Anna Massey
Anna Raymond Massey CBE (11 August 1937 – 3 July 2011)[2][3] was an English actress.[4] She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner's novel Hotel du Lac,[5] a role that one of her co-stars, Julia McKenzie, has said "could have been written for her".[6] Massey is best known for her role as Babs Milligan in Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy.
Anna Massey | |
|---|---|
Anna Massey in Bunny Lake Is Missing | |
| Born | Anna Raymond Massey 11 August 1937 |
| Died | 3 July 2011 (aged 73) Kensington, London, England |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1955–2011 |
| Spouses | |
| Parent | Raymond Massey |
| Relatives | Daniel Massey (brother) |
Early life
Massey was born in Thakeham, Sussex, England, the daughter of British actress Adrianne Allen and Canadian-born Hollywood actor Raymond Massey.[7] Her brother Daniel Massey was also an actor. She was the niece of Vincent Massey, a Governor General of Canada, and her godfather was film director John Ford.[8]
Career
Although she had no formal training at either drama school or in repertory, Anna Massey made her first appearance on stage in May 1955 at the age of 17, at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, as Jane in The Reluctant Debutante, subsequently making her first London appearance in the same play at the Cambridge Theatre in May 1955 "and was suddenly famous".[9] She then left the cast in London to repeat her performance in New York in October 1956.[10] In the 1990s she appeared with Alan Bennett in a dramatised reading of T.S. Eliot's and Virginia Woolf's letters, in a production at the Charleston Festival devised by Patrick Garland.
Several of her early film roles were in mystery thrillers. She made her cinema debut in the Scotland Yard film Gideon's Day (1958) as Sally, daughter of Jack Hawkins's Detective Inspector. The director was her godfather John Ford.[9] She played a potential murder victim in Michael Powell's cult thriller Peeping Tom (1960) and appeared in Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965). In 1972 she played the role of the barmaid Babs in Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film Frenzy. In the documentary on the film's DVD release, Massey mentioned that she originally auditioned for the much smaller role of the secretary Monica, a part for which Jean Marsh was cast. She also noted that her character's nude scenes in Frenzy were performed by body doubles. She appeared alongside her brother Daniel—they played siblings—in the horror film The Vault of Horror (1973).
Massey continued to make occasional film and stage appearances, but worked more frequently in television. She made her first small-screen appearance as Jacqueline in Green of the Year in October 1955,[10] and thereafter featured in dramas such as The Pallisers (1974), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978), the 1979 adaptation of Rebecca (in which she starred with her ex-husband Jeremy Brett), The Cherry Orchard (1980), and Anna Karenina (1985). She had roles in the British comedy series The Darling Buds of May (1991)[11] and The Robinsons (2005). She also appeared in a number of mysteries and thrillers on television, including episodes of Inspector Morse, The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, Midsomer Murders, Strange, Lewis, and Agatha Christie's Poirot.
With Imelda Staunton, she co-devised and starred as Josephine Daunt in Daunt and Dervish on BBC radio. She was the narrator of This Sceptred Isle on BBC Radio 4, a history of Britain from Roman times which ran for more than 300 fifteen-minute episodes. In 2009, she also appeared in a new radio version of The Killing of Sister George.[9]
In 1987, Massey was awarded the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her role in Hotel du Lac[12] after acquiring the TV rights two years earlier, only a few weeks before the novel won the Booker Prize.[6] She also appeared as Mrs D'Urberville in the 2008 BBC adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.[8]
Acting style
One of Massey's assets as an actress was her "extraordinary voice... it was so listenable".[6] Although Massey's parts were varied, her "cut-glass English accent conveyed a cold and repressed character on screen".[13] Michael Billington of The Guardian characterised her work as being informed by "stillness", such as in the National Theatre's production of Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska.[14]
She was known for a high level of preparation and effort, with one producer saying that she had a practice of using five different coloured pens on scripts to mark out "breaths and pauses" and the development of a scene; for example, "if a phrase early in a paragraph was going to be picked up again later, she would highlight those two bits in the same colour, so that it would remind her that that first phrase was referring to something later".[6]
Personal life
In the New Year's Honours List published on 31 December 2004, she was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drama.[15]
Massey published an autobiography in 2006, Telling Some Tales, in which she revealed a difficult early life and discussed her failed marriage (1958–1962) to actor Jeremy Brett, discussing his struggle with bipolar disorder. Brett and Massey divorced on 22 November 1962 after she claimed he left her for a man.[16][17] The couple had one son, writer and illustrator David Huggins (b. 1959).[18] At an August 1988 dinner party held at the home of their mutual friend, Joy Whitby,[7] she met Russian-born metallurgist Uri Andres, who had been based at Imperial College, London since 1975.[19] The couple were married from November 1988 until her death in 2011.[14]
Massey was quoted as saying, "Theatre eats up too much of your family life. I have a grandson and a husband and I'd rather I was able to be a granny and a wife".[20]
She died from lung cancer in Kensington, London[21] on 3 July 2011, aged 73.[5][8]
Selected TV and filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Gideon's Day | Sally Gideon | |
| 1960 | Peeping Tom | Helen Stephens | |
| 1963 | The Trip to Biarritz | Marjorie Robertson | |
| 1965 | Bunny Lake Is Missing | Elvira Smollett | |
| 1969 | David Copperfield | Jane Murdstone | |
| 1969 | De Sade | Renée de Montreuil | |
| 1970 | The Looking Glass War | Avery's Wife | |
| 1970 | Wicked Women | Christiana Edmunds | TV episode[22] |
| 1972 | Frenzy | Babs Milligan | |
| 1973 | The Vault of Horror | Donna Rogers | (segment 1 "Midnight Mess") |
| 1973 | A Doll's House | Kristine Linde | |
| 1974 | The Pallisers | Laura Kennedy | TV miniseries |
| 1978 | The Mayor of Casterbridge | Lucetta Templeman | |
| 1979 | Rebecca | Mrs. Danvers | TV miniseries |
| 1979 | A Little Romance | Ms. Seigel | |
| 1980 | Sweet William | Edna McClusky | |
| 1982 | Five Days One Summer | Jennifer Pierce | |
| 1982 | I Remember Nelson | Lady Frances Nelson | TV series, Episode: "Love" |
| 1983 | Mansfield Park | Mrs. Norris | TV series - 6 episodes |
| 1984 | Another Country | Imogen Bennett | |
| 1984 | Journey into the Shadows: Portrait of Gwen John | Gwen John | TV film |
| 1984 | The Little Drummer Girl | Chairlady | |
| 1984 | The Chain | Betty | |
| 1985 | Sacred Hearts | Sister Thomas | |
| 1986 | Hotel du Lac | Edith Hope | BAFTA award-winning TV role |
| 1986 | Foreign Body | Miss Furze | |
| 1987 | A Hazard of Hearts | Eudora, Serena's Maid | |
| 1988 | La couleur du vent | Norma | |
| 1988 | Tears in the Rain | Emily | |
| 1989 | The Tall Guy | Mary | |
| 1989 | A Tale of Two Cities | Miss Pross | |
| 1989 | Killing Dad | Edith | |
| 1989 | Around the World in 80 Days | Queen Victoria | |
| 1990 | Mountains of the Moon | Mrs. Arundell | |
| 1990 | Killing Dad or How to Love Your Mother | Edith | |
| 1991 | Impromptu | George Sand's mother | |
| 1992 | Inspector Morse | Lady Emily Balcombe | TV series, Episode: "Happy Families" |
| 1992 | Emily's Ghost | Miss Rabstock | |
| 1992 | The Darling Buds of May | Mam’selle Antoinette Dupont, a French hotelier | |
| 1995 | The Grotesque | Mrs. Giblet | |
| 1995 | Angels & Insects | Miss Mead | |
| 1995 | Haunted | Nanny Tess Webb | |
| 1996 | Sweet Angel Mine | Mother | |
| 1997 | Driftwood | Mother | |
| 1997 | The Slab Boys | Miss Elsie Walkinshaw | |
| 1997 | Deja Vu | Fern Stoner | |
| 1998 | Midsomer Murders | Honoria Lyddiard | Episode "Written in Blood" |
| 1999 | Captain Jack | Phoebe Pickles | |
| 1999 | Mad Cows | Dwina Phelps | |
| 2000 | Room to Rent | Sarah – A healer | |
| 2001 | Dark Blue World | English teacher | |
| 2002 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Miss Prism | |
| 2002 | Possession | Lady Bailey | |
| 2004 | The Machinist | Mrs Shrike | |
| 2004 | Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures | Agatha Christie | |
| 2004 | He Knew He Was Right | Miss Stanbury | TV film |
| 2004 | Belonging | Herself | TV film |
| 2005 | Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont | Mrs Arbuthnot | |
| 2005 | The Worst Week of My Life | Aunt Yvonne | |
| 2006 | The Gigolos | Edwina | |
| 2007 | Fairy Stories by The Brothers Grimm | Narrator | Audiobook |
| 2007 | Lewis | Professor Margaret Gold | Episode: “Whom the Gods Would Destroy” |
| 2007 | Oliver Twist | Mrs Bedwin | TV miniseries, 4 episodes |
| 2008 | Doctor Who – The Girl Who Never Was | Miss Pollard | 8th Doctor audio drama |
| 2008 | The Oxford Murders | Mrs. Julia Eagleton | |
| 2008 | Affinity | Miss Haxby | TV film |
| 2008 | Tess of the D'Urbervilles | Mrs D'Urberville | TV miniseries, Episode #1.1 |
| 2009 | Kingdom | Winifred | TV series, Episode #3.3 |
| 2009 | Midsomer Murders | Brenda Packard | Episode: "Secrets and Spies" |
| 2010 | Agatha Christie’s Poirot | Miss Pebmarsh | Episode: "The Clocks" |
| 2011 | Act of Memory: A Christmas Story | Older Maria | short, (final film role) |
Books
- Massey, Anna (2006). Telling Some Tales. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-179645-8.
See also
References
- ^ "Anna Massey". The Film Programme. 17 August 2007. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
- ^ "Anna Massey dies at 73". The Guardian. 4 July 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ^ The Sunday Times Magazine, The Sunday Times, 18 December 2011, page 64
- ^ Maitland, Peter (23 November 1956). "Anna Massey Recalls Sudden Leap to Stardom on Stage". Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. p. 10. Retrieved 25 April 2011.
- ^ a b "Anna Massey, TV and Film Actress, Dies at 73". The New York Times. Associated Press. 6 July 2011.
- ^ a b c d Presented by John Wilson (8 July 2011). "BBC Radio 4, "Last Word"". Last Word. BBC. Radio 4.
- ^ a b "Anna Massey: Obituaries". The Daily Telegraph. London. 5 July 2011. p. 27. from the original on 12 July 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
- ^ a b c BBC News: "Actress Anna Massey dies at the age of 73"
- ^ a b c "Anna Massey (Obituary)". The Times. London. 5 July 2011. p. 49.
- ^ a b Who's Who in the Theatre, 17th edition, Gale 1981 ISBN 0-8103-0235-7
- ^ Taylor, Alan F. (2002). Folkestone Past and Present. Somerset: Breedon Books. pp. 22–24. ISBN 1859832962.
- ^ "BAFTA Awards Search". awards.bafta.org. 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
- ^ Bergen, Ronald (4 July 2011), "Anna Massey obituary", The Guardian
- ^ a b Billington, Michael (4 July 2011), "Anna Massey obituary", The Guardian
- ^ BBC NEWS: "Anna Massey collects CBE"
- ^ Massey, Anna (2006). Telling Some Tales. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-179645-8.
- ^ Davies, David Stuart (2006). Dancing in the Moonlight: Jeremy Brett. London: MDF The BiPolar Organisation.
- ^ David Huggins "At Christmas I dreaded playing charades", The Guardian, 17 November 2001
- ^ Sue Fox "How we met: Uri Andres and Anna Massey", The Independent, 7 March 1993
- ^ "Actress Anna Massey loses battle with cancer at 73". London Evening Standard (4 July 2011). Retrieved 4 June 2021.
- ^ "Massey, Anna Raymond (1937–2011)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/103953. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Wicked Women at IMDb
External links
- Anna Massey at IMDb
- Anna Massey at the BFI's Screenonline
- Stage performances in Theatre Archive University of Bristol
- Anna Massey at AllMovie
- Obituary in The Independent
- Obituary in The Telegraph