Anna Massey

Anna Raymond Massey (11 August 19373 July 2011) was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Best Actress Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner's novel Hotel du Lac, a role that one of her co-stars, Julia McKenzie, has said "could have been written for her". Massey is also well known for her roles in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), each as a woman who becomes involved with a suspected killer. She performed over one hundred character roles in British film and television. On the stage, in 1982, Massey won the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a Supporting Role for The Importance of Being Earnest and was nominated for the Award for Actress of the Year in a New Play for Summer.

Early life Massey was born in Thakeham, Sussex, England, the daughter of British actress Adrianne Allen and Canadian-born Hollywood actor Raymond Massey. Her parents divorced when she was an infant and she continued to live in England with her mother. Her older brother Daniel Massey also became an actor. She was the niece of Vincent Massey, a Governor General of Canada, and her godfather was film director John Ford. She then left the cast in London to repeat her performance in New York in October 1956. In the 1990s she appeared with Alan Bennett in a dramatised reading of T.S. Eliot's and Virginia Woolf's letters, in a production at the Charleston Festival devised by Patrick Garland.

Several of her early film roles were in mystery thrillers. She made her cinema debut in the Scotland Yard film Gideon's Day (1958) as Sally, daughter of Jack Hawkins's Detective Inspector. The director was her godfather John Ford. and The Robinsons (2005). She also appeared in a number of mysteries and thrillers on television, including episodes of Inspector Morse, The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, Midsomer Murders, Strange, Lewis, and Agatha Christie's Poirot.

With Imelda Staunton, she co-devised and starred as Josephine Daunt in Daunt and Dervish on BBC radio. She was the narrator of This Sceptred Isle on BBC Radio 4, a history of Britain from Roman times which ran for more than 300 fifteen-minute episodes. In 2009, she also appeared in a new radio version of The Killing of Sister George. after acquiring the TV rights two years earlier, only a few weeks before the novel won the Booker Prize.

Acting style One of Massey's assets as an actress was her "extraordinary voice... it was so listenable". Michael Billington of The Guardian characterised her work as being informed by "stillness", such as in the National Theatre's production of Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska. Massey was the principal narrator of the BBC Radio series on British history This Sceptred Isle. She also recorded several audiobooks, including Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca.

She was known for a high level of preparation and effort, with one producer saying that she had a practice of using five different coloured pens on scripts to mark out "breaths and pauses" and the development of a scene; for example, "if a phrase early in a paragraph was going to be picked up again later, she would highlight those two bits in the same colour, so that it would remind her that that first phrase was referring to something later".

In 2006 Massey published an autobiography, Telling Some Tales, in which she revealed a difficult early life, including a distant relationship with her father and estrangement from her brother. She also described her failed marriage (1958–1962) to Jeremy Brett, discussing his struggle with bipolar disorder. Brett and Massey divorced on 22 November 1962 after, she claimed, he left her for a man. The couple had one son. At an August 1988 dinner party held at the home of their mutual friend, Joy Whitby, The couple were married from November 1988 until her death in 2011.

She died from lung cancer in Kensington, London on 3 July 2011, aged 73. 1972 Frenzy Babs Milligan 1973 The Vault of Horror Donna Rogers (segment 1 "Midnight Mess") 1973 A Doll's House Kristine Linde 1974 The Pallisers Laura Kennedy TV miniseries 1978 The Mayor of Casterbridge Lucetta Templeman 1979 Rebecca Mrs Danvers TV miniseries 1979 A Little Romance Ms. Seigel 1980 Sweet William Edna McClusky 1982 Five Days One Summer Jennifer Pierce 1982 I Remember Nelson Lady Frances Nelson TV series, Episode: "Love" 1983 Mansfield Park Mrs Norris TV series - 6 episodes 1984 Another Country Imogen Bennett 1984 Journey into the Shadows: Portrait of Gwen John Gwen John TV film 1984 The Little Drummer Girl Chairlady 1984 The Chain Betty 1985 Sacred Hearts Sister Thomas 1986 Hotel du Lac Edith Hope BAFTA award-winning TV role 1986 Foreign Body Miss Furze 1987 A Hazard of Hearts Eudora, Serena's Maid 1988 La couleur du vent Norma 1988 Tears in the Rain Emily 1989 The Tall Guy Mary 1989 A Tale of Two Cities Miss Pross 1989 Killing Dad Edith 1989 Around the World in 80 Days Queen Victoria 1990 Mountains of the Moon Mrs Arundell 1990 Killing Dad or How to Love Your Mother Edith 1991 Impromptu George Sand's mother 1991 The Diamond Brothers: South by South East Mrs Bodega 1992 Inspector Morse Emily Balcombe TV series, Episode: "Happy Families" 1992 Emily's Ghost Miss Rabstock 1992 The Darling Buds of May Mam’selle Antoinette Dupont 1993 The Return of the Psammead Aunt Marchmont 1995 The Grotesque Mrs Giblet 1995 Angels and Insects Miss Mead 1995 Haunted Nanny Tess Webb 1995 The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends Mrs Thomasina Tittlemouse TV series, Episode: "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and Mrs. Tittlemouse" 1996 Sweet Angel Mine Mother 1997 Driftwood Mother 1997 The Slab Boys Elsie Walkinshaw 1997 Deja Vu Fern Stoner 1998 Midsomer Murders Honoria Lyddiard Episode "Written in Blood" 1999 Captain Jack Phoebe Pickles 1999 Mad Cows Dwina Phelps 2000 Room to Rent Sarah 2001 Dark Blue World English teacher 2002 The Importance of Being Earnest Miss Prism 2002 Possession Lady Bailey 2003 Strange Emily Hawthorne Episode: "Zoxim" 2004 The Machinist Mrs Shrike 2004 Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures Agatha Christie 2004 He Knew He Was Right Miss Stanbury TV film 2004 Belonging Brenda TV mini series 2005 Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont Mrs Arbuthnot 2005 The Worst Week of My Life Aunt Yvonne 2006 The Gigolos Edwina 2007 Fairy Stories by The Brothers Grimm Narrator Audiobook 2007 Lewis Margaret Gold Episode: "Whom the Gods Would Destroy" 2007 Oliver Twist Mrs Bedwin TV miniseries, 4 episodes 2008 Doctor Who – The Girl Who Never Was Miss Pollard 8th Doctor audio drama 2008 The Oxford Murders Julia Eagleton 2008 Affinity Miss Haxby TV film 2008 Tess of the D'Urbervilles Mrs D'Urberville TV miniseries, Episode #1.1 2009 Kingdom Winifred TV series, Episode #3.3 2009 Midsomer Murders Brenda Packard Episode: "Secrets and Spies" 2010 Agatha Christie’s Poirot Miss Pebmarsh Episode: "The Clocks" 2011 Act of Memory: A Christmas Story Older Maria Short (final film role)

Books

Sound recordings Massey can be heard in the Caedmon Records productions of Othello (as Desdemona), The Tempest (as Miranda), Cyrano de Bergerac (as Roxane), and The Comedy of Errors (as Adriana).