Anna Massey, British actress (Frenzy, Hotel du Lac), died from cancer she was , 73.

 Anna Raymond Massey, CBE  was an English actress died from cancer she was , 73..^[2] She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.

(11 August 1937 – 3 July 2011)

Early life

Massey was born in Thakeham, West Sussex, England, the daughter of British actress Adrianne Allen and Canadian-born Hollywood actor Raymond Massey.^[4] 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.^[5]

Career

Though she had no formal training at either drama school or in repertory, in May 1955 at the age of 17 Anna Massey made her first appearance on stage 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 ^[6] She then left the cast in London to repeat her performance in New York in October 1956.^[7]
She made her cinema debut in 1958 in the Scotland Yard film Gideon's Day, as Sally, daughter of Jack Hawkins's detective inspector. The director was her godfather John Ford.^[6]
In 1960, she played a potential murder victim in Michael Powell's cult thriller Peeping Tom; she then appeared in Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) opposite Laurence Olivier and later played the role of the cockney barmaid Babs in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972). She appeared with her brother Daniel playing deadly siblings in the 1973 horror film The Vault of Horror.
Massey continued to make occasional film and stage appearances, but worked more frequently in television, making her first small screen appearance as Jacqueline in Green of the Year in October 1955^[7] and in dramas such as The Pallisers (1974), the 1978 adaptation of Rebecca (in which she starred with her ex-husband, Jeremy Brett), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978), The Cherry Orchard (1980), and Anna Karenina (1985). She had roles in the British comedy series The Darling Buds of May (1991) 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. ^[6]
In 1986, Massey was awarded the British Academy TV Award for Best Actress for her role in Hotel du Lac. She also appeared as Mrs. D'Urberville in the 2008 BBC adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, an older version of May and as Rosie in An Angel For May, and in the 2004 BBC version of Our Mutual Friend.^[5]

Acting Style

Although Massey's parts were varied, her 'cut-glass English accent, conveyed a cold and repressed character on screen'. ^[8] On the stage, a number of her performances were said to be characterised by 'stillness', such as the National Theatre's production of Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska.^[9]

Personal life

In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 she was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drama.^[10]
She published an autobiography in 2006, Telling Some Tales, which revealed a difficult early life and her failed marriage to actor Jeremy Brett (who struggled with bipolar disorder), their son, writer David Raymond William Huggins (b. 1959), her successful second marriage in 1988 to Russian scientist Uri Andres, (whom she married in 1988^[11]) and of being a grandmother. 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."

Death

Massey died from cancer on 3 July 2011, aged 73. She is survived by her son, grandson and second husband.^[5]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1958	Gideon's Day	Sally Gideon
1960	Peeping Tom	Helen
1965	Bunny Lake is Missing	Elvira Smollett
1972	Frenzy	Babs Milligan
1973	The Vault of Horror	Donna Rogers
1986	Hotel du Lac	Edith Hope	BAFTA award-winning role
1986	Foreign Body	Miss Furze
1997	Deja Vu
2002	The Importance of Being Earnest	Miss Prism
2004	The Machinist
	He Knew He Was Right	Miss Stanbury	TV Movie
	Belonging
2005	Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont	Mrs Arbuthnot
2006	The Gigolos	Edwina
2007	Fairy Stories by The Brothers Grimm	Narrator	Audiobook
	Doctor Who - The Girl Who Never Was	Miss Pollard	8th Doctor audiobook
2008	Tess of the D'Urbervilles	Mrs D'Urberville
	The Oxford Murders (Film)	Mrs. Julia Eagleton
	Affinity (film)	Miss Haxby	TV movie

Books

• Massey, Anna (2006). Telling Some Tales. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-179645-8.

 

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