Susannah York

British actress most noted by Americans for her motion picture role as Lara, the birth mother of Kal-El (Clark Kent) in Superman and Superman II with co-stars Marlon Brando and Christopher Reeve.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Born Susannah Yolande Fletcher
• 9 January 1939
• Chelsea, London, England
• Died 15 January 2011 (aged 72)
• Chelsea, London, England
• Cause of death Multiple myeloma
• Residence London, England
• Nationality British
• Education Marr College
• Alma mater Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts
• Occupation Actress
• Years active 1959–2010
• Spouse(s) Michael Wells (1959–76, divorced)
• Children 2, including Orlando Wells

Susannah Yolande Fletcher (9 January 1939 – 15 January 2011), known professionally as Susannah York, was an English film, stage, and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. 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. Her appearances in various hit films of the 1960s formed the basis of her international reputation, 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".

Early life

York was born 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. 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.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.
In early 1943, her mother married a Scottish businessman, Adam M. Hamilton, and moved, with her daughter, to Scotland. At the age of 11, York entered Marr College in Troon, Ayrshire. 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. At 13, she was removed, effectively expelled, from Wispers after admitting to a nude midnight swim in the school pool, and she transferred to East Haddon Hall in Northamptonshire. Enthusiastic about 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 the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.There, she won the Ronson award for most promising student before graduating in 1958.

Career

Film

York with Montgomery Clift in Freud: The Secret Passion, 1962
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). She had turned the part down three times and only agreed to participate because she felt guilty over cooking a disastrous meal for the director Tony Richardson, who was determined not to accept her refusal. She also appeared in Kaleidescope (1966), 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). It was also in 1970 that Susannah York played opposite Peter O'Toole in Country Dance.

York was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). She snubbed the Academy when, regarding her nomination, she declared it offended her to be nominated without being asked. She was highly praised for her performance, though she said "I don't think much of the film, or of myself in it." She did attend the ceremony but lost to Goldie Hawn for her role in Cactus Flower. In 1972, she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Images. 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). In 1992, she was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. 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. She was a patron of the Children's Film Unit and appeared in several of their films.

Stage

"York's greatest achievement was to escape the pigeonholing that is the curse of her profession and to overcome the perception of her as the flaxen-haired beauty of 1960s British movies. In her richly fulfilled later career, she proved that she was a real actor of extraordinary emotional range, not just a movie star."

Media critic Michael Billington

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. This was the first of 10 projects she completed with the producer Richard Jackson. 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 1985, she appeared in Fatal Attraction by Bernard Slade at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. 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.

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 season at the New End Theatre, London for which she received critical acclaim.

York's last stage performance was as Jean in Ronald Harwood's Quartet, at the Oxford Playhouse in August 2010.

Writing and personal appearances

In the 1970s, York 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).
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 20th anniversary of Clift's death. York had co-starred with him in Freud: The Secret Passion, John Huston's 1962 film biography of the psychoanalyst.

Personal life

In 1959, 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.
Politically, she was left-wing, and publicly supported Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli dissident who revealed Israel's nuclear weapons programme. 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.

Death

York was diagnosed with cancer late in 2010, but refused chemotherapy to honour a contractual obligation to appear in Ronald Harwood's Quartet. She died at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London from multiple myeloma on 15 January 2011, six days after her 72nd birthday.

TV and filmography

Year Film Role Notes

• 1960 The Richest Man in the World Martine Herrault
• There Was a Crooked Man Ellen
• Tunes of Glory Morag Sinclair
• 1961 ITV Television Playhouse Eva Sinding
• Abigail Williams Episodes: "Midnight", "The Crucible"
• The Greengage Summer Joss Grey
• The First Gentleman Princess Charlotte
• 1962 The Slaughter of St. Teresa's Day Thelma Maguire
• Freud: The Secret Passion Cecily Koertner Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
• 1963 Tom Jones Sophie Western
• 1964 The 7th Dawn Candace Trumpey
• Scene Nun, Take One The Actress
• 1965 Thursday Theatre Milly Theale Episode: "The Wings of the Dove"
• Sands of the Kalahari Grace Munkton
• Scruggs Susan
• 1966 The Fall of the House of Usher Madeleine Usher
• Kaleidoscope Angel McGinnis Laurel Award for Favorite Female Comedy Performance (5th place)
• A Man for All Seasons Margaret More
• Jackanory Storyteller Episode: "The Children of Green Knowe"
• 1966-1967 Theatre 625 Bronwen
• Jane Episodes: "The Winner", "Kiss on a Grass Green Pillow"
• 1968 Sebastian Rebecca Howard
• ITV Playhouse Grace Episode: The Photographer
• The Killing of Sister George Alice 'Childie' McNaught
• Duffy Segolene
• 1969 Lock Up Your Daughters Hilaret
• Oh! What a Lovely War Eleanor
• Battle of Britain Section Officer Maggie Harvey
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Alice BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• Nominated-Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
• Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
• 1970 Country Dance Hilary Dow
• Jane Eyre Jane Eyre Nominated-Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
• 1971 Happy Birthday, Wanda June Penelope Ryan
• 1972 Zee and Co. Stella
• Images Cathryn Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival)
• 1959-1972 Armchair Theatre Tekla
• Mandy Hope
• Cecily Cardew
• Kathleen
• Caroline Seven episodes
• 1973 Great Mysteries Countess Josephine Episode: "La Grande Breteche"
• 1974 Fallen Angels Julia Sterroll
• Gold Terry Steyner
• 1975 The Maids Claire
• That Lucky Touch Julia Richardson
• Conduct Unbecoming Mrs. Marjorie Scarlett
• 1976 Sky Riders Ellen Bracken
• Eliza Fraser Eliza Fraser
• 1977 A Month in the Country Natalia
• 1978 The Shout Rachel Fielding
• The Silent Partner Julie Carver
• Long Shot An Actress
• Superman Lara
• 1979 Prince Regent Maria Fitzherbert
• The Golden Gate Murders Sister Benecia
• 1980 The Awakening Jane Turner
• Falling in Love Again Sue Lewis
• Superman II Lara
• 1981 Second Chance Kate Hurst Episode: "April II"
• Loophole Dinah Booker
• 1982 We'll Meet Again Dr. Helen Dereham 13 episodes
• Alice Queenie
• 1983 Nelly's Version Narrator (voice)
• Yellowbeard Lady Churchill
• 1984 A Christmas Carol Mrs. Cratchit
• 1985 Star Quality Lorraine Barry
• The Love Boat Kay Webber Episodes: "Girl of the Midnight Sun", "There'll Be Some Changes Made", "Too Many Isaacs, "Mr. Smith Goes to Stockholm"
• Daemon Rachel
• 1986 The Two Ronnies My Lady Episode 12.2
• 1987 Prettykill Toni
• Mio min Mio Seamstress
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Lara Voice
• Barbablù, Barbablù Teresa
• 1988 A Summer Story Mrs. Narracombe
• Just Ask for Diamond Lauren Bacardi
• 1989 Melancholia Catherine Lanham Franck
• After the War Irene Jameson Episodes: "Yesterday and Tomorrow", "Partners"
• A Handful of Time Susanne Walker
• The Ray Bradbury Theater Nora Episode: "The Haunting of the New"
• 1990 Screen Two Amy Wallace Episode: "The Man from the Pru"
• Boon Lady Tessa Bolton Episode: "Daddy's Girl"
• Fate
• 1991 Devices and Desires Meg Dennison Six episodes
• 1991-1992 Trainer Rachel Ware 23 episodes
• 1992 Illusions Dr. Sinclair
• 1993 The Higher Mortals Miss Thorogood
• Piccolo Grande Amore Queen Christina
• 1997 The Ruth Rendell Mysteries Liz Episode: "A Dark Blue Perfume"
• So This Is Romance? Mike's Mum
• Loop Olivia
• 2000 St. Patrick: The Irish Legend Concessa
• 2002 Highway
• The Book of Eve May
• 2003 Visitors Carolyn Perry Nominated-DVD Exclusive Award for Best Actress in a DVD Premiere Movie |- Holby City Helen Grant Nine episodes
• 2004 Casualty Helen Grant Episodes: "Don't Go There", "Breaking Point"
• 2006 The Gigolos Tessa Harrington
• The Stoning Jean Fielding
• 2008 Franklyn Margaret
• 2009 The Calling The Prioress
• 2010 Missing Marjorie Claye Episode 2.9
• Doctors Lorna Robson Episode: "Gibberish" (final television appearance)

  ---

  
  

Susannah was better known as the Actress Susannah York