Maureen Pryor
Maureen Pryor (23 May 1922 – 5 May 1977) was an Irish-born English character actress who made stage, film and television appearances.
Early life
Maureen Pryor was born Maureen Pook in 1922 in Limerick, Ireland, to a Cockney father and an Irish mother. She began acting with Manchester Repertory in 1938 and studied with Michel Saint-Denis at the London Theatre Studio (1939–40).
Career
She appeared in the West End in Seán O'Casey's Red Roses for Me, Noël Coward's Peace In Our Time, John Griffith Bowen's After the Rain (also on Broadway),[1] Doris Lessing’s Play with a Tiger[2] and plays such as Little Boxes and Where’s Tedd.[3] She was a member of the Stables Theatre Company. She also appeared on Broadway in the premiere season of Boeing-Boeing (1965).[1] In Manchester, she appeared in Eugene O'Neill's one-act play Before Breakfast, directed by Bill Gilmour.
She made over 500 television appearances, including a Play for Today, "O Fat White Woman" (1971),[4] adapted by William Trevor from his own short story, and Ken Russell's television film Song of Summer (1968), in which she played Jelka Delius, the long-suffering wife of the composer Frederick Delius. Russell cast her again in his cinema film The Music Lovers (1970) as Tchaikovsky's mother-in-law. In the 1974 BBC television film Shoulder to Shoulder she played the composer Dame Ethel Smyth.
Selected filmography
- The Lady with the Lamp (1951)
- The Weak and the Wicked (1953)
- Doctor in the House (1954)
- Orders Are Orders (1954)
- The Secret Place (1957)
- Doctor at Large (1957)
- Heart of a Child (1958)
- Conspiracy of Hearts (1960)
- No Love for Johnnie (1961)
- Life for Ruth (1962)
- Madhouse on Castle Street (TV, 1963; Mrs Griggs; this was Bob Dylan's acting debut)
- The Sandwich Man (1966)
- Omnibus: Song of Summer (TV, 1968)
- The Music Lovers (1970)
- Lady Caroline Lamb (1972; Mrs Butler)
- The National Health (1973; the matron)
- The Black Windmill (1974)
- Shoulder to Shoulder (1974, BBC TV; as Dame Ethel Smyth)
Personal life
Her first marriage ended in divorce, her second in separation. She had one son, Mark. She died in 1977 from a heart ailment.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 IBDb
- ↑ Doris Lessing
- ↑ doollee.com
- ↑ Play for Today: O Fat White Woman, BFI Film and TV Database
Sources
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