Anna Massey: R.I.P.

Sad to report that British actress, Anna Massey, one of my favorite British actors, died yesterday at age 73. She starred most recently as the blind woman in the Poirot production "The Clocks." She was also in Hitchcock's Frenzy.

She was born in 1937 into a performing family. Her father was Raymond Massey, and her mother was Adrianne Allen. Her brother, Daniel Massey, also became an actor, and her godfather was director John Ford.

Massey made her West End stage debut at 17 in “The Reluctant Debutante” and her film debut in Ford’s 1958 police procedural “Gideon’s Day.”She had roles in films including Michael Powell’s chiller “Peeping Tom” (1960), Otto Preminger’s “Bunny Lake is Missing” (1965) and the 2002 adaptation of “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

She worked most frequently in television period dramas. She appeared in TV adaptations of Anthony Trollope’s “The Pallisers,” Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” Charles Dickens’ ”Oliver Twist” and many others.

Massey won Britain’s top acting award for her role in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel “Hotel du Lac.”
 
The actress revealed in a memoir that she had struggled with depression and stage fright, and suffered a nervous breakdown in the 1960s.

She once said that as an actor, “I’m not instinctive. It takes enormous discipline and bravery to get me there.”

Her first marriage, to actor Jeremy Brett, ended in divorce. Survivors include her second husband, Uri Andres; and a son from her first marriage.

Above from the Washington Post. Read the Telegraph (UK) obituary, HERE.