Diane Cilento
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| Diane Cilento | |
| Born | October 5, 1933 (age 73) Brisbane  |
| Years active | 1950 - |
| Spouse(s) | Andrea Volpe 1956-? Sean Connery 1962-1973 Anthony Shaffer 1985 - 2001 |
| Notable roles | Molly Seagrim in Tom Jones Jessie in Hombre |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Supporting Actress 1963, Tom Jones (nominated) | |
| Tony Awards | |
| Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) 1956, for Helen of Troy in Jean Giraudoux' "Tiger at the Gates." (nominated) | |
Diane Cilento (born October 5, 1933 in Brisbane, Australia), is a theater and film actress.
Her parents, Sir Raphael Cilento and Phyllis, Lady Cilento, were both highly respected medical practitioners. At a young age she decided to follow a career as an actress, and moved to the United Kingdom in the early-1950s. She quickly secured work in British films, and steadily worked until the end of the decade, without making a major impression with film audiences.
She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Tom Jones (1963), but allowed her film career to decline following her marriage to actor Sean Connery. Connery was the second of Cilento's three husbands, and they were married from 1962 until their divorce in 1973. They are the parents of the actor Jason Connery. In Sean's James Bond film You Only Live Twice, Diane also doubled for Sean's co-star Mie Hama in a diving scene because Hama was ill.
In 1985, she married Anthony Shaffer, a playwright, who wrote the script of The Wicker Man, a film in which she had appeared in 1973. During the 1970s she had studied under the British mystic and spiritual teacher John G. Bennett.
Cilento continued working as an actress, both in films and in television, and in the 1980s settled in Mossman, north of Cairns, Queensland, where she built her own outdoor theater — named "Karnak" — in the rainforest. The venture allows her to participate in experimental drama.
She is reputed to have once kayaked naked off Mooloolaba beach on Brisbane's Sunshine Coast.
In 2006, she released her autobiography: My Nine Lives.
[edit] External links
- Interview
- From Stardom to Sufism - interview with Cilento by Rachael Kohn on ABC Radio National May 2006 (MP3/Podcast available)
- Diane Cilento at the Internet Movie Database
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