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
To see more of who died in 2010
click here
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