Dorothy Tutin

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Dame Dorothy Tutin Order of the British Empire|DBE (8 April 1930–6 August 2001), was a highly-regarded English actress of stage, film, and television.

[edit] Biography

Dorothy Tutin was born in London in 1930, to a couple who did not marry until the following year. When she was alive her year of birth was often given as 1931, in order to disguise the circumstances of her birth.

She was a talented pianist although she decided to pursue an acting career rather than one in music.

She married the actor Derek Waring, and they had two children, a son and a daughter. Dorothy Tutin and Derek Waring remained married until her death in 2001 at the age of 71 from leukaemia. Derek died in 2007.

Their daughter, Amanda Waring, is also an actress who was married for a few years in the late 1980s to Swedish singer Tommy Körberg.

She was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1967, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 2000.

[edit] Career

Having made her stage debut in 1949, her unusual looks, as well as her acting ability, led to early success, and she won the role of Cecily in the 1952 film of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Her next major film role was as Lucie in the 1958 film of A Tale of Two Cities, opposite Sir Dirk Bogarde. She continued to divide her appearances between stage, TV, and film, appearing in the 1970 film Cromwell starring Richard Harris and Sir Alec Guinness as Queen Henrietta Maria, before playing another Queen in 1971 as Anne Boleyn in the BBC's hit series, The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

She also performed as the teacher Sarah Burton in the TV-series South Riding (1974), based on a novel by Winifred Holtby. In the early 1980s Tutin also appeared in the made-for-television movie "Murder with Mirrors" (based on an Agatha Christie novel) along with Helen Hayes and Bette Davis.