Lady Hester Random
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Lady Hester Random (played by Maggie Smith) is a fictional character in Franco Zeffirelli's autobiographical film Tea with Mussolini.
She is the snobbish, autocratic, small-minded widow of the British Ambassador to Italy, a genuine member of the Old Money and dowager leader of the British colony in Florence called The Scorpioni or Il Scorpioni, which consisted of old English widows and spinsters. Privileged Lady Hester leads the activities of the colony, which include drinking tea at Gran Caffé Doney and Uffizi Gallery, arranging picnics to the créme de la créme of British residents in Florence and collecting art. Lady Hester also hates Americans. She dwells in the large villa outside the city with her grandson and some friends of hers.
Like many other aristocrats in 1930s, Lady Hester admires fascism. Moreover after she has tea with Benito Mussolini himself, she's assured about the superiority of fascism. She does not want to leave Florence when World War II is declared and still refuses even when Italy enters into war against England. Italian forces arrest them and throw them into the filthy barracks in San Gimignano, and they spend the rest of the war there. Eventually, they are rescued by British corpsmen in San Gimignano.
After the war, Lady Hester returns to Florence and keeps going the daily afternoon tea at Doney's helped by the rest of the Scorpioni.
[edit] Real Lady Hester
Lady Hester is based upon a real resident of Florence whom Zeffirelli knew in childhood. Zeffirelli mentions her and a couple of other ladies of the Scorpioni in his autobiography. He said: "I don't remember if she was called Hester, but I remember this terrible, fantastic woman. She was the dowager of the community. I remember the many outrageous things she did because she could afford to be arrogant and bossy."
