Brittish Actors
Naomi Chance was born in Bath, Somerset in 1930. After a short period in repertory and on tour she obtained a small screen part and followed this with some starring roles in films opposite some American stars appearing in British films. She became well-known on British TV for her appearances as Amelia Huntley in “The Newcomers” (1965). Hrt first husband was the film director Guy Hamilton. Her second husband was a retired naval surgeon, with whom she lived in Devon for many years. Her final appearance was in 1976 in the TV series “Within These Walls”.. Her movies include “Wings of Danger” in 1852, “The Gambler and the Lady” and “Blood Orange”. She died in 2003.
IMDB entry:
Naomi Chance attended Central School of Drama. After a short period in repertory and on tour she obtained a small screen part and followed this with some starring roles in films opposite some American stars appearing in British films. She became well-known on British TV for her appearances as Amelia Huntley in The Newcomers (1965). Her second husband was a retired naval surgeon, with whom she lived in Devon for many years. Her final appearance was in 1976. She still had friends in the business in London. She frequently went to visit them and wanted to act again, but they told her to forget it.Anthony Hinds, who produced some of her early films, said of her, “She is very talented, but her trouble is she won’t sell herself.”
Sophie Okonedo was born in London in 1968. She was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “Hotel Rwanda”. On television she has starred in “Oliver Twist” and “Mayday”.
TCM overview:
Born in London to a Nigerian father and British mother, Sophie Okonedo never considered being an actress when she grew up, let alone an international star. A voracious reader all her life-a government official visiting the family’s home marveled at the large bookcase stocked with books-Okonedo got her start through a writing workshop she took with renowned novelist and playwright, Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic). Though she had no desire to be a writer, Okonedo took the course because it was something interesting to do at night. She soon realized, however, that she was no good as a writer. But she was very good at reading other people’s work aloud, which eventually led to her involvement with the Royal Court Theatre. From there she got a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she got her true start as an actress.
After a series of theatrical roles, including Shahrazad in “The Arabian Nights” and Anippe in Christopher Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine the Great”, Okonedo broke through with an acclaimed performance as Cressida in “Troilus and Cressida,” staged by famed theatrical director Trevor Nunn for the National Theatre. Though the only Shakespeare role of her career, Okonedo earned high praise for her ability to project a tense ambiguity between love and passion. The success of her Cressida led the actress to British television: she appeared in episode 5 of “Clocking Off” (BBC-1, 2000), a six-part drama series about the secret lives of every day people; in “Never Never” (2000), she earned a Royal Television Society Award nomination for playing a single mom; and she appeared on “Spooks” (BBC-1, 2002- ), a popular series about Britain’s domestic security agency that was presented across the Atlantic as “MI5” (A&E, 2004- ).
From British television, Okonedo made a quick jump to film. Though she had several thankless parts in major features, including two lines as a princess in “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” (1995), and as a nameless Jamaican Girl in “The Jackal” (1997), she made a deep impression with her characterization of a prostitute living in a rundown West London hotel in Stephen Frears’ “Dirty Pretty Things” (2003).
She was then cast in her highest profile role to date as Tatiana Rusesabagina, the wife of a hotel manager (Don Cheadle), who houses 1200 Tutsi refugees fleeing the 1994 genocide in “Hotel Rwanda” (2004). Acclaim for both the film and its performances was bestowed by critics, as Okonedo received nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress. To prepare for the challenging role, Okonedo read Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey, by Fergal Keane, then went to Brussels to meet the real-life Tatiana. The topic of the genocide was avoided-Okonedo asked about her relationship with Paul and what she liked to eat. The cultural leap of transforming herself from a London woman to a Rwandan refugee turned out to be her biggest challenge on the film, though two weeks of torrential rain and a sudden loss of financing were also on the list.
After “Hotel Rwanda,” Okonedo returned to the Hollywood system and was cast in the long-awaited film version of the popular MTV series, “Aeon Flux” (2005)-the movie proved to be a disappointing failure on all fronts. But Okonedo rebounded with a moving performance in “Tsunami, the Aftermath” (HBO, 2006), an ensemble drama that depicted various stories involving the devastating 2004 tidal wave that destroyed large portions of Thailand and other parts of South Asia. Okonedo played a mother searching frantically with her husband (Chiwetel Ejiofor) for their 6-year-old daughter after the tsunami literally ripped her from their arms. She earned a nomination for a 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.
Margot Grahame was a British actress who had lead roles in Hollywood movies of the 1930’s but continued her career in the UK from the 1950’s on. She was born in 1911 in Canterbury. She made her film debut in 1930 in the British film “Rookery Nook”. By 1935 she was in Hollywood where she made “The Informer” for John Ford and “The Buckaneer” for Cecil B. De Mille. She died in 1982 in London.
IMDB entry:
Esmond Knight was born in East Sheen, Surrey in 1906. An accomplished stage actor, he was injured during World War Two but continued to act. His movies include “Holiday Camp” in 1947 and “Sink the Bismarck” in 1960. He died in 1987. His daughter is the actress Rosalind Knight.
IMDB entry:
A stage actor from 1925, Esmond made his first film appearance in 77 Park Lane (1931) for Michael Powell for whom he eventually made 11 films. Esmond served in the Royal Navy during WWII and lost one eye and was almost totally blinded in the other during an engagement against The Bismarck. This didn’t stop him later portraying a Royal Naval officer in Sink the Bismarck! (1960).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>
| A sulky, handsome young man with a mane of black hair and magnetic eyes, almost too romantically handsome to be true. Then one day I saw him giggling with one of the sound engineers and I realised that it was all a pose and he had a sense of humour.” |
Elvi Hale was born in 1931 in Essex, England as Patricia Elvira Hake. She is an actress, known for True as a Turtle (1957), The Heroes of Telemark (1965) and The Navy Lark(1959).
Marcus Gilbert was born in 1958 in London. he starred in “Riders” with Michael Praed and “A Ghost in Monte Carlo” in 1990.
IMDB entry:
Lulu is fondly remembered by movie buffs for her performance in “To Sir With Love” with Sidney Poitier and Suzy Kendall in 1967. She won the Eurovision for the UK in 1969. She was born in Glasgow in 1948.
IMDB entry:
Born in Glasgow in 1948. As a teenager, she toured the northern clubs with her band, “the Luvvers”. After her initial success with a cover of “Shout” reaching #7 in 1964, Lulu went on to establish herself as one of the biggest-selling British female singers of the 1960s. She made her film début in To Sir, with Love (1967), starring Sidney Poitier, and performed the title song, which went to No. 1 in the U.S., but was only released as a B-side in the UK with the A-side, “Let’s Pretend”, making #11. She was one of four joint winners of the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest with “Boom Bang-a-Bang”. In 1969, she married The Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb, and moved more into family entertainment, building on the success of her self-titled BBC television show. After her divorce, she collaborated with David Bowie on the song, “The Man Who Sold the World,” which reached #3 in the UK charts, and sang the title theme to the James Bond feature The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), both in 1974.
After marriage to celebrity hairdresser John Frieda, with whom she had one son, Jordan Frieda, Lulu’s career moved more into occasional adverts and pantomimes. The 1990s saw her divorce again and, in 1993, she released the hit album, “Independence”. Along with her brother, she also penned the song, “I Don’t Wanna Fight”, which was performed by Tina Turner on the soundtrack to What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993), and aged 44, she finally topped the UK charts with the British boyband, Take That, with a cover of “Relight My Fire”. She went on to contribute to the soundtrack of the Tim Rice/Elton John musical, “Aida”, in 1999, front her own short-lived prime-time UK lottery show on BBC TV, Red Alert with the National Lottery (1999), and starred in the film Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999).
In 2002, she released an album of duets entitled “Together”, featuring the likes of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Cliff Richard, Sting and Ronan Keating, along with a best-selling autobiography. In 2003, she released her “Greatest Hits” album, which débuted at #35 in the UK charts.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Glc19Gareth@netscape.ne
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Jane Mallory Birkin was born on 14 December 1946, in Marylebone, London. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an English actress, best known for her work on stage. Her father, David Birkin, was a Royal Navy lieutenant-commander and World War II spy. Her brother is the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin. She was educated at Upper Chine School, Isle of Wight.”Je t’aime” made UK chart history in that on 4 October 1969 and the following week on 11 October, the song was at two different chart positions even though it is the same song, the same artists, and the same recorded version
TCM overview:Landed several lightweight movie roles in the 1960s, when her looks seemed to symbolize the swinging spirit of the times (she played one of the nude models in Antonioni’s 1966 “Blow-Up”) and subsequently resurfaced as a respected talent in France. Birkin was the subject of a documentary by Agnes Varda, “Jane B. par Agnes V.” (1988) and gave an affecting performance opposite Dirk Bogarde in Bertrand Tavernier’s “Daddy Nostalgia” (1990). Her younger daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, by composer-director Serge Gainsbourg, is also an actress and her brother is writer-director Andrew Birkin (“Burning Secret” 1988). The ultra-expensive luxury item the Birkin bag was created by Hermès head Jean-Louis Dumas in 1984, inspired by a meeting with the actress and singer in which she complained about never finding a leather purse she really liked.
Jane Birkin died in Paris in 2023 aged 76.
Shortly after Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg had recorded the infamously erotic Je t’aime . . . moi non plus, the couple went to dinner at the Hôtel des Beaux Arts in Paris.
“There was a record player, and without saying a word, Serge put the song on,” Birkin recalled. “All of a sudden all the couples around us stopped talking, their knives and forks held in mid-air.”
As their fellow diners sat transfixed by the record’s sexually explicit lyrics interspersed with Birkin’s orgasmic gasps and moans, Gainsbourg turned to his lover. “I think we’ve got a hit record,” he said.
Birkin with Serge Gainsbourg and their daughter Charlotte in 1971
Indeed, the duo not only had a hit but a song that would become an avatar for the Swinging Sixties and its sexual permissiveness — a “symbol of freedom”, as Birkin called it.
Prudes and moral guardians everywhere were outraged. The Vatican denounced the record and the BBC banned it, as did countless other radio stations around the world.
The critic Sylvie Simmons described the song as “the musical equivalent of a Vaseline-smeared Emmanuelle movie”, and the aural sex that oozed from the grooves was too libidinous even for the traditional Gallic laissez-faire: the record was declared too risqué to be played on French radio before an 11pm watershed. In Italy the head of Gainsbourg and Birkin’s record label was jailed for offending public morality.
The bans only served to enhance the record’s success and Gainsbourg called Pope Paul VI “our greatest PR man”. Je t’aime . . . moi non plus hit No 1 in the UK charts in the autumn of 1969, the first banned record to do so. It remained in the charts for 31 weeks and was said to have contributed to a dramatic spike in the birth rate.
Birkin in Cannes in 2021 for the release of a film, Jane Par Charlotte, about her by her daughter Charlotte
A prurient media speculated that it was a genuine live sex session recorded in the boudoir rather than faked in the studio, although Gainsbourg denied it. “Thank goodness it wasn’t, otherwise I hope it would have been a long-playing record,” he said. Birkin giggled alongside him as he said it.
Birkin had arrived in Paris in 1968 as a 21-year-old aspiring actress with an androgynous figure and an innocent baby-doll look that had earned her a role in Antonioni’s “swinging London” movie Blow-Up. She also had a one-year-old daughter from a brief marriage to the film composer John Barry, who as soon as she had fallen pregnant left her for an even younger model and moved to Los Angeles.
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.