Carolyn Seymour

Carolyn Seymour (born 6 November 1947 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire) is an English actress, best associated with portraying the role of Abby Grant in the BBC series Survivors in 1975.

Her birth name was Carolyn von Beckdendorf, as a result of her mixed ancestry (her father was Russian and her mother was Irish.)

One of her earliest TV roles was as the journalist Jenny in the BBC drama series Take Three Girls. In 1972 she appeared as Zita in the film Steptoe and Son alongside Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell. Her best known movie role remains Grace Gurney in The Ruling Class in 1972, opposite Peter O'Toole in his Oscar nominated performance.

She left Survivors at the end of its first series, having disagreed with its producer, Terence Dudley over the direction that the show and her character was taking. She appeared in Space: 1999 and with Joan Collins in The Bitch. She then moved to America and made numerous television appearances including Hart to Hart, Modesty Blaise, Family Ties, Cagney & Lacey, Remington Steele, Magnum, P.I., The Twilight Zone, Murder She Wrote, Matlock, Quantum Leap, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes "Contagion", "First Contact", "Face of the Enemy", L.A. Law, Red Shoe Diaries, the Star Trek: Voyager episodes "Cathexis" and "Persistence of Vision", Babylon 5 and ER.

She has also provided voice for several Star Wars video games, portraying characters such as Shmi Skywalker, Mon Mothma and Helena Shan. Additionally, she provides the voice for the Locust Queen Myrrah in Gears of War, Dr. Chakwas in the Mass Effect series and the Elder God of Water in Mortal Kombat Annihilation. She has played in audio plays by L.A. Theatre Works and The Hollywood Theater of the Ear, and recently began narrating audiobooks.

She also recently appeared in an episode of Dog Whisperer with Cesar Milan in which she asked Cesar help with a friend's Shar pei mix named Chase.

Selected filmography

• One Brief Summer (1970)
• Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971)
• Gumshoe (1971)
• Steptoe and Son (1972)
• The Ruling Class (1972)
• Yellow Dog (1973)
• The Assignment (1977)
• The Odd Job (1978)
• The Bitch (1979)
• Bad Timing (1980)
• Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981)
• Mr. Mom (1983)
• Tales from the Darkside (1984) (Episode: "Dream Girl")
• Midnight Cabaret (1990)
• A Smile in the Dark (1991)
• Congo (1995)
• Interruptions (1995)
• Gears of War (2006)
• Mass Effect (2007)
• Gears of War 2 (2008)
• Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
• Mass Effect 2 (2010)
• Gears of War 3 (2011)
• Mass Effect 3 (2012)

Personal life

On the Criterion Collection DVD commentary for The Ruling Class, director Peter Medak recalls the first time that Peter O'Toole met Seymour during the casting of the film in 1971. O'Toole already knew who she was since she is a grandchild of Moura Budberg and was surprised that Medak did not know this. Medak and Seymour married in 1973 (divorced in 1984).^[1]

References

External links

• Carolyn Seymour at the Internet Movie Database
• Carolyn Seymour at the Internet Broadway Database
• Interview with Carolyn Seymour about Survivors