Constance Collier was born in 1878 in Windsor. She made her stage debut at the age of 3 in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”. In 1905 she married Irish actor Julian Boyles and they performed on the stage until his death in 1918. In the 1940’s she was a stalwart character actress in Hollywood films such as “Kitty” with Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland, “The Perils of Pauline” in 1947 with Betty Hutton and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope” with James Stewart and Farley Granger. Constance Collier died in 1955 in New York.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
In a career that covered six decades, Constance Collier evolved into one of Broadway and London’s finest tragediennes during the first half of the 1900s. While the regal, dark-featured beauty who bore classic Romanesque features enjoyed a transcontinental career like a number of her contemporaries, her theatre success did not encourage an enviable film career. It wasn’t until her senior years that Constance engaged in a number of well-regarded supporting performances on screen. Later respect also came as one of Hollywood’s premiere drama and voice coaches.
She was born Laura Constance Hardie in Windsor, Berkshire on January 22, 1878, the only child of Auguste Cheetham and Eliza Georgina (nee Collier) Hardie, who were both minor professional actors. Young Constance made her stage debut at the age of three as a fairy in a production of “A Midsummer Nights Dream” and the die was cast. By age 6 she was appearing with famed actor/manager Wilson Barrett in “The Silver King”. An early break occurred in her teens (1893) when the tall, under-aged beauty was given consent by her parents to become a member of the famed George Edwardes-Hall “Gaiety Girls” dance troupe. Groomed extensively in singing, dancing and elocution, she managed to stand out among those others in the chorus line and went on to featured status in two of Edwardes-Hall’s biggest hits, “A Gaiety Girl” and “The Shop Girl” (both 1894).
Legit ingénue roles in “Her Advocate”, “Tommy Atkins” and “The Sign of the Cross” followed. Just after the turn of the century (1901) she was invited to join the theatre company of the esteemed Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who had been searching for a comparably tall leading lady to play opposite him. She remained with his company at His Majesty’s Theatre for six years where she built up a formidable classical resumé. Alongside Sir Herbert in such plays as “Ulysses”, “The Eternal City” and “Nero”, Constance also proved a fine Shakespearean with her Olivia, Viola, Portia, Mistress Ford and Cleopatra at the top of the list. She also made a noteworthy Nancy Sykes in “Oliver Twist” which she toured extensively both here and abroad. During this time (1905), she married British-born actor ‘Julian L’Estrange’.
Ms. Collier made a successful American stage debut in 1908 with “Samson” at the Garrick Theatre in New York opposite well-known American actor/playwright William Gillette, thereby placing herself solidly among the most popular and respected actresses of the day. Among her subsequent Broadway offerings were “Israel” (1909), “Trelawney of the Wells” (1911), “Oliver Twist” (1912), “Othello” (1915) and “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (1917).
Sir Herbert and Constance both appeared as extras in the silent D.W. Griffith classicIntolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916). While still in the U.S., he filmed Macbeth (1916) with Constance as his Lady Macbeth. Not only was the Shakespearean film poorly received but her starring appearances in two other silents released earlier that year, The Tongues of Men (1916) and The Code of Marcia Gray(1916), were also overlooked.
Tragedy struck in October of 1918. She and husband L’Estrange had begun a Broadway run together of “The Ideal Husband” only a month earlier. During the run he contracted the deadly Spanish influenza which had spread worldwide and died of pneumonia at the untimely age of 40. The grief-stricken actress finished the play’s run into November then returned to England where she appeared in the films The Impossible Woman (1919),Bleak House (1920) and The Bohemian Girl (1922). Among her London theatre successes were “Our Betters” (1923) at the Globe Theatre, which ran for over twelve months, and “Hamlet” wherein she played Queen Gertrude opposite John Barrymore‘s Great Dane (1925) at the Haymarket Theatre. Constance also moved into writing and penned her own play “Forever”, which was based on the Daphne Du Maurier novel “Peter Ibbetson”. She then co-wrote with actor/friend Ivor Novello the play “The Rat” (1924) in which Novello starred and Constance produced.
The advent of sound provided the exciting opportunity for the eloquent Collier to work in the U.S., but not necessarily as an actress. By helping established silent film stars transition into talkies, she became Hollywood’s foremost drama and voice coach. Finding less and less time for stage work, she directed a Broadway production of “Camille” in 1931. She did, however, manage to appear in productions of “Peter Ibbetson” (1931), which she also staged, “Dinner at Eight (1932) and “Hay Fever” (1933) all in New York. Her final Broadway curtain call was taken as Madame Bernardi in “Aries Is Rising” (1939) at New York’s Golden Theatre.
In later years, she continued to coach (among her students were Marilyn Monroe) and write, but she also found time to return to the large screen in a dozen or so films, usually providing stately support. She appeared in a range of movies from the Shirley Temple vehicle Wee Willie Winkie (1937) to the film noir piece The Dark Corner (1946). Better known roles during this period include those in Stage Door (1937), playing, quite appropriately and amusingly, the resident drama coach, An Ideal Husband (1947), excellent as Lady Markby, and Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rope (1948). Her last film was Whirlpool(1949).
Constance died of natural causes in New York on April 25, 1955, and left behind her 1929 memoirs “Harlequinade”. She had no children.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Angela Douglas was born in Gerrard’s Cross, Buckinghamshire in 1940. She made her film debut in 1959 in “The Shakedown”. She was leading lady to Tommy Steele in “It’s All Happening”. Other films includeThe Comedy Man” with her husband Kenneth More, “Carry on Cowboy”, Carry on Screaming” and “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” which she made in Hollywood with Shirley MacLaine in 1964.
IMDB Entry:
Angela Douglas is without a doubt a very classy actress, who is remembered by million for her “Carry On…” career as well as other character roles.
Absolutely amazing in Carry on Cowboy (1966) as gorgeous, all-singing and trigger happy Annie Oakley, she eventually appeared in four “Carry On…” films and her best performance was probably as “The Princess Jelhi” in Carry On… Up the Khyber (1968).
Her entire “Carry On…” career is one of class not bawdiness, and she is a true heroine from the film’s most successful period. She is often seen today in character roles in television and film.
She was happily married to actor Kenneth More for 14 years, after originally meeting him on the set of Some People (1962) in Bristol.
Miss Douglas made an appearance in north Wales in late September 2005 to unveil a plaque dedicated to the filming of Carry On… Up the Khyber (1968). Part of the movie had been shot in Llanberis, north Wales. She was quoted on BBC News saying that she loved appearing in Carry on Cowboy (1966) and Carry On… Up the Khyber (1968) and that they were her favourites.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Bobby G
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Kevin McNally was born in 1956 in Bristol. His films include “The Spy Who Loved Me” in 1977, “The Long Good Friday”, “Cry Freedom”, “Johnny English”, “Valkyre” and “The Raen”. He is married to actress Phyllis Logan.
IMDB entry:
Kevin McNally was born on April 27, 1956, in Bristol, England. He grew up in Birmingham where he attended Redhill and Mapledene Junior schools and Central Grammar School for Boys. At the age of 16, he got his first job at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. A year later he received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1975 he won the Best Actor Bancroft Gold Medal for his stage performance. McNally’s most notable stage performances in London’s West End include his appearance as Alan Bennett opposite Maggie Smith in ‘The Lady in the Van’ and opposite Juliette Binoche in ‘Naked’. He also starred as Richard in Terry Johnson’s ‘Dead Funny’ at the Savoy Theatre.
Since 1976 McNally has been involved in numerous TV productions beginning with his portrayal of the Roman ruler Castor, son of Tiberius, in the acclaimed BBC history seriesI, Claudius (1976) and his portrayal of Drake Carne in the popular series Poldark (1975). His career on television ascended after his work in Masada (1981) and in the cult TV series Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma (1984). During the 1980s and 1990s McNally established himself as a reputable and versatile actor on both the British and American TV. He played a broad variety of leading and supporting characters ranging from the Soviet politician Kirov in Stalin (1992) to homicide detective Jack Taylor in Chiller (1995), and from an insecure son, Alan Hook, in TV series Dad (1997) to a convicted murderer James Hopkin in Bloodlines (2005). His portrayal of Frank Worsley in Shackleton (2002) as well as the role of Harry Woolf in Life on Mars (2006) are among his best known works for television.
Kevin McNally has been enjoying a happy family life with Scottish actress Phyllis Loganand his two children. He resides with his family in Chiswick, London, England.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Jared Harris was born in London in 1961. He is the son of the actor Richard Harris. His film debut was in 1989 in “The Rachel Papers”. His other films include “Natural Born Killers”, in 1994, “White Lies” and “Lost in Space”.
IMDB entry;
Jared Harris was born Jared Francis Harris in London, England. He is the son of famous Irish actor Richard Harris and Welsh actress Elizabeth Harris (Elizabeth Rees), and brother of Damian Harris and Jamie Harris.
Despite being the son of esteemed Irish actor Richard Harris, Jared showed little interest in following his father’s career, until he was cast in a college production while attending North Carolina’s Duke University (USA), where he studied drama and literature, in the early 1980s.
After graduation, Jared returned to the UK where he attended Central School of Speech and Drama, along such future stars as ‘Jason Isaccs’ and ‘James Nesbitt.’ After graduation, Jared joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in ‘Mark Rylance”s Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, the Silent Woman and A Clockwork Orange. In 1989, he had his screen debut in The Rachel Papers (1989).
In 1990, while on vacation in New York, Jared auditioned for the role of Hotspur in Henry IV part 1., which he played at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
Still in New York, Jared appeared in the off-Broadway play Ecstasy, for which he won an Obie Award in 1992.
Joyce Chancellor was born in 1906 in Dublin. Her entire career was in British films and the early days of television. Her film debut was in 1934 in “Irish Hearts”.
Jeannie Carson was born in 1928 in Pudsey, Yorkshire. She had some leading roles in British films before she became popular in America on television in the series “Hey Jeannie” in 1956. Her UK movies include “As Long As They’re Happy” and “An Alligator Named Daisy”. She is married to the actor Biff McGuire and livces in California.
In her early British films, she performed under the name Jean Carson, but later changed her given name to “Jeannie” to avoid confusion with the similarly named American actress Jean Carson.[2] Carson became an over-night star in Love From Judy, a musical by Hugh Martin and Jack Gray, and produced by Emile Littler, that played at the Saville Theatre in London from 1952 to 1953.
In 1956, Carson starred in her own series Hey, Jeannie!, which aired on CBS. The series lasted one season before being canceled in 1957.
In 1960, Carson married her second husband, actor Biff McGuire,[2] while both were starring in the Broadway revival of Finian’s Rainbow. The couple toured together in 1961 in Camelot, with McGuire as King Arthur and Carson asGuenevere. Later, they performed at the Seattle Repertory for fifteen years, often together. McGuire and Carson live in Los Angeles.
Keith Baxter was born in Newport, Wales in 1933. He has had an illustrious stage career. His films include “The Barretts of Wimploe Street” in 1957 with Jennifer Jones and Bill Travers, “Chimes at Midnight” with Orson Welles in 1965 and “Ash Wednesday” with Elizabeth Taylor in 1973.
His IMDB entry:
Keith Baxter was born on April 29, 1933 in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales as Keith Baxter-Wright. He is an actor, known for Merlin (1998), Berlín Blues (1988) and Falstaff – Chimes at Midnight (1965).
When Taylor finally recovered from pneumonia and they moved the production to Italy (they had built a fake Alexandria harbor outside of London!), Baxter had other commitments.
An Associate Member of RADA.
The Telegraph obituary in 2023:
Keith Baxter, who has died aged 90, was regarded by theatre colleagues as one of the most underrated actors, directors and dramatists of his generation; he worked for more than 60 years, primarily on stage with the occasional roles in feature films and on television.
He was also an outstanding writer, contributing book reviews and features to The Daily Telegraph and publishing a rollicking book of memoirs, My Sentiments Exactly (1998), with a cast of characters – Coward, Gielgud, Olivier, Tennessee Williams, “Binkie” Beaumont, Orson Welles – that reads like a Who’s Who of 20th century theatre.
It was Welles who provided the springboard for Baxter’s career when he cast the classically handsome 26-year-old actor as Prince Hal in Chimes at Midnight, Welles’s version of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV histories which brought the comic figure of Falstaff (played by Welles) to the fore. As a film (1965) it has come to be seen as a masterpiece. But it began as a stage play, which opened in Belfast in the spring of 1960.
The production, Baxter recalled, was shambolic. The earl leading the procession to Hal’s coronation as Henry V “got drunk on the boat train before it left King’s Cross and never sobered up”; Henry IV was played by Reggie Jarman, who was profoundly deaf and mostly lip-read his cues. During dress rehearsal, “Reggie’s massive deaf-aid (held in place by a large square of Elastoplast) thudded to the ground in the middle of the Battle of Shrewsbury.”
Hotspur was played by Alexis Kanner, a muscular Canadian who could not understand why he had to lose the duel with Prince Hal and suggested all sorts of wheezes, including Hal stabbing him in the back, to avoid such a humiliation: “At the dress rehearsal, as I came lumbering on for the fight encased in armour from head to toe, Kanner’s voice rang out behind me: ‘If I mistake not thou art Harry Monmouth!’ Falstaff and I turned to face him. Kenner had stripped off all his armour and unbuttoned his shirt to the navel. He looked like the boy in Tiananmen Square with his shopping bag facing the tanks.
“Welles looked at him, darkening with temper. ‘I’ve got to show why I lose, if I’m the greatest,’ Kanner faltered. ‘What choice do I have?’ ‘A very clear choice,’ said Orson. ‘Back to the wardrobe or back to Canada.’”
Yet notices were excellent and the production moved to Dublin where, after one performance, Baxter was having a shower when he was called to Welles’s dressing room to meet Laurence Olivier. “What impressed Olivier the most was that I had fallen 12 feet into the orchestra pit when Hotspur had improvised a new move in the duel… Was I marked from my fall? He made a little moue of disappointment when he saw only a nasty bruise. Did I have nothing else? I told him I had slept on the floor of Gary Raymond’s flat in Brixton and a spring had burst through the mattress and slashed my left buttock, leaving a scar. Olivier moved to inspect it and Orson laughed: ‘Remember Larry! You’re a married man!’”
Thus launched, Baxter went to Broadway to play Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons to Paul Scofield’s Sir Thomas More, for which he won a Theatre World Award in 1962. Then in 1964, while he was playing in EM Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread in London, a telegram arrived from Spain: “Dearest Keith Have Gielgud as the King Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly Jeanne Moreau as Doll Tearsheet Ralph Richardson as Narrator Stop I am playing Falstaff Stop Please come Love Orson”.
Welles had befriended Spanish film producers who were uninterested in Shakespeare but wanted him to make Treasure Island. He had agreed on condition that he could make Chimes at Midnight at the same time. He had no intention of making Treasure Island, but a budget of $800,000 was agreed and Welles got away with the deception by building sets that could be used in either film and casting each actor in both.
In Madrid Baxter was introduced to the producers: “One said ‘Señor Baxter, Doctor Livesey!’, and I didn’t really know what that meant, but Orson said ‘we’re going to have lunch!’ … I said ‘what was that about Doctor Livesey?’ he said ‘Well, I’ve agreed what they want me to do, and I’ve agreed that I’m going to play Long John Silver in a technicolor version of Treasure Island, and you’re going to play Doctor Livesey.’ I said ‘Really? What’s Sir John Gielgud going to play?’ ‘Oh, he’s going to play Squire Trelawney, but he doesn’t know’. I said ‘are you going to tell him?’ ‘I don’t think so…’”
Next day they drove to Alicante to a large ship which had been used in the 1962 film of Billy Budd: “There were the producers, and champagne, and a lot of laughter – ‘bravo Orson!’ – and Orson said ‘are we ready?’ and somebody said ‘yes!’, and he said ‘action!’ and the mainsail dropped on the boat, and somebody said ‘cast off aft!’ and Orson said ‘cut!’ and everybody drank some champagne, and he said ‘lets clear off now, we can go’. I never saw a shot of Treasure Island ever again after that.”
Welles announced that the cast would wear what he called “undress armour” : “A boy brought in a wicker basket labelled Samuel Bronson Studios. So I stripped down to my underpants, and this is what I wore [in the film]: a pair of knitted chainmail trousers and a T-shirt, and over that I wore a jerkin thatCharlton Heston had worn in El Cid, and on top of that I wore a very, very nice yellow suede waistcoat which had been worn by Jayne Mansfield in The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw.”
Earlier Baxter had been dispatched to meet Gielgud and his temperamental Hungarian partner Martin Hensler at the airport and was sent to fetch him from their hotel: “Martin said “it’s terrible here! The electricity, she don’t work! The elevator, she don’t work! We have to carry our luggage! I want to go home!’ and John said ‘Oh Keith, you look rather fancy. What am I wearing? Is the armour wonderful?’ And I said ‘well, Orson’s got this wonderful idea, John…’
A “dour Scots boy” brought in “a big sheet with a knot in it, and he opened it and he said ‘there, choose what you want’.” Gielgud plucked out a pair of scrunched-up tights: “He held them there and he said ‘ooh… shall I get crabs, do you think?’ .. He went to his bedroom, door open,.. he said ‘oh it is such fun dressing up! I do love being an actor!’
“Then he came out and he’d found a pair of boots, he’d found a nice jerkin, he said ‘oh, perhaps I can have a great brooch?’ I said ‘I don’t know if there are any large brooches around,’ and he said ‘well I can have the crown,’ I said ‘the crown hasn’t arrived from England yet,’ he said ‘oh well, we’ll just have to do our best… I know all my lines,’ and then mercifully somebody said ‘Mr Welles is waiting for you!’”
The film was dogged by problems and had to be put on hold midway when Welles ran out of money (he was eventually bailed out by Harry Saltzman). Baxter recalled that Welles lived in dread of the taxman, and suspected every American who turned up out of the blue to be an agent of the IRS. He also suffered from stage fright and delayed most of his scenes until the end of filming. The soundtrack was post-dubbed months later, he, Welles and Michael Aldridge recording voices for several characters in post-production.
“It was a miracle of sorts that the film was made,” reflected Paul Bailey in The Daily Telegraph, “and doubly miraculous that it is, unquestionably, the finest Shakespearean movie of them all.”
Until Welles left Europe in 1977 for America, Baxter recalled, “the Welles family meant as much to me as my own”, and in his subsequent career Welles remained for Baxter, as Peter Bogdanovich put it in his biography of Welles, “a kind of artistic conscience”.
In 1998 Baxter returned to Chimes at Midnight at Chichester Festival Theatre, this time as Henry IV, with Simon Callow as Falstaff and Tam Williams as Hal. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Charles Spencer described Baxter’s king, “ill, guilt-ridden, coldly arrogant yet deeply desirous of affection from his son” as “an intense, commanding performance”.
Baxter came to be regarded as a consummate theatre man. On Broadway he was best known for his award-winning 1970 performance (Drama Desk and Outer Critics) in Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth as Milo Tindle, playing out a deadly game of cat and mouse with Anthony Quayle’s (and later Paul Rogers’s) Andrew Wyke.
In London, Baxter performed opposite Maggie Smith in The Country Wife, and was Mark Antony to her Cleopatra at the Stratford Festival in Canada in 1976. In 1991 he and Joan Collins were the divorced couple who meet by accident while on their honeymoons with new spouses in Coward’s Private Lives. Film gigs included the forgettable Ash Wednesday (1973) with Elizabeth Taylor (Baxter recalled Richard Burton grumpily hanging around the set and verbally abusing his wife. The pair divorced for the first time the following year).
Baxter never made any bones about being gay, though he regarded his sexuality as “not something that one needs to proclaim. I mean, one supports the right issues, of course.” But, as he told an interviewer, “My generation of actors became actors to become all the people we were not.”
Baxter was born Keith Stanley Baxter-Wright in Newport, Monmouthshire on April 29 1933 to Stanley Baxter-Wright, a Merchant Navy captain, and his wife Emily, née Howell, and educated at Newport High School then, after the family moved to Barry, Glamorgan, at Barry Grammar School.
As a boy, Baxter enjoyed making model theatres, and at school his talents were spotted by Teifion Phillips, an idiosyncratic history teacher, who propelled him towards Rada and, as his protégé’s stage career unfolded, was often present and critically discerning in the audience.
During his time at Rada, where he was a bronze medal winner, Baxter shared a flat with Alan Bates, a classmate. He made his theatre and screen debuts 1957 as Ralph in Tea and Sympathy at the Comedy Theatre, and in the remake of the film The Barretts of Wimpole Street.
Baxter became a stalwart of classical plays in the West End, Broadway and elsewhere by playwrights such as Congreve, Sheridan, Shaw, Chekhov – and especially Shakespeare. He was associated for many years with Chichester Festival Theatre, both as an actor and as a director, and regularly directed shows at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, where he appeared earlier this year in Hamlet playing the Ghost, the Player King and the Gravedigger.
His television work included appearances in Gideon’s Way, The Avengers, Hawaii Five-O, Thriller (1976) and the 1998 mini-series Merlin. He wrote several plays including 56 Duncan Terrace, Cavell and Barnaby and the Old Boys. Recently he had a reading of a new play he had written at the home of Joan Plowright, a lifelong friend who had played Edith Cavell in his play.
Baxter’s friendships were for life. Sheridan Morley thought that by Gielgud’s death, Baxter had become the theatrical knight’s closest friend, and at his 90th birthday party earlier this year Baxter was sitting between Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, the latter a close and loving support to him.
In his memoir, Baxter gave a moving account of his close platonic friendship with the playwright Tennessee Williams, whom he had come to know in New York in 1970 when Williams was nursing the critical wounds received after a series of failed plays. In the mid-1970s Baxter directed and played the lead in the Vienna and London stage productions of Williams’s The Red Devil Battery Sign, one of a string of late career flops. The friendship deepened with visits to Williams’s home in Key West, Florida, though Williams never rediscovered the muse that had brought him fame in the 1940s and 1950s.
Other friends included King Charles – and Queen Camilla, whom he described as “humorous and modest” with an unshowy dignity. In a 2007 C4 documentary about the then Duchess of Cornwall, Baxter recalled her taking him and a group of Sandringham house guests for a late-night swim in the sea. “It was a balmy evening and there was a swirling mist. While we were in the water it suddenly cleared to reveal there were about 20 nudists on the beach. Nobody was particularly fazed but it was sweet to see one nude lady trying to curtsey…”
Baxter recalled how once, after Williams had stayed with him in London, his cleaning lady found a piece of paper covered with Williams’s scribblings in the bed he had slept in. Not sure whether they were important, Baxter called Williams to report the discovery. “What does it say?” Williams asked.
Baxter read him the fragment. “The clock ticks,” it began, “with a sound that is infinitely more gentle than any word that was spoken tonight. It reminds me not to fear the prison of present time. It will pass. I shall have escaped.”
“Oh, baby,” Williams said. “I do write such rubbish sometimes.”
In his entry in Debrett’s People of Today, Baxter gave his recreation as “The sea”. He lived near it, in the Chichester Harbour village of Bosham, sailed on it, often with his golden retriever, Charley, and was finally claimed by it after suffering a heart attack while swimming on holiday in Corsica.
Keith Baxter is survived by his husband Brian Holden.
Keith Baxter, born April 29 1933, died September 24 2023
Samantha Eggar was born in 1939 and is an English film, stage, television, and voice actress. After beginning her career in Shakespearean theatre, she rose to fame for her performance in William Wyler‘s thriller The Collector (1965), which earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Eggar was brought up as a Roman Catholic and educated at St Mary’s Providence Convent in Woking, Surrey. Reflecting on her time in convent school, Eggar said: “The nuns didn’t have too much success with me – I’ve always had a violent temper. In fact, once I almost killed one of the nuns.” At age sixteen, she began to go by the name Samantha. Although Eggar expressed interest in acting at a young age, she was urged against a career in the theatre by her parents. She was offered a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but instead studied fashion for two years at the Thanet School of Art. After completing her studies, she enrolled at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA1712539 Affiche du film “Rien ne sert de courir” de CharlesWalters avec Cary Grant et Samantha Eggar 1966; (add.info.: Affiche du film “Rien ne sert de courir” de CharlesWalters avec Cary Grant et Samantha Eggar 1966).
In 1965, Eggar appeared in the thriller The Collector, directed by William Wyler, playing a kidnap victim. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and won a Golden Globe award for her performance. ] She was also awarded Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966. On her role as Miranda in The Collector, Eggar has said: “My biggest relationship on set was with William Wyler. The tension on set was real. And if the tension wasn’t there – if I didn’t exude precisely what he wanted – well, Willie just poured cold water over me.”
The following year, Eggar starred in the comedy Walk, Don’t Run (1966) with Cary Grant (his last motion picture) and Jim Hutton, followed by a lead role as Emma Fairfax in Richard Fleischer‘s musical adaptation of Doctor Dolittle (1967). In 1963, she played the title character in “Marcia”, a second-season episode of The Saint. After her appearance in The Saint, Eggar did not appear in television for 10 years, instead focusing exclusively on feature films. Although she co-starred with Yul Brynner in the television series Anna and the King (1972), she did not make another television guest appearance until 1973, when she starred in the episode “The Cardboard House” of the romantic anthology series Love Story. That same year, she played Phyllis Dietrichson in a TV remake of Double Indemnity.
In 1973, Eggar relocated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, and appeared first in television, guest starring on episodes of Starsky & Hutch and Columbo, the latter with Peter Falk and Theodore Bikel in the episode “The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case”. She would go on to star in a number of horror films, including The Dead Are Alive (1972), A Name for Evil (1973), The Uncanny (1977), and David Cronenberg‘s cult sci-fi film The Brood (1979). In 1980, she filmed the Canadian slasher film Curtains, released in 1983.
She also appeared as Maggie Gioberti in “The Vintage Years”, the pilot for the drama Falcon Crest, but was replaced by Susan Sullivanwhen the series went into production. She appeared in the drama Dark Horse (1992), followed by the superhero film The Phantom(1996). In 1997, she provided the voice of Hera in Disney’s animated film Hercules; she would also supply the voice for the subsequent television series. Eggar also had a role in the sci-fi thriller The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), which starred Johnny Depp.
She has appeared as the wife of Captain Jean-Luc Picard‘s brother Robert on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as Sarah Templeton, the wife of Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland), on the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, which starred Geena Davis. In the year 2000, she had a brief run as Charlotte Devane in the American soap opera All My Children. In 2003, she appeared in the first season of Cold Case, episode 14 (“The Boy in the Box”) as Sister Vivian. In 2009, she played the mother of Jack and Becky Gallagher in season 1, episode 11 (“Lines in the Sand”) of the Fox television series Mental.
In 1964, she married actor Tom Stern, with whom she has a son, Nicolas Stern (b. 1965), and a daughter, Jenna Stern (b. 1967). Eggar and Stern divorced in 1971. She holds dual UK and American citizenship. She resides in Los Angeles.
Stephen Boyd is one of the most underappreciated of actors and his career is in definit need o f reappraisal. He was born in Northern Ireland in 1931
. He came to promincnce as an Irish spy in the 1956 thriller “The Man Who Never Was” with Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame. He starred opposite some of the great leading ladies of the period e.g. Diana Dors in “An Alligator Named Daisy”, “Brigitte Bardot in “”The Night Heaven Fell”, Joan Collins in “Island in the Sun”, Susan Hayward in “Woman Obsessed”, Doris Day in “Jumb”, Dolores Hart in “The Inspector”, Sophia Loren in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” , Gina Lollobigida in “Imperial Venus” and Raquel Welch in “Fantastic Voyage”.
His best remembered role was as Messala friend of “Ben-Hur” in 1959. It was a deeply shaded , nuanced performance for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
His last film was “The Squeeze” in 1977 where he played a hard-man gangster. He gave again a terrific performance although he looked much thinner that usual. He died of a heart attack in 1977 in California.
To view an interesting article on Stephen Boyd, please click here.
IMDB entry:
Stephen Boyd was born William Millar on July 4, 1931, at Glengormley, Northern Ireland, one of nine children of Martha Boyd and Canadian truck driver James Alexander Millar, who worked for Fleming’s on Tomb Street in Belfast. He attended Glengormley & Ballyrobert primary school and then moved on to Ballyclare High School and studied bookkeeping at Hughes Commercial Academy.
In Ireland he worked in an insurance office and travel agency during the day and rehearsed with a semi-professional acting company at night during the week and weekends. He would eventually manage to be on the list for professional acting companies to call him when they had a role. He joined the Ulster Theatre Group and was a leading man with that company for three years, playing all kinds of roles.
He did quite a bit of radio work in between as well, but then decided it was distracting him from acting and completely surrendered to his passion. Eventually he went to London as an understudy in an Irish play that was being given there, “The Passing Day”.
In England he became very ill and was in and out of work, supplementing his acting assignments with odd jobs such as waiting in a cafeteria, doorman at the Odeon Theatre and even busking on the streets of London. Even as things turned for the worst, he would always write back to his mother that all was well and things were moving along so as not to alarm her in any way or make her worry.
Sir Michael Redgrave discovered him one night at the Odeon Theatre and arranged an introduction to the Windsor Repertory Company. The Arts Council of Great Britain was looking for a leading man and part-time director for the only major repertory company that was left in England,
The Arts Council Midland Theatre Company, and he got the job. During his stay in England he went into television with the BBC, and for 18 months he was in every big play on TV. One of the major roles in his early career was the one in the play “Barnett’s Folly”, which he himself ranked as one of his favorites.
In 1956 he signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox. This led to his first film role, as an IRA member spying for the Nazis in The Man Who Never Was (1956), a job he was offered by legendary producer Alexander Korda. William Wyler was so struck by Boyd’s performance in that film that he asked Fox to loan him Boyd, resulting in his being cast in what is probably his most famous role, that of Messala in the classic Ben-Hur (1959) opposite Charlton Heston.
He received a Golden Globe award for his work on that film but was surprisingly bypassed on Oscar night. Still under contract with Fox, Boyd waited around to play the role of Marc Anthony in Cleopatra (1963) oppositeElizabeth Taylor.
However, Taylor became so seriously ill that the production was delayed for months, which caused Boyd and other actors to withdraw from the film and move on to other projects.
Boyd made several films under contract before going independent. One of the highlights was Fantastic Voyage (1966), a science-fiction film about a crew of scientists miniaturized and injected into the human body as if in inner space. He also received a nomination for his role of Insp. Jongman in Lisa (1962) (aka “The Inspector”) co-starring with Dolores Hart.
Boyd’s Hollywood career began to fade by the late 1960s as he started to spend more time in Europe, where he seemed to find better roles more suited to his interests.
When he went independent it was obvious that he took on roles that spoke to him rather than just taking on assignments for the money, and several of the projects he undertook were, at the time, quite controversial, such as Slaves (1969) and Carter’s Army (1970).
Boyd chose his roles based solely on character development and the value of the story that was told to the public, and never based on monetary compensation or peer pressure.
Although at the height of his career he was considered one of Hollywood’s leading men, he never forgot where he came from, and always reminded everyone that he was, first and foremost, an Irishman.
When the money started coming in, one of the first things he did was to ensure that his family was taken care of. He was particularly close to his mother Martha and his brother Alex.
Boyd was married twice, the first time in 1958 to Italian-born MCA executive Mariella di Sarzana, but that only lasted (officially) during the filming of “Ben Hur”.
His second marriage was to Elizabeth Mills, secretary at the British Arts Council and a friend since 1955. Liz Mills followed Boyd to the US in the late 1950s and was his personal assistant and secretary for years before they married, about ten months before his death on June 2, 1977, in Northridge, California, from a massive heart attack while playing golf – one of his favorite pastimes
Park in Chatsworth, California. It was a terrible loss, just as he seemed to be making a comeback with his recent roles in the series Hawaii Five-O (1968) and the English movieThe Squeeze (1977).
.
The Big Gamble, poster, US poster art, from left: Stephen Boyd, Juliette Greco, David Wayne, 1961. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
It is a real tragedy to see that a man who was so passionate about his work, who wanted nothing but to tell a story with character, a man who was ahead of his time in many ways ended up being overlooked by many of his peers.
One fact remains about Stephen Boyd, however–his fans are still passionate about his work to this day, almost 30 years after his death, and one has to wonder if he ever realized that perhaps in some way he achieved the goal he set out for himself: to entertain the public and draw attention to the true art of acting while maintaining glamor as he defined it by remaining himself a mystery.– IMDb Mini Biography By: Brigitte Ivory
Dictionary of Irish biography:
Boyd, Stephen (1928–77), actor, was born William Millar 4 July 1928 at Glengormley near Belfast. He took his mother’s maiden name for the stage, and became a US citizen under that name in 1963. He began acting with the Carnmoney Amateur Dramatic Society, making his professional stage debut at the age of 16 before graduating to the Ulster Theatre Group. His voice became familiar as the RUC man in BBC Northern Ireland’s long-running radio series ‘The McCooeys’. After a short spell in Canada he worked in England, making an uncertain living in repertory theatre and securing an occasional television part. While working as a doorman at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, he secured an introduction to the director Alexander Korda, who gave him a contract with his London Film Company. He made his largely unnoticed screen debut in the comedy An alligator named Daisy (1955), followed by Hell in Korea (1956). After Korda’s death he moved to Twentieth Century Fox and secured a major part in the western The bravadoes (1958). Dark and strikingly handsome, he was noticed by William Wyler, who cast him as Messala in Ben-Hur (1959). His portrayal of Messala, Ben-Hur’s Roman boyhood friend turned mortal enemy, won him a Golden Globe from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and made him an international star. In the famous chariot race Boyd and Charlton Heston did almost all their own driving. During the 1960s he appeared in several historical epics, mostly of dubious quality, and none of these performances came close to matching his impressively sinister Messala. Other than Messala, perhaps his best performance was as the actor whose rapid rise is followed by an equally rapid decline in The Oscar (1966). Frustrated at being offered poor roles and at his lack of artistic control, he founded his own film production company in 1973. Altogether he appeared in forty-two films, mostly playing villains, despite his good looks. Among the more notable were The big gamble (1960), filmed partly on location in Dublin; Shalako (1968), a western in which he co-starred with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot; and his last film, a British thriller, The squeeze (1977), in which he played a Belfast gangster. The Irish Times described him as ‘the nearest thing to a Hollywood star this island has produced since Barry Fitzgerald(qv)’. He died 2 June 1977 from a heart attack while playing golf with his wife Elizabeth at Northridge, California
