslow Boy” and “The History of Mr Polly. In 1970 and 1971 she won widespread critical acclaim for her unique stage performance in “Home” both in the West End and on Broadway with Sir Ralph Richardson. Sir John Gelgud and Mona Washbourne.Dandy Nichols
IMDB entry:
Till Death Us Do Part (1965), The Fallen Idol(1948) and O Lucky Man! (1973). She was married to Stephen Baguley Waters. She died on February 6, 1986 in London. Whereas Edith Bunker was referred to as a “dingbat” by husband Archie, Dandy’s Else was referred to as a “silly old moo” by her husband Alf. Two series of sequels of Till Death Us Do Part (1965) were created. Dandy died during the filming of the second sequel and her death was incorporated into the series; the remainder of the series dealt with Alf’s life as a widower. Dandy became a 60s TV star in middle age with the British comedy classic Till Death Us Do Part (1965) in which she played Else Garnett, the beleaguered wife of Alf Garnett, a cranky, bigoted type. The series caught fire and an American version was produced in the 70s, All in the Family (1971), with Jean Stapleton‘s Edith Bunker, Dandy’s counterpart. British minor comedy character actress who made a lasting career playing frumpy wives (complete with bathrobe, hairnet and curlers), cockney scrubwomen and a constant revolving door of domestics. Replaced Gretchen Franklin in the role of Else Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part (1965) after Franklin was unable to break her theatre contract.
Delphi Lawrence was born in 1926 in Herfordshire. She made many films in England during the 1950’s including “The Feminine Touch” with Belinda Lee in 1956, “Just My Luck” with Norman Wisdom and “Son of Robin Hood”. In the 1960’s she went to Hollywood and made such movies as “The Last Challenge” with Glenn Ford and Angie Dickinson in 1967. She died in New York in 2002.
IMDB entry:
Delphi Lawrence was born on March 23, 1932 in Hertfordshire, England. She was an actress, known for Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), Murder on Approval (1955) and Element of Doubt (1961). She died on April 11, 2002 in Northport, Long Island, New York, US In the film Wild for Kicks (1960), despite having several lines of dialogue and performing a task crucial to the plot, both her name and that of her character, Greta, are missing from the film’s closing credits! She was nominated for a 1974 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actress in a Principal Role for her performance in “Separate Tables”, at the Ivanhoe Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Anglo-Hungarian leading lady of British B-films in the 1950’s and 60’s. Initially trained as a concert pianist.
Bruce Seton was born in 1909 in Simla, India. He began his acting career in 1939 in the film “Blue Smoke”. He is best known for his portryal of Inspector Fabian in the 1950’s British television series “Fabian of the Yard”. He died in 1969.
IMDB entry: Tall, serious-looking British character actor, formerly a graduate of Edinburgh Academy and Sandhurst. He was a member of the Black Watch, but resigned his commission in 1932 to join the chorus of the Drury Lane Theatre as a specialty dancer. He later turned to films, usually acting in small supporting roles in which he invariably projected an air of confidence and authority. He rejoined the British Army in 1939 for wartime service. His one noteworthy screen success after 1945 was as the titular star of Patrol Car (1954), playing real-life detective Robert Fabian. In 1963, upon the death of his brother, Sir Alexander Hay Seton, he became the eleventh Baronet of Abercorn. Along with other actors, Bruce Seton was one of the founder members of the Lord’s Taverners in 1950, Britain’s premier youth cricket and disability sports charity association.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
