She appeared with Olivier in Dance of Death, staged by Glen Byam Shaw and first performed in February 1967. Īfter this debacle, she joined the National Theatre Company, then based at the Old Vic, following the suggestion of Sir Laurence Olivier, then its artistic director, and performed in 11 productions over the next 5 years. Back in England, she appeared with Kenneth Williams in the original unsuccessful 1965 production of Loot by Joe Orton, which closed at the Wimbledon Theatre before reaching London. After an American tour, this production was staged at the Majestic in New York in early 1963, and was McEwan's debut on Broadway. In a production of Sheridan's The School for Scandal, directed by Sir John Gielgud in 1962, McEwan replaced Anna Massey as Mrs Teazle during the run at the Haymarket Theatre, London her husband was played by Sir Ralph Richardson. She returned to the theatre in 1961 to portray Ophelia in Hamlet, opposite Ian Bannen as the Prince, and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing with Christopher Plummer as Benedict. In the same season at Stratford, McEwan portrayed Marina in Pericles and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. After McEwan died, The Guardian 's Michael Billington wrote of this performance: "At the time Olivia tended to be played as a figure of mature grief: McEwan was young, sparky, witty and clearly brimming with desire for Dorothy Tutin's pageboy Viola." McEwan's performance, according to Dominic Shellard, split contemporary critical opinion between those observers who considered it "heretical" and others who thought it "revolutionary". ĭuring the 1958 season in Stratford, she played Olivia in Twelfth Night in a production directed by Peter Hall. McEwan appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon during the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the period when it was evolving into the Stratford venue for the new Royal Shakespeare Company formed in 1960, and at The Aldwych, the RSC's original London home. In 1957, she took over from Joan Plowright in the Royal Court production of John Osborne's play The Entertainer during its West End run at the Palace Theatre. McEwan made her first West End appearance at the Vaudeville Theatre on 4 April 1951 as Christina Deed in Who Goes There! McEwan first appeared on television in a BBC series, Crime on Our Hands (1954), with Jack Watling, Dennis Price and Sonia Dresdel. She made her first appearance on the Windsor stage in October 1946 as an attendant of Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream and played many parts with the Windsor Repertory Company from March 1949 to March 1951, including a role in the Ruth Gordon biographical play Years Ago opposite guest player John Clark.Ĭareer From 1951 to 1971 I could protect myself by losing myself in other people." Īs a teenager, McEwan became interested in theatre and her theatrical career began at 14 as assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. In an interview with Cassandra Jardine of The Daily Telegraph in 2004, she said of herself around this time: "I was very shy, very private", but after reading a poem (apparently Lady Macbeth's speech "Glamis thou art and Cawdor.") at a Brownie concert: "I realised it was going to be a way in which I could manage the world. However, in later life she said she had loved English and the teaching of Miss Meech in particular. McEwan won a scholarship to attend Windsor County Girls' School, then a private school where she felt completely out of place, and took elocution lessons. Her father, a printers' compositor, ran the Labour Party branch in Old Windsor, a safe Conservative seat. She had Irish ancestors her maternal grandfather came from Kilkenny while her paternal grandfather came from Belfast. She was born Geraldine McKeown on in Old Windsor, Berkshire, England, to Donald and Norah (née Burns) McKeown. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the 1990 television serial Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and from 2004 to 2009, she starred as the Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple, in the ITV series Marple. She was also nominated for the 1998 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Chairs. McEwan was a five-time Olivier Award nominee, and twice won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress for The Rivals (1983) and The Way of the World (1995). Michael Coveney described her, in a tribute article, as "a great comic stylist, with a syrupy, seductive voice and a forthright, sparkling manner". Geraldine McEwan (born Geraldine McKeown – 30 January 2015) was an English actress, who had a long career in film, theatre and television.
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