Carol Drinkwater

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Carol Drinkwater
Drinkwater in 2012
Born (1948-04-22) 22 April 1948 (age 75)
London
NationalityBritish, Irish
Occupations
  • Actress
  • Author
  • Filmmaker
Spouse
​
(m. 1988)​
Parent(s)Peter Drinkwater
Phyllis McCormack
RelativesLinda Regan (sister)
AwardsCritics Circle Best Screen Actress, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Award, Variety Club Television Personality of the Year Award
Websitecaroldrinkwater.com

Carol Drinkwater (born 22 April 1948) is a British actress, writer and filmmaker residing in France. She portrayed Helen Herriot (née Alderson) in the television adaptation of the

Variety Club Television Personality of the Year award in 1985.[1][2]

Career

Drinkwater was a member of the

Another Bouquet, Golden Pennies and as Roz, an acquaintance of Det. Insp. Jack Regan in The Sweeney
.

Drinkwater won a Critics' Circle Best Screen Actress award[1] for her role, Anne, in the feature film Father (1990) in which she starred opposite Max von Sydow.[1] Amongst many other film and television series, she has appeared in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), Queen Kong (1976), The Shout (1978), Father (1990), and the film adaptation of Beryl Bainbridge's novel An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), directed by Mike Newell and starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman.

All Creatures Great and Small

Drinkwater portrayed Helen Herriot (née Alderson), the wife of James Herriot, for the first three series of the original BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small. She left the role in 1985 after appearing in 39 episodes. She later said:

I'd given everything I could and I couldn't think where else I could take the role, because there was no more material. I wasn't leaving in any kind of spiteful thing. The BBC was so angry with me, they put a ban on using me. So they re-cast and another actress got the role. I was terribly upset because it was a wonderful role and would have been very good for me. I must say now, looking back on my career, it's one of the few things in my life I would do differently, and I wouldn't have left.[3]

"Carol will always remain my favourite actress," All Creatures make-up artist Maggie Thomas recalled;

She was a breath of fresh air; never moody or difficult, a warm, merry and very natural girl. I can remember our first day on location. We were only working with Chris and a cow, which had fallen and become stuck in a small burn, so Carol had decided to come out to watch and meet everyone. She hadn't got any scenes that first day, so she was dressed for the summer in her own clothes. The shorts she wore were kind of

Boy Scout-cum-M*A*S*H ex-army drill, but on her figure they looked anything but. There was always an impishness about her and an air of complete unawareness of her own effect on men. The male members of the crew went into meltdown. She was oblivious, smiling and chatting to everyone, just enjoying the beautiful weather and getting to know who was who on the crew. They all remained in love with her for as long as she was the leading lady.[4]

Later career

In the 1981 episode of the

Edwardian poisoner Frederick Seddon, in an episode entitled "Root of All Evil."[5]

While working in Australia, Drinkwater wrote her first successful children's book, The Haunted School.

Disney, it won the Chicago International Film Festival Gold Award for Children's Films. It was through this that she met her husband, Michel Noll, and relocated to Provence.[6]

Her books for adults include commercial fiction and a series of best-selling memoirs about her experiences on her olive farm in Provence.[1] In 2013 Drinkwater worked on a series of five documentary films inspired by her two Mediterranean travel books, The Olive Route and The Olive Tree. The Olive Route films were completed in February 2013 and have since been broadcast on international networks worldwide.[7]

In 2015 Penguin Books UK announced a deal signed with Drinkwater to write two epic novels. The first, The Forgotten Summer, was published in March 2016. The second, The Lost Girl, was published in June 2017.[8] Drinkwater alleged to The Guardian, in October 2017, that the experience of the starlet Marguerite in The Lost Girl was based on her own experience of being sexually assaulted by Elia Kazan while auditioning for the leading film role in his film The Last Tycoon (1976).[9]

In 2018 Penguin signed a second deal with Drinkwater for two further novels. The first, published in May 2019, was The House on The Edge of The Cliff. The second, An Act of Love, was published on 29 April 2021.[10]

During the summer of 2021 Drinkwater spent four months filming a six-part documentary film series for UK's Channel 5 called Carol Drinkwater’s Secret Provence. The filming took place across Provence from the Italian border to the Camargue in the west of southern France.[11][12]

Personal life

Drinkwater is the daughter of the bandleader and agent Peter Regan (born Peter Albert Drinkwater) and Irish nurse Phyllis McCormack; her sister is actress and author Linda Regan.[13][14]

Drinkwater was born in London,[15] and acquired her Irish passport (later in life) because she felt vulnerable when travelling on a British passport in certain countries, including those in North Africa.[1]

During the 1978–1980 first run of All Creatures Great and Small, she had an affair with her on-screen husband, Christopher Timothy, which Drinkwater claims resulted in negative behaviour towards her by members of the general public.[16]

She is married to French television producer Michel Noll, and has two stepdaughters from Noll's first marriage.[1][2]

In 2017, Drinkwater accused the late American film director Elia Kazan of sexual harassment and attempted rape in 1975 when she was under consideration for a part in Kazan's film The Last Tycoon.[17]

Bibliography

The Olive Series

My Story Series

  • The Hunger: The Diary of Phyllis McCormack, Ireland, 1845–1847
  • Suffragette: The Diary of Dollie Baxter, London 1909–1913
  • Twentieth Century Girl: Diary of Flora Bonnington London 1899–1900
  • Nowhere to Run (the story of a World War II Jewish refugee), published 2 August 2012
  • Cadogan Square – a compilation of Suffragette and Twentieth-Century Girl August 2012

Other works

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Stanford, Peter (15 November 2008). "A tear in Provence". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on 22 March 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  2. ^ a b Alech, Alice. "Carol Drinkwater: Following 'The Olive Oil Route' with Passion". Olive Oil Times. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  3. ISBN 9781908630322
  4. ^ "Dishing the Dirt: 30 Years Behind The Scenes in Television Make-Up, Maggie Thomas (2009, Authors OnLine)
  5. ^ "LadyKillers S02E02 the Root of All Evil (1981)". YouTube.
  6. ^ a b John Rainsford (11 December 2017). "Carol Drinkwater: from award-winning actor to bestselling author". Irish Times. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
  7. ^ "The Olive Route". Carol Drinkwater. 28 August 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  8. ^ Shaffi, Sarah (28 July 2015). "Drinkwater signs fiction deal with MJ". The Bookseller. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  9. ^ Armistead, Claire (20 October 2017). "Carol Drinkwater reveals sex attack by Hollywood director Elia Kazan". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  10. ^ Anne Lucey (11 April 2021). "Book review: Twists and turns galore in Carol Drinkwater's wartime tale". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
  11. ^ All Creatures Great and Small original TV Helen, Carol Drinkwater, on her new Channel 5 show, 'gut-aching' laughter on set and why she quit BBC series The Yorkshire Post, 9 October 2021. Retrieved 18 October 2021
  12. ^ Carol Drinkwater's Secret Provence channel5.com Retrieved 08 January 2022
  13. ^ "Enjoying the rich harvest". Independent.ie. 8 August 2010. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
  14. ISBN 978-1476670072
    . Her (Linda Regan) father is the bandleader and agent Peter Regan (real name Peter Albert Drinkwater) and her sister is the actress and writer Carol Drinkwater.
  15. ^ Drinkwater, Carol A freeBMD. Retrieved 18 October 2021
  16. ^ Stanford, Peter (15 November 2008). "A tear in Provence". Irish Independent. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  17. ^ Armitstead, Claire (20 October 2017). "Carol Drinkwater reveals sex attack by Hollywood director Elia Kazan". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 September 2021.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Carol Drinkwater.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carol_Drinkwater&oldid=1219942262"