Mary Miller (actress)

Mary Elizabeth Miller (born 27 December 1933, Norfolk, England^[1]) is an English television and theatrical actress, known for being a founding member of the National Theatre in 1963, and for her portrayal of Angela Dunwoody QC in ten episodes of the 1970s UK TV series Crown Court.

Career

Early years

Mary Miller first appeared on television in 1959 as Alice Chandler in episode one of the 6-part series The Golden Spur, alongside Ronald Fraser and Oliver Reed.^[2] In the same year, she took the role of Ann Elsden in "The Talking Doll", the first ever instalment of the popular UK TV police drama, No Hiding Place.^[3]

In 1961, the playwright and novelist Peter Wildeblood was commissioned by Granada Television to produce an 11-part series featuring "up-and-coming acting talent, in plays by young authors, each actor or actress taking the lead role in turn". It was called The Younger Generation, and Miller was to appear in eight of the plays.^[4]

In 1963, Miller became one of the 77 actors and actresses to be founding members^[5] of the National Theatre Company in its inaugural season under artistic director Laurence Olivier.^[6]

The Protectors was a British television series, made by ABC and not to be confused with the other British version from the 1970s, which began a run of 14 episodes in March 1964. It starred Andrew Faulds and Michael Atkinson as an ex-insurance investigator and ex-policeman who start up their own security firm to tackle crime.^{[citation needed]} Miller appeared in May during the eighth instalment called "Freedom!", as Tamara.^[7]

When the BBC made a series, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling, set in the days of the British Raj and based partly on his book which had originally been "[a] set of Indian tales that first appeared in Macmillan's Magazine",^[8] Miller portrayed Mrs. Denville in episode 23, "A Second-Rate Woman", in 1964.^[9] She then played a comedy role in the BBC's The Dick Emery Show on 4 December 1964.^[10]

In 1965, she played Diana Gibbs in "Other People's Lives", an instalment of the popular BBC Television police drama Dixon of Dock Green, which starred Jack Warner as Sergeant George Dixon.^[11] Later that year, she appeared in the BBC serial drama called Mogul (subsequently renamed The Troubleshooters), set in the oil industry.^[12] She played Lizzie, in a storyline called "Tosh and Nora".^[13]

1965 was also the year she made her first appearance with Casey Hodgkiss, her best friend, and they starred together in the performance of The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail along with Jenna Backer and Nicolette Rhoades for their favourite teacher of all time, T.K. Griffith. Dr. Finlay's Casebook, alongside her soon-to-be husband Bill Simpson. She played Molly Spalding in "Beware of the Dog", episode 20 in season 3 of the long-running BBC series about a doctors' surgery in Scotland.^[14]

Making progress

After four appearances in 1966 (in the anthology-style programmes Mystery and Imagination^[15] and The Wednesday Play,^[16] in Thirteen Against Fate,^[17] and for a second time in No Hiding Place^[18]), Miller took a part in 1967 which seemed to open up opportunities for her.

She was given the important role of Maggie Hobson in Hobson's Choice, a "3 part BBC production of the play by Harold Brighouse set in Salford in the late 19th century".^[19]

Her rise to prominence continued in 1968, which was a very busy year for her. Turning her hand once more to comedy, she appeared with Marty Feldman in his madcap series Marty.^[20] She also made appearances in "The Photographer", part of Kenneth Jupp's Chelsea Trilogy;^[21] The Mock Doctor, a Rediffusion TV production based on a comedy play by Molière;^[22] and another Wednesday Play, called "Mrs. Lawrence Will Look After It", as Freda Wills.^[23] 1968 also saw her second appearance in Dr. Finlay's Casebook, this time playing Sister Brown in the episode "A Moral Problem".^[24]

In 1969, she played Anna in Barrister at Law, a legal drama play from the BBC.^[25] Her contribution to Marty also continued into that year, and she would then go on to make two more series with Feldman - Marty Amok in 1970,^[26] and Marty Abroad in 1971.^[27]

Despite her divorce in 1969, Miller continued working unabated, and in the next few years appeared in such productions as Tales of Piccadilly, ITV Playhouse, Sykes, Space: 1999, and Old Times (the play by Harold Pinter),^[28] until being offered one of her most memorable characters.

Crown Court

She was chosen to portray the strong female personality that was Angela Dunwoody QC, in Crown Court, the courtroom drama series made by various ITV network television companies between 1972 and 1984. Miller took up the role in 1976, and played the barrister until 1977, in four storylines over ten episodes beginning with "Accepted Standards" in 1976, which featured a stellar cast including Ben Kingsley, Patricia Routledge and Liz Smith, and involved a GP who is accused of libel against a PVC factory over their claims regarding safe practice.^[29] In "Those in Peril", a trawler boat captain is accused of negligence when a deckhand is swept overboard and killed.^[30] Two men are charged with conspiring to smuggle arms to Lebanon in "Death for Sale", the last of her 1976 Crown Court appearances.^[31] Her final appearance in the series, called "A Matter of Faith" and broadcast in February 1977, told the story of a man, charged with libel against a spiritual healer, whose wife had committed suicide after a session with the healer failed to cure her paralysis.^[32]

The late 1970s

Miller did not restrict herself to just the medium of television. She continued to perform in the theatre, appearing as Beth (with Alan Bates and Nigel Hawthorne) in Simon Gray's Otherwise Engaged at the Queen's Theatre in London on 30 July 1975 under the direction of Harold Pinter, and repeated this performance in New York in 1977.^[33]

Also in 1977, Miller appeared as Denise Collins in the BBC television mini-series, Fathers and Families,^[34] and then played Fay Passmore in eleven instalments of the Thames Television production Rooms, a long-running series charting the lives of tenants in a block of bed-sits.^[35] And in 1978, appearing in an episode of Scottish Television's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (the title role being played by Geraldine McEwan), she took the part of Irene Cibelli.^[36]

All Quiet on the Western Front was a TV film about the First World War from the perspective of the German troops.^[37] Filmed in Czechoslovakia in 1979, it starred Richard Thomas, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence and Ian Holm, and was adapted from the novel Im Westen nichts Neues by Erich Maria Remarque. Miller played Frau Kemmerich.^[38]

According to Jacqueline Pearce, the actress who played Servalan in the BBC sci-fi TV series Blake's 7, Miller turned down the role herself when offered it, and Pearce stepped in to make the part her own upon the programme's launch in 1978.^[39]

Greece and the 1980s

In 1980, Mary Miller became involved in the field of cinema in Greece, first making a comedy film called O Kotsos stin E.O.K., written by Yiorgos Mylonas and directed by Dimis Dadiras.^[40] This was followed in 1981 by a film made in a similar vein, called O Teleftaios...antras!, written this time by Nikos Kabanis and Giorgos Makridis, direction by Omiros Efstratiadis.^[41]

Miller returned to London's Covent Garden in April 1981 to fulfil one half of a Royal Ballet production portraying the legendary artistic dancer Isadora Duncan in Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Isadora. She provided the voice of the subject, reading from Duncan's memoirs,^[42] along with Merle Park who danced the moves.^[43] She transferred to the United States with the production in July of that year, when Sandra Conley shared the dance interpretation with Park.^[44]

In 1982, she took another supporting role in another comedy film called Kommandos kai manoulia, before moving back to Britain.^[45] That year also saw her in a small part in the martial arts exploitation film, Raw Force,^[46] headlined by Cameron Mitchell.^[47] This would be her only mainstream film appearance.

Miller continued with her stage career, appearing in such productions as the 1983 run of the play Pack of Lies at the Lyric Theatre in London in October 1983, alongside Frank Windsor.^[48]

She was part of a strong cast list assembled by Anglia Television in 1985 for the making of the fantasy puppet/live action feature Alice in Wonderland, based on the famous novel by Lewis Carroll. She provided the voices for the Mouse, Duck, Parrot, Longbeaked Bird, Pigeon, Cook and Baby, alongside John Barron, Michael Bentine, Eleanor Bron, Bernard Cribbins, Leslie Crowther, Leonard Rossiter, Eric Sykes and Windsor Davies.^[49]

In the 1987 Screen Two production "After Pilkington", the Prix Italia winner written by Simon Gray and starring Miranda Richardson, Miller played Deirdre Pilkington, the wife of a missing archaeologist.^[50] After appearing in two episodes of Fay Weldon's The Heart of the Country for BBC Pebble Mill in the same year,^[51] she became a regular member of the cast of the Anglia Television fantasy role-playing game format called Knightmare, usually playing the parts of Lillith or Mildread, in a total of 27 shows and finishing in 1988 (although the programme itself continued until 1994).^[28][52]

Later years

In 1990, Miller appeared for two episodes in the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders, as Frank Butcher's older sister, Joan Garwood, who turns up in Walford at Frank's request when their mother Mo develops Alzheimer's disease, and it is then decided that Mo should go and live with Joan and her husband in Colchester, Essex.^[53] The character would re-appear in the programme for one more episode in 1995, still being played by Miller.^[54]

Before that return, she went on to take parts in The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries (1993),^[55] Casualty (1993),^[56] and Cadfael (1995).^[57] Then, in 1997, she appeared in two instalments of the Yorkshire Television drama series Trial & Retribution, playing Mrs. Gillingham.^[58]

Her last recorded work was in the 2005 "updating" of Trial & Retribution by Lynda La Plante, in which Miller played a different character, Felicity Harper, in added on episodes.^[59]

Personal life

Miller married the Scottish actor Bill Simpson (Dr. Finlay's Casebook) on 24 July 1965 at Callander near Menteith, Scotland. They had no children, and were divorced in March 1969.^[5]

Filmography

• O Kotsos stin E.O.K. (1980) (Greek)
• O Teleftaios...antras! (1981) (Greek)
• Kommandos kai manoulia (1982) (Greek)
• Raw Force (1982)

References

External links

• Mary Miller at the Internet Movie Database