Maria Britneva

Maria Britneva, Baroness St Just, (2 July 1921 – 15 February 1994) known as Maria St Just, was a Russian-British actress who was a close friend of Tennessee Williams. As co-trustee of the trust which he set up for his sister, she became his literary executor.

Early life Maria Britneva was born in Petrograd in the Soviet Union. Her mother, Mary Britneva, was British by birth, a daughter of Charles Herbert Bucknall, business partner in St Petersburg of the French wholesale gem dealers Leo and Georges Sachs. Her father, Alexander Britnev, was a physician who served in the Red Army and was shot in the purges of 1937. He was rehabilitated (his reputation restored) in 1969. She was brought up in Hammersmith, where her mother settled and worked as a translator of Chekhov, and also by teaching Russian and French. Britneva represented her paternal grandfather as having been court physician at Tsarskoye Selo, but no record has been traced of him. and John Gielgud employed her in his London theatre company, but he and others considered her a poor actress.

Personal life: Tennessee Williams In 1948, at a party at her friend John Gielgud's house in Chelsea, Britneva met Tennessee Williams and they became passionate life-long friends. She was the inspiration for Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which Williams dedicated to her, borrowing Maria's descriptive of her in-laws, (no-neck monsters), for one of Maggie's most famous lines.

They corresponded for some time, and then she moved to New York, where in the early 1950s she lived in a small flat. According to John Lahr, Britneva wanted more than friendship, and fantasized to Arthur Miller about Williams wanting to marry her. She discussed the friendship with a psychotherapist, but essentially Britneva and Williams were close friends. and her bulldog, who always snarled at him.

Britneva often traveled with Williams and his partner Frank Merlo; She was reported to be the inspiration for the character of Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The biographer of Gore Vidal, who was close to Britneva and Williams, says of Britneva that she "cast herself in the role of devoted sister-caretaker" while a biographer of James Laughlin says she was "Tennessee's confidant and protective demon". In an article published in The New Yorker soon after her death, John Lahr wrote that he believed Britneva reminded Williams of his mother. Britevna was renowned as a hostess with such friends — aside from Williams — as John Gielgud, Gore Vidal, Franco Zeffirelli, and Leslie Caron.

In his obituary of her in The Independent, Kit Hesketh-Harvey suggests that she also had a great talent for protecting Williams' work: "Tennessee Williams astounded the theatrical world by making Maria St Just his literary executrix' he wrote."She vindicated his trust completely. Too rich to care about money, she was concerned only for the integrity of the performances which she was empowered to authorise. There hasn't been a dud since his death in 1983; and that his reputation is now restored is thanks to her."

Personal life: others Britneva had other entanglements while in the US. She was rumoured to have slept with Marlon Brando,

Britneva fell in love with James Laughlin, and in 1954 they became engaged to be married. Williams was reported as saying that for him this would be an "old-time happy ending", because Britneva and Laughlin had "a similar place in my heart"; but Laughlin broke off the engagement. One assessment is that Laughlin became "terrified" of Britneva's "castrating willfulness". It is well documented that Williams was inspired by Maria, who called her step-children 'no-neck-monsters' when he wrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Wilbury House In 1956, Britneva met an English peer, Peter Grenfell, second Lord St Just, and married him on 25 July 1956.

In marrying St Just, Britneva became Lady St Just, stepmother of Laura Claire Grenfell, his six-year-old daughter by his first wife, Leslie Nast, daughter of Condé Nast. With him, she had two daughters of her own, Katherine Grenfell (born 1957), known as Katya or Pulcheria,

Britneva kept up her friendship with Williams, who was a frequent visitor to both Wilbury House, her new home in England, and her London home next door to Noel Coward's house in Gerald Road, Belgravia. The funeral for Lady Maria St Just herself was held at the Russian Orthodox church in Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge.

Later years Britneva and Williams continued to write to each other, until shortly before his death in 1983. She was increasingly protective of him, going so far as to attempt to push his brother Dakin off a catwalk at the Lyceum Theatre after the Broadway opening of Out Cry in 1973. In 1975, Williams angered Britneva by mentioning her only briefly in his memoirs, in which he referred to her as "an occasional actress" and said she was "afflicted with folie de grandeur". At her insistence, he wrote an apology, claiming that editors had cut down his description of "this richly sustaining attachment". She was certainly the model for the Countess in his play This Is (1976). Lahr describes her as considering herself "Williams' widow without a ring".

Lord St Just died in 1986,