Billie Whitelaw
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Billie Whitelaw CBE | |
---|---|
Born | Billie Honor Whitelaw 6 June 1932 |
Died | 21 December 2014 , England | (aged 82)
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1950–2007 |
Spouses | |
Children | 1 |
Billie Honor Whitelaw
Early life
Whitelaw was born on 6 June 1932 in Coventry, Warwickshire,[a] the daughter of Frances Mary (née Williams) and Gerry Whitelaw.[2] She had one sister, Constance, who was 10 years older. Whitelaw grew up in a working class part of Bradford and later attended Grange Girls' Grammar School in Bradford.[citation needed]
At age 11, she began performing as a child actress on radio programmes, including the part of Bunkle, an extrovert prep-schoolboy on Children's Hour from Manchester, and later worked as an assistant stage manager and acted with the repertory company at the Prince's Theatre in Bradford during high school. Her father died of lung cancer when Billie was 9 years old. Money was tight, and her mother struggled to support the family. "It's something I haven't come to terms with ... I'm rather ashamed of having the good life I have", she later recalled.[3]
At the age of sixteen, Whitelaw met the director Joan Littlewood at the BBC in Manchester, and was invited to join her Theatre Workshop troupe. She was encouraged by her mother to join Harry Hanson's Leeds company in 1948, and then went on to play in repertory theatres in Dewsbury, New Brighton in Liverpool, and Oxford, eventually making her London debut in 1950.[4]
Film career
Whitelaw made her film debut in
Whitelaw gained international acclaim for her chilling role as Mrs. Baylock, the evil guardian of the demon child Damien in
In 1970, she was a member of the jury at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.[6]
Theatre and Beckett
In 1963, Billie Whitelaw met Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. She and Beckett enjoyed an intense professional relationship until his death in 1989. He wrote many of his more experimental plays especially for her, referring to Whitelaw as "a perfect actress". Whitelaw became Beckett's muse, as he created, reworked and revised each play while she physically, at times to the point of total exhaustion, acted each movement.
Whitelaw remained the foremost interpreter of the man and his work. She gave lectures on the Beckettian technique, and explained, "He used me as a piece of plaster he was moulding until he got just the right shape".[7] They collaborated on Beckett plays such as Play, Eh Joe, Happy Days, Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby for both stage and screen.[1] For her performance in Rockaby Whitelaw was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.[8]
From 1964 to 1966, she was a member of Britain's National Theatre Company. In 1965, she took over the part of Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier's Othello from Maggie Smith.[9]
Television career
Whitelaw also appeared frequently on television and won acclaim for her work. A very early TV appearance was in the first series of the long-running BBC1 police series
Personal life and death
Whitelaw was married to the actor Peter Vaughan from 1952 to 1966. She later married the writer and drama critic Robert Muller. The couple had a son together. Billie Whitelaw... Who He? was published by St. Martin's Press in 1996. Muller died in 1998.
Having divided her time between a home in Hampstead, north London and a cottage near Glemsford in Suffolk, Whitelaw spent the last four years of her life as a resident of Denville Hall, the actors' retirement and nursing home in Northwood, Hillingdon.[4] She died there aged 82, following a bout of pneumonia[4] on 21 December 2014.[12]
Honours
Whitelaw was appointed a
Selected filmography
- The Fake (1953) as Waitress
- The Sleeping Tiger (1954) as Receptionist at Pearce & Mann
- Companions in Crime (1955)
- Room in the House (1955)
- Mr. Arkadin (1955) (voice)
- Miracle in Soho (1957) as Maggie
- Small Hotel (1957) as Caroline Mallet
- Carve Her Name with Pride (1958) as Winnie
- Gideon's Day (1958) as Christine (uncredited)
- Time Out for Peggy (1958–1959, TV Series) as Peggy Spencer
- Breakout (1959) as Rose Munro
- Bobbikins (1959) as Lydia Simmons
- The Flesh and the Fiends (1960) as Mary Patterson
- Hell Is a City (1960) as Chloe Hawkins
- Make Mine Mink (1960) as Lily
- Payroll (1961) as Jackie Parker
- No Love for Johnnie (1961) as Mary
- Mr. Topaze (1961) as Ernestine
- The Devil's Agent (1962) as Piroska Maslov
- The Comedy Man (1964) as Judy
- Charlie Bubbles (1967) as Lottie Bubbles
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968, TV Movie) as Gwyn Thomas
- Twisted Nerve (1968) as Joan Harper
- The Adding Machine (1969) as Daisy Devore
- Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) as Queen Marie Antoinette
- Leo the Last (1970) as Margaret
- Gumshoe (1971) as Ellen
- Eagle in a Cage (1972) as Madame Bertrand
- Frenzy (1972) as Hetty Porter
- Follow the Yellow Brick Road (1972, TV Series) as Judy Black
- Night Watch (1973) as Sarah Cooke
- Napoleon and Love (1974, TV Mini-Series) as Josephine
- The Omen (1976) as Mrs. Baylock
- Space: 1999 (1976, TV Series ) as Zamara
- The Water Babies (1978) as Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby / Old Crone / Mrs Tripp / Woman in Black / Water Babies 'Gate Keeper'
- Leopard in the Snow (1978) as Isabel James
- A Tale of Two Cities (1980) as Madame Therese Defarge
- Private Schulz(1980) as Bertha Freyer
- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1982) as Elizabeth Leaming
- The Dark Crystal (1982) as Aughra (voice)
- Jamaica Inn (1983, TV Series) as Aunt Patience
- Terror in the Aisles (1984) as Madge
- The Chain (1984) as Mrs. Andreos
- Camille (1984, TV Movie) as Prudence Duvorney
- Tangiers(1985) as Louise
- Shadey (1985) as Doctor Cloud
- Murder Elite (1985) as Margaret Baker
- Maurice (1987) as Mrs. Hall
- The Secret Garden (1987) as Mrs. Medlock
- Joyriders (1988) as Tammy O'Moore
- The Dressmaker (1988) as Margo
- The Krays (1990) as Violet Kray
- Freddie as F.R.O.7 (1992) as Messina (voice)
- Deadly Advice (1994) as Kate Webster
- Jane Eyre (1996) as Grace Poole
- Merlin (1998, TV Mini-Series) as Ambrosia
- The Lost Son (1999) as Mrs. Spitz
- The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) as Evelyn
- Quills (2000) as Madame LeClerc
- Hot Fuzz (2007) as Joyce Cooper (final film role)
Notes
- ^ a b Since 1 April 1974, Coventry has been part of West Midlands.
References
- ^ a b Billie Whitelaw at New York State Writers Institute, State University of New York
- ^ "Billie Whitelaw Biography (1932-)". Film Reference. 6 June 1932. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
- ^ Obituary, bbc.com; accessed 22 December 2014.
- ^ a b c Michael Coveney, "Whitelaw, Billie Honor (1932–2014)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Feb 2018 available online. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
- ^ "Saving Abel's Top 10 Female Villains". DreadCentral. 29 September 2012.
- ^ "Berlinale 1970: Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
- ^ New York Times article An Outsider in His Own Life
- ^ "Billie Whitelaw". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
- ^ Lyn Haill (ed.) Olivier at Work, 1989, p. 28.
- ^ IMDb
- IMDb
- ^ "Actress Billie Whitelaw dies aged 82". BBC News. 21 December 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 24 February 2024.