/ Stars that died in 2023: Susannah York, English actress (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?; Superman), died from bone marrow cancer she was , 72.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Susannah York, English actress (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?; Superman), died from bone marrow cancer she was , 72.

Susannah York  was a British film, stage and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)[2] and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film  died from bone marrow cancer she was , 72.. She won best actress for Images at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. In 1991 she was appointed an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[2] Her appearances in various hit films of the 1960s formed the basis of her international reputation,[3] and an obituary in The Telegraph characterised her as "the blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips who epitomised the sensuality of the swinging Sixties".[4]

(9 January 1939 – 15 January 2011)

Early life

York was born Susannah Yolande Fletcher in Chelsea, London in 1939, the younger daughter of Simon William Peel Vickers Fletcher (1910–2002), a merchant banker and steel magnate, and his first wife, the former Joan Nita Mary Bowring – they married in 1935 and divorced prior to 1943.[5][6][7][8][9][10] Her maternal grandfather was Walter Andrew Bowring, CBE, a British diplomat who served as Administrator of Dominica (1933–1935); she was a great-great-granddaughter of political economist Sir John Bowring.[4][6][11][12][13] York had an elder sister, as well as a half-brother, Eugene Xavier Charles William Peel Fletcher, from her father's second marriage to Pauline de Bearnez de Morton de La Chapelle.[5][14][15][16][17]
In early 1943, her mother married a Scottish businessman, Adam M. Hamilton, and moved, with her daughter, to Scotland.[18][19] At the age of 11 York entered Marr College in Troon, Ayrshire.[4][20] Later she became a boarder at Wispers School, a school housed in Wispers, a Norman Shaw-designed country house in the Sussex village of Stedham. Still aged 13 she was removed – effectively expelled – from Wispers after owning up to a naked midnight swim in the school pool, and she transferred to East Haddon Hall in Northamptonshire.[4][20]
Enthused by her experiences of acting at school (she had played an Ugly Sister in Cinderella at the age of nine), York first decided to apply to the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art; but after her mother had separated from her stepfather and moved to London, she instead auditioned for RADA.[2][4][20][21] There she won the Ronson award for most promising student[22] before graduating in 1958.[23]

Career

Film

Her film career began with Tunes of Glory (1960), co-starring with Alec Guinness and John Mills. In 1961, she played the leading role in The Greengage Summer, which co-starred Kenneth More and Danielle Darrieux. In 1962, she performed in Freud: The Secret Passion with Montgomery Clift in the title role.
York played Sophie Western opposite Albert Finney in the Oscar winning Best Film Tom Jones (1963) and also appeared in A Man for All Seasons (1966), The Killing of Sister George (1968) and Battle of Britain (1969). She co-starred with George C. Scott (as Edward Rochester) playing the title role in an American television movie of Jane Eyre (1970).
York was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). She famously snubbed the Academy when, regarding her nomination, she declared it offended her to be nominated without being asked. She did attend the ceremony but lost to Goldie Hawn for her role in Cactus Flower.[24]
In 1972, she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Images.[25] She played Superman's mother Lara on the doomed planet Krypton in Superman (1978) and its sequels, Superman II (1980) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). York made extensive appearances in British television series, including Prince Regent (1979), as Maria Fitzherbert, the clandestine wife of the future George IV, and We'll Meet Again (1982).
In 1984, York starred as Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (1984), based on the novel by Charles Dickens. She again co-starred with George C. Scott (as Ebenezer Scrooge), David Warner (Bob Cratchit), Frank Finlay (Jacob Marley), Angela Pleasence (The Ghost of Christmas Past) and Anthony Walters (Tiny Tim Cratchit).
In 2003, York had a recurring role as hospital manager Helen Grant in the BBC1 television drama series Holby City. She reprised this role in two episodes of Holby City's sister series Casualty in May 2004. Her last film was The Calling, released in 2010 in the UK.

Stage

In 1978, York appeared on stage at the New End Theatre in London in The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs with Lucinda Childs, directed by French director Simone Benmussa. The following year, she appeared in Paris, speaking French in a play by Henry James: Appearances, with Sami Frey. The play was again directed by Benmussa.
In the 1980s, again with Benmussa, York played in For no good Reason, an adaptation of George Moore's short story, with Susan Hampshire. In 2007, she appeared in the UK tour of The Wings of the Dove, and continued performing her internationally well received solo show, The Loves of Shakespeare's Women. Also in 2007, she guest starred in the Doctor Who audio play Valhalla. In 2008, she played the part of Nelly in an adaptation by April De Angelis of Wuthering Heights.[citation needed]
According to the website of Italian symphonic metal band Rhapsody of Fire (previously known as Rhapsody), York had been recruited for a narrated part on the band's next full-length album Triumph or Agony. In 2009, she starred alongside Jos Vantyler in The Tennessee Williams Triple Bill at The New End Theatre, London for which she received critical acclaim.[26]
York's last stage performance was as Jean in Ronald Harwood's Quartet, at the Oxford Playhouse in August 2010.[27] She demonstrated her undoubted Star Quality when she appeared in a 1985 production of the play of the same name, the last ever written by Sir Noel Coward.

Writing and personal appearances

In the 1970s, she wrote two children's fantasy novels, In Search of Unicorns (1973), revised (1984) which was excerpted in the film Images, and Lark's Castle (1976, revised 1986).[28]
She was a guest, along with David Puttnam on the BBC Radio 4 documentary I Had The Misery Thursday, a tribute programme to film actor Montgomery Clift, which was aired in 1986, on the twentieth anniversary of Clift's death. York co-starred with him in Freud, John Huston's 1962 film biography of the psychoanalyst.[28]

Personal life

In 1960, York married Michael Wells, with whom she had two children, daughter Sasha (born May 1972) and son Orlando (born June 1973). They divorced in 1976. In the 1984 TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol, she played Mrs. Cratchit and both of her children co-starred as Cratchit offspring. Orlando gave York her first grandchild, Rafferty, in 2007.[29]
Politically, she was left-wing and publicly supported Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli dissident who revealed Israel's nuclear weapons programme.[30] While performing The Loves of Shakespeare's Women at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv in June 2007, York dedicated the performance to Vanunu, evoking both cheers and jeers from the audience.[31]
York died at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London[32] from advanced bone marrow cancer on 15 January 2011, six days after her 72nd birthday.[33][34]

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1960 There Was a Crooked Man Ellen
Tunes of Glory Morag Sinclair
1961 The Greengage Summer Joss Grey
1962 Freud: The Secret Passion Cecily Koertner
1963 Tom Jones Sophie Western
1964 The 7th Dawn Candace Trumpey
Scene Nun, Take One The Actress
1965 Sands of the Kalahari Grace Munkton
Scruggs Susan
1966 The Fall of the House of Usher (TV) Madeleine Usher
Kaleidoscope Angel McGinnis
A Man for All Seasons Margaret More
1968 Sebastian Rebecca Howard
Duffy Segolene
The Killing of Sister George Alice 'Childie' McNaught
1969 Oh! What a Lovely War Eleanor
Battle of Britain Section Officer Maggie Harvey
Lock Up Your Daughters Hilaret
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Alice Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1970 Jane Eyre Jane Eyre
Country Dance Hilary Dow
1971 Happy Birthday, Wanda June Penelope Ryan
1972 Zee and Co. Stella
Images Cathryn Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival)
1974 Gold Terry Steyner
The Maids Claire
1975 Conduct Unbecoming Mrs. Marjorie Scarlett
That Lucky Touch Julia Richardson
1976 Sky Riders Ellen Bracken
Eliza Fraser Eliza Fraser
1978 The Shout Rachel Fielding
The Silent Partner Julie Carver
Superman Lara
1979 Prince Regent (TV miniseries) Mrs. Fitzherbert
The Golden Gate Murders (TV) Sister Benecia
1980 Long Shot An Actress
The Awakening Jane Turner
Superman II Lara
Loophole Dinah Booker
Late Flowering Love
Falling in Love Again Sue Lewis
1981 Second Chance (TV series) Kate Hurst
1982 We'll Meet Again (TV series) Helen Dereham
Alicja Queenie
1983 Yellowbeard Lady Churchill
Nelly's Version (TV) Narrator (voice)
1984 A Christmas Carol (TV) Mrs. Cratchit
1985 Star Quality (TV) Lorraine Barry
Daemon (TV)
Tomorrow's a Killer, aka Prettykill Toni
1987 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Lara (voice)
Mio min Mio Seamstress
Barbablú, Barbablú
1988 A Summer Story Mrs. Narracombe
Just Ask for Diamond Lauren Bacardi
1989 Melancholia Catherine Lanham Franck
After the War (TV miniseries) Irene Jameson
Quattro piccole donne (TV)
En Håndfull tid Susanne Walker
1990 The Man from the PVU (TV) Amy Wallace
Fate
1991 Devices and Desires (TV miniseries) Meg Dennison
Trainer (TV series) Rachel Ware
1992 Illusions (TV) Dr. Sinclair
1993 Piccolo grande amore Queen Christina
1997 Loop Olivia
Dark Blue Perfume (TV) Liz
1998 So This Is Romance? Mike's Mum
2000 St. Patrick: The Irish Legend (TV) Concessa
Jean Jean
2002 The Book of Eve
2003 Visitors Carolyn Perry
2004 Love Is a Survivor Present Day Roma
2006 The Gigolos Tessa
2007 Maude Maude
2008 Franklyn Margaret
2010 The Calling The prioress
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