Shirley Anne Field

Shirley Anne Field (born Shirley Broomfield; 27 June 1936 – 10 December 2023) was an English actress who performed on stage, film and television from 1955 until her death. She was prominent during the British New Wave.

Early life Shirley Broomfield was born in Forest Gate, Essex (in the London Borough of Newham) on 27 June 1936. She was the third of four children, with two elder sisters and a younger brother, Earnest "Guy" Broomfield (c. 1939–1999).

At the age of six, Shirley was placed in the National Children's Home at Edgworth, near Bolton, Lancashire, and four years later was moved to another children's home in Blackburn, where she attended Blakey Moor School for Girls.

Field had a supporting role in Beat Girl (1960), then appeared in probably her best known role as Doreen, the would-be girlfriend of rebellious Arthur Seaton (played by Albert Finney), in the New Wave film for Bryanston, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Director Karel Reisz described her as "difficult to play with". Co-star Finney had previously had a small role in The Entertainer. The film was a huge hit.

Field starred alongside Kenneth More in Man in the Moon (1960). With those three big film starring roles in 1960, she became one of the very few actors ever to have their name above the titles in all the major cinemas around Leicester Square simultaneously.

Although offered a role in A Kind of Loving (1962), Field turned it down to play the female lead in a Hollywood financed film, The War Lover (1962), with Steve McQueen. Four decades later she admitted that the shoot was not ideal:

For Hammer films, Field starred in The Damned (1963), directed by Joseph Losey. She went to Hollywood to play the female lead in an epic directed by J. Lee Thompson, Kings of the Sun (1963). Thompson had her under personal contract at this stage. She says she turned down roles in a James Bond movie and an Elvis Presley movie.

Later career Field starred in With Love in Mind (1970) and A Touch of the Other (1970), then made House of the Living Dead (1974).

By the late 1970s Field was more commonly seen on TV, in shows such as Centre Play, Shoestring, Buccaneer, Never the Twain and a long run on Santa Barbara as well as TV movies like Two by Forsyth. She had roles in films, inter alia, My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Shag (1989), Getting It Right (1989), The Rachel Papers (1989), Hear My Song (1991), U.F.O. (1993), Taking Liberty (1993), Loving Deadly (1994), and At Risk (1994).

Her later television roles included Anna Lee: Headcase (1993), Murder She Wrote, Lady Chatterly, Rumble, Bramwell, Barbara, Madson, Dalziel and Pascoe, The Bill, Where the Heart Is, Waking the Dead, Monarch of the Glen, Last of the Summer Wine, Doctors. Her most recent films are The Kid, The Power of Three and Beautiful Relics.

Personal life and death On 7 July 1967, Field married the aristocratic RAF pilot and racing driver Charles Crichton-Stuart (1939–2001). They had a daughter, Nicola Crichton-Stuart, who was born in 1969. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975. Her autobiography, A Time for Love, was published in 1991.

On 14 November 1993, Field appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, talking to Sue Lawley about her upbringing in different children's homes in Northern England and her success as an actress in the 1960s. She also reminisced about her friendship with John F. Kennedy and an ill-fated date with Frank Sinatra. Her record choices included Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major and pieces by Rachmaninov, Elvis Presley and the Carpenters.

In September 1999 Field's brother Guy was killed in his San Francisco home, by his girlfriend's son Harry Dalsey, the son of DHL founder Adrian Dalsey. Field flew to the US to begin a civil action alleging wrongful death.

In the September 2009 issue of Cinema Retro, there was a long interview with Field, where she candidly talked about her childhood and the making of Peeping Tom, The Entertainer, Beat Girl and The War Lover.

Field died on 10 December 2023, at the age of 87.

Filmography Film

Television roles