about me
Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been building an autograph collection of my favourite actors’ signed photographs. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I enjoy. I have collected the photographs from the actors themselves, through contacts in the studios and through auctions. I now have over 2,000 photographs in the collection.
My Autograph Collection
I have separated my autograph collection into different categories, which you can see below. Feel free to browse whichever section interests you. Inside, I share not only the autographed photo in my possession, but also information about the actor, including their biography, photos and posters of their movies, and sometimes videos dedicated to them.
Whether you’re drawn to classic Hollywood icons, contemporary superstars, or character actors with a cult following, there’s something in my autograph collection for every movie enthusiast. If you enjoy my blog, don’t hesitate to leave a comment on one of my entries.
Actors Autograph Collections
Blog Categories
BRITISH ACTORS
Collection of Classic Brittish Actors
IRISH ACTORS
Collection of Classic Irish Actors
HOLLYWOOD ACTORS
Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors
EUROPEAN ACTORS
Collection of Classic European Actors
CONTEMPORARY ACTORS
Collection of Classic Contemporary Actors
RECENT POSTS
Valene Kane (Wikipedia)
Valene Kane is best known for playing Rose Stagg, the ex-girlfriend of serial killer Paul Spector, in The Fall on BBC Two and for her role as Lyra Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. She is also known for her role in the BBC drama Thirteen. She starred as DS Lisa Merchant, described as “superb” by The Radio Times: “The former star of The Fall‘s scenes […] are among the show’s most intriguing, simmering with sexual tension and professional frustration.”
Kane won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Supporting Performer for her role in The Stroma Sessions and her film Profile (in which she played a struggling undercover journalist who connects with a Jihadi through Facebook) won the Panorama Audience Award at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival.
She is the daughter of Val Kane “successful Down county Gaelic footballer and coach”and was raised in Newry, County Down. From the age of 15, she was part of the National Youth Theatre, most notably starring in their production of 20 Cigarettes. She left Northern Ireland for London at 18 and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Kane was cast in The Fading Light by the director Ivan Kavanagh after he spotted her in a short film, July, that was posted on YouTube. She was chosen partly for her successful experience with improvisation in the short film. 2013 saw her play Rose Stagg in the BBC‘s TV series The Fall, and Dara in the comic Irish thriller Jump. Also in 2013, Kane played the title role in Strindberg‘s Miss Julie at the newly founded Reading Rep.
Other film work Still Early, a short film which premiered at the Galway Film Festival. Kane’s work for the BBC in 2016 includes taking the lead in BBC3 drama Thirteen, the third series of The Fall, and an episode of Murder. Also that year, she played Lyra Erso, the protagonist’s mother, in the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Kane has been seen on stage as Nance, in the Finborough Theatre‘s production of Autumn Fire, The Love in Punchdrunk‘s production The Black Diamond, which sold out “in mere minutes” and Lady Lydia Languish in The Rivals. She also played Girleen in Martin McDonagh‘s The Lonesome West in which one reviewer said “Kane gives Girleen a schoolgirl reality, her confident swagger and challenge covering the only genuine feelings for anyone else that the play possesses”.
Kane’s radio drama work for the BBC includes The Demon Brother and Stroma Sessions for which she won Best Supporting Performer.
In 2018 Valene Kane played journalist Amy Whittaker who investigates the recruitment of young European women by the ISIS in the 2018 thriller film Profile by Timur Bekmambetov. The film takes place entirely on computer screens. It premiered at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Panorama Audience Award.
2019 saw Kane in Anne Sewitsky‘s Sonja: The White Swan which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and in BBC TV Movie Counselin which she played the “an alpha female barrister [who] complicates her professional and personal life when she takes on a young client”
Kane could also be heard on the Monobox Speech Share podcast reading from Marina Carr‘s “Portia Coughlan”
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Scott Hylands (Wikipedia)
Scott Hylands was born 1944 and is a Canadian actor who has appeared in movies, on television, and on the stage. Because of his longevity and versatility, critics have called him “one of Canada’s greatest actors.”
Hylands was born in 1943 in Lethbridge, Alberta, but his family left there when he was still an infant. His mother Ruth was a science teacher, and his father Walter died during World War II. Hylands was raised and educated in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he attended Shawnigan Lake Boys School; he then attended the University of British Columbia and graduated in 1964. at first studied zoology, but when the university began a theater arts major, he transferred into that program. Upon graduation, he left Canada to pursue an acting career in New York City, where his first role was as the lead in an off-Broadway production of the comedy Billy Liar.
After that 1965 debut role, he spent several years in San Francisco, acting with the American Conservatory Theater. Then, in 1968, he was asked by Hollywood director Mark Robson to audition for a movie role. His first movie appearance was in the 1969 suspense film Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting. He got good reviews, but his movie debut was overshadowed by another film that came out at the same time: Midnight Cowboy.
In August 1975 Hylands appeared onstage as Mercutio in the Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Society production of Romeo and Juliet at the Pilgrimage Theatre in the Cahuenga Pass.
He won some critical praise, both for his acting skill and for his good looks. He was even compared to Paul Newman. And while he did not become famous, he worked regularly, appearing in a number of movies, as well as in some American television shows. Among the TV shows in which he acted were “Cannon,” “The Waltons,” “Baretta,” and “Ironsides.” On American TV, he became well known for playing tough guy characters and villains: as he noted in an interview, if an actor is not the leading man, he generally plays a “heavy.”
In the early 1980s, Hylands returned to Canada, settling in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. He also got an opportunity to play a good guy, the role of Detective Kevin “O.B.” O’Brien on the television series Night Heat, Night Heat was a police drama, produced in Toronto; it aired on both Canadian (CTV) and American (CBS) TV, from 1985 to 1989. This was his first starring role on any TV program.
After Night Heat was canceled, Hylands continued to live in Canada, with his wife Veronica, a nurse, and their two children.; but he worked in both American and Canadian productions. He appeared as Father Travis in the ABC-TV series V. He was seen on numerous other programs, including the 1992 TV movie To Catch a Killer, a 1995 episode of the hit cop drama NYPD Blue, and on four episodes of the remade version of the Outer Limits from 1996-2001. He also returned to the Canadian stage, playing leading roles in such productions as Waiting for Godot (2015), and The Tempest (1994), among others. He produced and directed a 2008 version of Waiting for Godot, and performed in a solo version of A Christmas Carol. In addition, he directed, as well as performed in, a 2006 production of Under Milk Wood that was staged in Victoria BC. In his early 70s, he has expressed no interest in retiring, and continues to be involved with theater.
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Lorraine Pilkington (Wikipedia)
Lorraine Pilkington was born 18 April 1974 & is an Irish actress from Dublin, who is best known for her role as Katrina Finlay from Monarch of the Glen.
Born in Dublin, Pilkington grew up in the affluent suburban village of Malahide, and attended Manor House School, Raheny.
Trained at the Gaiety School of Acting, Pilkington began her career at the age of 15 when she appeared in The Miracle directed by Neil Jordan. She appeared onstage in the plays The Plough and the Stars and The Iceman Cometh.
At age 18 she moved to London where she was given a part in a Miramax film which eventually fell through. After returning to Dublin, Pilkington appeared in films including Human Traffic and My Kingdom, a retelling of King Lear.
In 2000, she was cast as Katrina Finlay, a schoolteacher in a Scottish village in the BBC television series Monarch of the Glen. After leaving the show at the beginning of the third season, she appeared in various other television productions such as Rough Diamond and Outnumbered.
She married Simon Massey, the director of Monarch of the Glen, in 2001. They have three sons, Milo, Luca and Inigo.
In 2008, she appeared in a short film by Luke Massey Within the Woods, with James Chalmers.
In 2016 she voiced the lead role in a Paramount animation, Capture the Flag.
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Jane Griffiths (Wikipedia)
Jane Griffiths was born in 1929 and was an English actress who appeared in film and television between 1950 and 1966. She died in 1975.
She played the female lead opposite Gregory Peck in The Million Pound Note (1954), but never appeared in another major film, and spent the rest of her career in B movies. However, the film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane praise her “unexpectedly poignant” performance in The Durant Affair, in which she evokes “a convincing air of struggling to contain past sadness”.
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Lee Meriwether (Wikipedia)
Lee Meriwether was born on May 27, 1935 and is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the 1955 Miss America pageant. She is known for her role as Betty Jones, Buddy Ebsen’s secretary and daughter-in-law in the 1970s crime drama Barnaby Jones. The role earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations in 1975 and 1976, and an Emmy Award nomination in 1977. She is also known for her role as Herman Munster‘s long-haired wife, Lily Munster, on the 1980s sitcom The Munsters Today, as well as for her portrayal of Catwoman, replacing Julie Newmar in the film version of Batman (1966), and for a co-starring role on the science fiction series The Time Tunnel. Meriwether had a recurring role as Ruth Martin on the daytime soap opera All My Children until the end of the series in September 2011.
Meriwether was born in Los Angeles, California to Claudius Gregg Meriwether (October 13, 1904 – July 15, 1954) and Ethel Eve Mulligan (March 25, 1903 – May 21, 1996, Los Angeles). She has one brother, Don Brett Meriwether (born May 14, 1938). She grew up in San Francisco after the family moved there from Phoenix, Arizona. She attended George Washington High School, where one of her classmates was Johnny Mathis. She later attended City College of San Francisco, where one of her classmates was fellow actor Bill Bixby.
After winning Miss San Francisco, Meriwether won Miss California 1954, then was crowned Miss America in 1955 with her recital of a John Millington Synge monologue. She then appeared that Sunday on What’s My Line, hosted by John Charles Daly (who also emceed the pageant that year). Following her reign as Miss America, she joined the Today show.
Meriwether was a “Today Girl” on NBC’s The Today Show in 1955-1956. Her feature filmdebut came in 1959 as Linda Davis in 4D Man, starring Robert Lansing. She appears in The Phil Silvers Show episode, “Cyrano de Bilko”.
In 1961, Meriwether guest starred once as Gloria in the episode “Buddy and the Amazon” on her first husband’s (Frank Aletter) one-season CBS sitcom, Bringing Up Buddy. She also appeared in Leave It To Beaver episode “Community Chest” in season four. In 1962, she was cast as Martha Elweiss in the episode “My Child Is Yet a Stranger” on the CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show. She played Nurse Dickens in a 1962 episode of the ABC sitcom, I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster. From 1963 to 1965, she was cast in different roles in eight episodes of the NBC medical drama, Dr. Kildare. In 1964, she played the character Jeanelle in “This Is Going to Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You” on the CBS adventure series, Route 66. In 1965, she appeared in an episode on The Jack Benny Program as The Secretary. In a 1965 episode of 12 O’Clock High, “Mutiny at Ten Thousand Feet”, she played Lieutenant Amy Patterson, and in “The Idolator” and a 1966 episode, “The Outsider”, she played Captain Phylllis Vincent. She also guest starred in the season 2 episode “Big Brother.”
Lee Meriwether acted as Catwoman in the film (pictured) Batman, replacing Julie Newmar, the usual actress for Catwoman in the television series.
Meriwether appeared as Dr. Egert on the NBC series, Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Mad, Mad Tea Party”, 1965) and in an episode of Hazel (“How to Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Minutes”, also 1965) she played Miss Wilson, the owner of an exercise studio. Meriwether portrayed The Catwoman for the Batman movie (1966), and also appeared in two episodes of the Batman TV series in 1967 as Lisa Carson, a love interest to Bruce Wayne in the episodes “King Tut’s Coup” and “Batman’s Waterloo”. She also co-starred as scientist Dr. Ann MacGregor in the 1966–1967 television series The Time Tunnel. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she had guest starring roles in numerous TV series, including The Fugitive, The Lloyd Bridges Show, Mannix, Star Trek episode “That Which Survives” (1969), Mission: Impossible episodes 19 and 20 “The Bunker” parts I and II (1969), Perry Mason episode #245 “The Case of the Cheating Chancellor” and the F Troop episode “O’Rourke vs. O’Reilly”.
In films, she joined John Wayne and Rock Hudson for The Undefeated, and Andy Griffith in Angel in My Pocket (both 1969). In the same year as those two films, she played IMF spy Tracey in six Mission: Impossible episodes during season four after Barbara Bain‘s departure.
Publicity photo with Andy Griffithand Lee Meriwether, as wife Lee, for The New Andy Griffith Show (1971). The series was short-lived.
Meriwether began her award-nominated role as secretary and daughter-in-law Betty Jones in the 1973–1980 CBS series Barnaby Jones, opposite Buddy Ebsen. During the series’ eight-year run she enjoyed an on- and off-screen chemistry with the elder Ebsen. During the series’ run, she was reunited with her former classmate and best friend Bill Bixby during one episode. After her stint on Barnaby Jones, Meriwether became best friends with Ebsen, keeping in touch for many years until his death on July 6, 2003. She starred in the 1978 television movies True Grit: A Further Adventure with Warren Oates and Cruise Into Terror, appeared on Circus of the Stars four times, and was a regular panelist on the game show Match Game.
Meriwether portrayed Lily Munster in the 1988-1991 revival of the 1960s television sitcom The Munsters, titled The Munsters Today, in which she starred alongside Jason Marsden, John Schuck, Howard Morton and Hilary Van Dyke. She also made several guest star appearances on the television series The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.
In the 1990s, she appeared as herself on an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast. She had a memorable exchange with Zorak in which she said, “For my money, Eartha Kitt was the best Catwoman.” Zorak, portraying the evil Batmantis, replied, “Give me your money,” which was followed by a Batman-esque sound effect. In 1993, she guest starred on Murder, She Wrote, episode “Ship of Thieves”. In 1996, Meriwether took over for Mary Fickett in the role of Ruth Martin on the soap opera All My Children, Fickett having played the role since its inception in 1970. After twenty-six years, Fickett wanted to go into semi-retirement as a recurring cast member. Negotiations with the network broke down and Meriwether was cast as Ruth Martin. In 1998, ABC deemed that they were at an impasse with Meriwether’s agents and Mary Fickett was brought back as a recurring cast member. Fickett retired again, this time for good in December 2000. ABC decided to bring back the character of Ruth Martin in 2002, but Fickett remained in retirement. Meriwether was hence brought back and remained a featured recurring performer on the show until it ended.
In 2002, she appeared in the documentary film Miss America. In 2003, Meriwether appeared in the TV-Movie Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt. She also appeared Off Broadway in the interactive comedy, Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral. She voiced Big Mama in the video game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the PlayStation 3. She also appears in one of the game’s opening videos as a talkshow host having an interview with David Hayter, who voices Solid Snake in the game. In 2006, she joined James Garner, Abigail Breslin, Bill Cobbs and others in The Ultimate Gift. In 2008, Meriwether had a brief cameo as comic book character Battle Diva in the episode “Harper Knows” of the Disney Channel original series Wizards of Waverly Place. In 2010, she was once again reunited on screen with Hollywood veteran Bill Cobbs in No Limit Kids: Much Ado About Middle School; additionally, she voices President Winters in the video game Vanquish by PlatinumGames.
Meriwether continues to work on stage, television, game voice-overs, and feature films. She has made guest appearances on Desperate Housewives, Hawaii Five-0, The League and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. Most recently, she revisited her role as Miss Hastings in the sequel/prequel to The Ultimate Gift, The Ultimate Life (2013), directed by Michael Landon Jr. She is also starring in the short film Kitty.
She also makes appearances at Comic Cons where she speaks about her roles in Batman, Star Trek and Time Tunnel.
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Peter Gilmore obituary in “The Guardian” in 2013.
James Onedin, the protagonist of the long-running BBC television series The Onedin Line, gained his splendid name from a sea nymph. After the programme’s creator, Cyril Abraham, had read about mythological figure Ondine, he transposed the “e”, thus making her a man. And what a man: Peter Gilmore, who played Onedin in 91 episodes from 1971 to 1980, had tousled hair, flinty eyes, hollow cheeks, mutton-chop sideburns racing across his cheek, lips pulled severely down, chin thrust indomitably forward to face down the brewing gale. He has died aged 81.
The sea captain did not so much talk as emit salty barks that brooked no demur. In 1972, while filming, Gilmore was buzzed by speedboats from the Royal Naval College. Still in character as Onedin, he yelled irascibly at the tyro sailors: “Taxpayers’ money! Where are your guns? What use would you be if the Russians came?”
Like Horatio Nelson, Francis Drake and to a lesser extent the early 70s prime minister Edward Heath, the very cut of Gilmore’s jib suggested that the British – if only in prime-time costume dramas – still ruled the waves. For many, Gilmore’s name conjures up the stirring Adagio from Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus that was used on the opening credits. Madly and marvellously, Onedin set up a shipping line with sailing vessels in late-19th century Liverpool at a time when steamships were taking over the seaways.Advertisement
By series two, his business model had seen off the sceptics but his wife, Anne, had died in childbirth. That plot twist was partly explained by the fact that the actor who played her, Anne Stallybrass, had decided to return to the theatre.
To honour his dead wife’s memory, Onedin added a steamship to his fleet called the Anne Onedin and then allowed Kate Nelligan (as a coal-merchant’s eligible daughter) and Caroline Harris (as a 20-something worldly wise widow) to vie for his affections. He spurned both, marrying his daughter’s governess, Letty Gaunt, who died of diphtheria. By the eighth and last series, Onedin was married to a third wife, Margarita Juarez, and had become a grandfather.
Before Howards’ Way, The Onedin Line was the BBC’s nautical franchise: Abraham wrote five novels loosely based on his television scripts, while Gilmore was frequently asked to launch ships and was also bombarded with fan mail and advice from veteran sailors. He parlayed fame into reviving a former career as a singer, releasing in 1974 an album of sailor shanties called Songs of the Sea and in 1977 another called Peter Gilmore Sings Gently.
He regretted that he became too typecast as Onedin to get other lead roles. In 1978 he starred opposite Doug McLure in the film Warlords of Atlantis as an archaeologist searching for the fabled underwater city who ends up battling a giant octopus and other sea monsters.
Gilmore was born in the German city of Leipzig. At the age of six, he moved to Nunthorpe, near Middlesbrough, where he was raised by relatives, later attending the Friends’ school in Great Ayton, north Yorkshire. From the age of 14 he worked in a factory, but later studied at Rada. While undertaking national service in 1950 he discovered a talent for singing and after his discharge joined singing groups who performed all over the country.
During the 1950s and 60s he became a stalwart of British stage musicals, appearing in several largely unsuccessful shows, including one called Hooray for Daisy! in which he was the chief human in a drama about a pantomime cow. He even released a single in 1960 as a spin-off from his performance in the musical Follow That Girl, opposite Susan Hampshire. In 1958 he appeared on the pop programme Cool for Cats, where he met the actor Una Stubbs, then one of the Dougie Squires Dancers, who were weekly tasked with interpreting hit songs in movement. The couple were married from 1958 until 1969.
His success at this time in British and US TV commercials led him to be cast in comedies, with 11 appearances in Carry On films, two of which – Carry On Jack (1963) and Carry On Cleo (1964) – gave him early nautical roles. In 1970 he married Jan Waters, with whom he starred in both stage and television productions of The Beggar’s Opera, he playing the highwayman Captain Macheath.
The Onedin Line brought Gilmore the fame that had eluded him. In 1976, he and Jan divorced and he started living with Stallybrass, whom he married in 1987. In 1984 a new generation of viewers saw Gilmore as Brazen, the security chief of a distant human colony called Frontios in Doctor Who’s 21st series. Brazen died heroically while helping the Doctor escape. Gilmore made his last stage appearance in 1987 in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and his last screen one in the 1996 television movie On Dangerous Ground.
He is survived by Anne and a son, Jason, from his first marriage.
• Peter Gilmore, actor, born 25 August 1931; died 3 February 2013
• This article was amended on 7 February 2013. The original stated that Follow That Girl was Susan Hampshire’s only foray into musicals. This has been corrected.
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Amybeth McNulty (Wikipedia)
Amybeth McNulty is an Irish-Canadianactress, born in Donegal in 2001. She is known for her starring role as Anne Shirley in the CBC/Netflix drama series Anne with an E (2017–present), based on the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
McNulty was born to an Irish father and a Canadian mother. She is from Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. McNulty is a natural blonde, contrary to the widespread public belief that she is a redhead. She dyed her hair red for her role in Anne with an E.
McNulty has previously appeared in the RTÉ One series Clean Break and Agatha Raisin.[3] Since 2017, she has starred as Anne Shirley in the CBC/Netflix drama series Anne with an E, which is based on the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
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Sybil Thorndyke (Wikipedia)
Sybil Thorndyke was born in 1882 and was an English actress who toured internationally in Shakespearean productions, often appearing with her husband Lewis Casson. Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan specially for her, and she starred in it with great success. She was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1931, and Companion of Honour in 1970.
She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, to Arthur John Webster Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald, daughter of ship engineer John Bowers. Arthur Thorndike was a canon of Rochester Cathedral. She was educated at Rochester Grammar School for Girls, and first trained as a classical pianist, making weekly visits to London for music lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Her childhood home in Rochester has been renamed after her. She gave her first public performance as a pianist at the age of 11, but in 1899 was forced to give up playing owing to piano cramp. At the instigation of her brother, the author Russell Thorndike, she then trained as an actress under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
At the age of 21 she was offered her first professional contract: a tour of the United States with the actor-manager Ben Greet‘s company. She made her first stage appearance in Greet’s 1904 production of Shakespeare‘s The Merry Wives of Windsor. She went on to tour the U.S. in Shakespearean repertory for four years, playing some 112 roles.
In 1908, she was spotted by the playwright George Bernard Shaw when she understudied the leading role of Candida in a tour directed by Shaw himself. There she also met her future husband, Lewis Casson. They were married in December 1908, and had four children: John (1909–1999), Christopher (1912–1996), Mary (1914–2009), and Ann (1915–1990). She was survived by her four children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren when she died.
She joined Annie Horniman‘s company in Manchester (1908–1909 and 1911–1913), went to Broadway in 1910, and then joined the Old Vic Company in London (1914–1018), playing leading roles in Shakespeare and in other classic plays. After the First World War, she played Hecuba in Euripides The Trojan Women (1919–1920), then from 1920 to 1922 Thorndike and her husband starred in a British version of France’s Grand Guignol directed by Jose Levy.
She returned to the stage in the title role of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan in 1924, which had been written with her specifically in mind. The production was a huge success, and was revived repeatedly until her final performance in the role in 1941. In 1927, Thorndike appeared in a short film of the cathedral scene from Saint Joan made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. Both Thorndike and Casson were active members of the Labour Party, and held strong left-wing views. Even when the 1926 General Strike stopped the first run of Saint Joan, they both still supported the strikers.
She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1931. As a pacifist, Thorndike was a member of the Peace Pledge Union and gave readings for its benefit. During the Second World War, Thorndike and her husband toured in Shakespearean productions on behalf of the Council For the Encouragement of the Arts, before joining Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson in the Old Vic season at the New Theatre in 1944.
At the end of the Second World War, it was discovered that Thorndike was on “The Black Book” or Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. list of Britons who were to be arrested in the event of a Nazi invasion of Britain.
She also undertook tours of Australia and South Africa, before playing again with Olivier in Uncle Vanya at Chichester in 1962. She made her farewell appearance with her husband in a London revival of Arsenic and Old Lace at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1966. Her last stage performance was at the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead, Surrey, in There Was an Old Woman in 1969, the year Lewis Casson died.
Her final acting appearance was in a TV drama The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens, with Anthony Hopkins in 1970. That same year she was made a Companion of Honour. She and her husband (who was knighted in 1945) were one of the few couples who both held titles in their own right. She was also awarded an honorary degree from Manchester University in 1922 and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Oxford in 1966.
Dame Sybil’s ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey.
In 1908, Thorndike married Lewis Casson, to whom she remained married until his death in 1969. The couple had four children, John (born 1909), Christopher (born 1912), Mary (born 1914), and Ann (born 1915).
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Patrick Colbert was born on November 20, 1897 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland. He was an actor, known for Shipmates o’ Mine (1936), The Mikado. He died in 1971.
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Rachel Kempson obituary in “The Guardian” in 2003.
The actor Rachel Kempson – widow of Sir Michael Redgrave and mother of Vanessa, Corin and Lynn – has died aged 92. Known affectionately as “the matriarch to a dynasty” (a title she usually rejected), for many commentators the skills she brought to negotiating the often volatile strands of her family were quite as outstanding as her long and distinguished acting career. It was true, though, that her own abilities as an actor for stage, television, film and radio were often overshadowed by those of her husband and their illustrious brood.
Born into a conventionally middle-class family in Dartmouth, Devon, Kempson was the daughter of the principal of Dartmouth Royal Naval College, and originally faced strong family disapproval to going on the stage. But once she had seen Dame Sybil Thorndike playing the role of Katherine of Aragon, in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, the die was cast. She was determined to achieve her aim and, after taking various odd jobs, finally got her wish and went on to win a part scholarship to Rada.
Kempson’s first stage appearance was as Hera, in Much Ado About Nothing, in the 1933 Stratford-upon-Avon season, followed by Ophelia and a Juliet which those who knew her still describe as “incandescent” – a quality in a sense she never lost. Even in later life, as one friend put it, “however old she was, she brought a quality of youthful gaiety”. Also in 1933, Kempson made her first London appearance, as Bianca, in The Lady From Alfaqueque. Advertisement
The following year, while working at the Liverpool Playhouse, she met and fell in love with the young Michael Redgrave. They married a year later, beginning a partnership that endured for 50 years until his death in 1985, and successfully weathered the storms of his bisexuality. Kempson’s loyalty was a key to their marriage.
As her autobiography, A Family And Its Fortunes (1986) revealed, she remained modest about her own considerable talent, and, in the early years, allowed domestic demands to take precedence. Friends said that her family always came first in her life. None the less, with her fine-boned, classically English looks – a likeness inherited by her children and grandchildren – and her easy elegance on stage, she was seldom out of work.
In 1936 she appeared with the Old Vic Company, and later joined John Gielgud’s season at the Queen’s Theatre. In the 1950s, she appeared regularly at Stratford (she played Regan to her husband’s Lear in the 1953 season) and continued to play a variety of roles in the classical repertoire throughout her life. Like many of her generation, she also had the courage and flexibility to reinvent herself with the rise of the new wave, joining George Devine’s English Stage Company in 1956, the same year that John Osborne’s Look Back In Anger made its appearance.
Not that the transition was without mishap. One night in 1972, while appearing in Osborne’s A Sense Of Detachment, Kempson jumped into the stalls to administer some well-chosen slaps to two members of the audience who had been heckling. Afterwards, regretful, she admitted that it wasn’t the sort of thing to do, “but once in a blue moon, you do”.
Uncharacteristic in one sense, in another this action was typical of a certain headstrong streak and a fierce sense of loyalty which, once given, remained for a lifetime. That passionate openness also informed her best work. Playing Polena, the lovelorn housekeeper in George Devine’s production of Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Royal Court in 1964 – in some estimations, among one of the best – Kempson played it, as one friend put it, “with her heart flying”.
In the 1960s and 1970s, she continued to work steadily, appearing in Julian Mitchell’s highly successful West End adaptation of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s A Family And A Fortune (1975), Alan Bennett’s The Old Country (1977), with Sir Alec Guinness, and a number of popular British films of the period – among them Tom Jones (1963), Georgy Girl (1966), which starred her daughter Lynn, The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1968), with her daughter Vanessa and son Corin, a movie made by her then son-in-law Tony Richardson, and The Virgin Soldiers (1969). “She really came into her own in later years,” according to a friend. “A typical role was that of a slightly down-trodden woman who knew her place. But Rachel also had a quite considerable sharpness. She had a great sense of fun as well as tremendous warmth.”
A favourite role of Kempson’s was apparently that of Dionyza, in Pericles, in the 1958 Stratford season, when she also played Lady Capulet and an “enchanting” Ursula in Much Ado. This is a role traditionally of calculated evil, and many of her friends were surprised at the depth she achieved. “I loved playing it”, she confessed afterwards, “it’s my only opportunity to show the other side.”
In her 70s, Kempson took on more eccentric, scatty personas. She appeared as Julia Shuttlewaite in a glittering West End revival of TS Eliot’s The Cocktail Party in 1986; two year later, she was Maria Vasilyevna in Uncle Vanya (with Michael Gambon, Greta Scacchi and Jonathan Pryce); and the following year she was Volumnia in Corin Redgrave’s production of Coriolanus at the Young Vic.
Among many television series and plays, she appeared in Elizabeth R, Jewel In The Crown, Love For Lydia, The Bell, The Black Tower, Uncle Vanya and Lorna Doona, and late in the 1980s won a Bafta best actress nomination (for her television performance in Kate, The Good Neigbour.) On radio, she was a memorable Hester in The Forsyte Saga. Her last film was Deja Vu (1998), in which she played the mother of Vanessa.
Though her acting career inevitably slowed, Kempson continued to appear, often alongside Corin, on a number of occasions at poetry recitals. Until she became too frail and moved to live with Vanessa, she was a keen and creative gardener, turning her home in Hampshire into a haven where family and friends could always go for support in troubled times.
In 2000, Kempson sold the Redgrave family archive for £200,000 to the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. Vanessa, Corin and Lynn survive her. Among her grandchildren are the actors Joely and Natasha Richardson, and Jemma Redgrave.
· Rachel Kempson (Lady Redgrave), actor, born May 28 1910; died May 23 2003
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