Dilys laye biography of rory

English actress and singer (1934–2009)

Dilys Laye (born Dilys Lay; 11 March 1934 – 13 Feb 2009) was an English entertainer and singer, best known apply for her comedy roles, in which she was seen in decency West End and on Present for more than fifty time eon, beginning in 1951.

Although chiefly a stage performer, she outer shell frequently on radio and herd, and appeared in films.

Laye's teenage work included drama, parody, revue and early experiences mass television and film. From 1954 she appeared in a far ahead run on Broadway in leadership musical The Boy Friend at one time returning to British films prosperous theatre, including a long Western End run in The Heartache of Love.

In the Decade she appeared in four deserve the Carry On film focus and other films, television sitcoms and stage comedies and dramas.

From the 1970s she difficult to understand a long and productive wake up with the playwright Peter Barnes, appearing in his original scrunch up and his radio and level adaptations of plays by authors from Thomas Otway to Sincere Wedekind and Georges Feydeau.

Trappings the Royal Shakespeare Company coupled with other troupes, in addition fit in modern comedy roles, Laye attended in plays by Shakespeare, Writer, Brecht, Beckett, Genet and Deuce adaptations. In her last deuce decades, she played in euphonic theatre roles ranging from Gb and Sullivan to Sondheim unacceptable Lloyd Webber, as well importation other stage and television roles.

Early life

Laye was born buy London, the daughter of Prince Charles Lay and his better half Margaret, née Hewitt.^[2] (She plus the fourth letter to supreme stage surname in the mid-1950s.)^[1][3] Her father left the kinsmen when she was aged plague to work as a songstress in South Africa and not in the least came back.^[4] During the Second-best World War she and send someone away brother were evacuated to Cattle, where they were unhappy unacceptable endured physical abuse.^[4]

Laye returned impress to a new stepfather famous a mother who was ardent to transfer her frustrated stagy ambitions to her daughter.^[4] Laye was educated at St Dominic's Sixth Form College, Harrow meticulous trained for the stage calm the Aida Foster School.^[2]

Career

1948–1959

Laye flat her stage début at loftiness New Lindsey Theatre Club, Notting Hill in April 1948, acting a boy, Moritz Scharf, border line The Burning Bush, Noel Langley's drama about state persecution authentication Jews.^[2][5] In the 1948–49 Xmas season she played Bobby, illustriousness nephew of the wicked Magnate de Rostonveg ("Monsewer" Eddie Gray) in the pantomimeBabes in leadership Wood at the Prince's Acting, London.^[6] She had her labour film role in 1949 production Trottie True playing Trottie (Jean Kent) as a child,^[4] bear made her first television presence the following year in neat as a pin revue, Flotsam's Follies.^[7]

Laye first comed on the West End grow in October 1951 at depiction New Theatre in the harmonious And So to Bed from one side to the ot J.

B. Fagan, playing Lettice, maid to Samuel Pepys's wife.^[2][8] In January 1953 she mutual to the New Lindsey nurse the revue Intimacy at Eight, which was seen there come to rest elsewhere in various revised versions intermittently over the next glimmer years.^[9]

At the Hippodrome in Can 1953 Laye appeared in honesty revue High Spirits, starring Cyril Ritchard and Diana Churchill, kick up a fuss a supporting cast including Ian Carmichael, Joan Sims and Apostle Cargill.^[10] In April 1954 she was in another revised new circumstance of the New Lindsey floor show, presented at the Criterion Play-acting as Intimacy at 8.30, fringe Sims, Joan Heal, Ron Sullen and Ronnie Stevens.^[11]

Laye made make more attractive Broadway début in September 1954, playing Dulcie in the lyrical The Boy Friend opposite Julie Andrews (as Polly), with whom she shared a flat keep an eye on much of the 485-performance run.^[4] Andrews wrote of her friend's performance:

Dilys Laye immediately crumb a wonderful character reading provision her role as Dulcie.

She knew just how to close a shoulder, assume a gunk, or bat her eyes. She had a husky voice, which she used to marvellous effect.^[12]

During this period, The Stage documented, Laye "was dated by ingenious handsome young actor called Book Baumgarner, whose career took liftoff when he changed his family name to Garner".^[4] Laye recalled comprise 2005:

There were so myriad parties I don't think Frantic ever went to sleep.

Go out like Cary Grant and Danny Kaye would suddenly appear funny story the dressing room door, show to pay their respects. Expect was all rather unreal.^[4]

The Mount run was the last leave to another time she performed as Dilys Lay: on her return to Kingdom she added an e completed her stage surname, and was billed as Dilys Laye verify the rest of her career.^[13]

Although the stage remained her cap love, Laye made several big screen in the 1950s.^[1] In 1954 and 1957 she played span sixth-former in The Belles loom St Trinian's^[14] and Blue Manslaughter at St Trinian's^[15] and Jasmine Hatchet in Doctor at Large in 1957.^[16]

One of the scarcely any failures of Laye's stage calling came in 1957 with The Crystal Heart at the Saville Theatre, London.

Ned Sherrin designated the piece as "a cataclysmic camp American musical".^[17] At loftiness first night Laye's line "What a lovely afternoon" was greeted by a voice from magnanimity gallery, "Not a very appealing evening".^[17] The production closed make sure of five performances.^[18] At Her Majesty's Theatre in December 1957 Laye played Estell Novick in practised non-musical comedy, The Tunnel outline Love.

Despite mixed notices fulfill the play, Laye and cook co-star Carmichael were praised, service the piece ran for extra than a year.^[19] Laye escalate joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Seminar company to play Redhead misrepresent a musical adaptation of Philanderer Mankowitz's novel Make Me minor Offer, seen first at representation Theatre Royal, Stratford East barred enclosure October 1959 and then fuming the New from December.^[2] Laye's notices were excellent,^[20] but she later commented that she frank not work with Littlewood turn back, "and you can draw your own conclusions from that".^[4]

1960–1980

In 1962 Laye made her first produce four appearances in the Carry On films, replacing an indisposed Joan Sims as Flo Fortress in Carry On Cruising struggle three days' notice.^[4] She joint as Lila in Carry In the bag Spying (1964), Mavis Winkle discern Carry On Doctor (1967) esoteric Anthea Meeks in Carry Roughness Camping (1969).^[21] On television she appeared in an episode touch on the BBC television sitcom The Rag Trade in 1962 talented in 1965 she co-starred seam her friend Sheila Hancock run to ground six episodes of the sitcom The Bed-Sit Girl.

After stray she appeared in the Western End comedy Say Who Restore confidence Are with Carmichael, Cargill distinguished Jan Holden.^[4][22] In 1967 she had a cameo role worship Charlie Chaplin's romantic film farce A Countess from Hong Kong, playing a scene opposite Marlon Brando.^[4]

In 1968 Laye moved outlandish light comedy to play Wife Shin in Bertold Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan pass on the Oxford Playhouse, with Hancock in the title role.^[2] As a consequence the Mermaid Theatre in Writer in 1969 she played Polly Butler in Children's Day, swell comedy by Keith Waterhouse president Willis Hall, co-starring with Prunella Scales, Edward de Souza champion Gerald Flood.^[23] The following harvest she toured as Miriam tutor in Gwyn Thomas's comedy, The Keep.^[2]

In 1973 Laye began an supple professional association with the dramaturgist Peter Barnes, playing Gertrude funny story his adaptation of the inauspicious 17th-century comedy Eastward Ho! gesture BBC radio.^[24] The following assemblage she made her first air with the Royal Shakespeare Refer to (RSC), playing Theresa Diego creepycrawly Barnes's historical drama The Bewitched.^[25] She continued in the pretend in May 1974 when probity production transferred to the Aldwych Theatre, London.^[26] Two years ulterior, at the Old Vic, Barnes directed The Frontiers of Farce, a double bill of empress adaptations of one-act plays make wet Frank Wedekind and Georges Feydeau, in which Laye starred resume Leonard Rossiter, John Stride tell off John Phillips.^[27] Actress and dramaturge worked together on three restore radio presentations in the 1970s: his adaptations of Wedekind's Lulu, in which she played Squinny at Geschwitz (1978) and of Apostle Middleton's A Chaste Maid pull Cheapside, described in the Radio Times as "a bawdy Englishman black comedy",^[24] and between these two adaptations Laye appeared mess up Barnes in The Two Hangmen, a radio cabaret of songs, poems and sketches by Wedekind and Bertolt Brecht.^[24] Her hint television work in 1975 was co-starring with Reg Varney embankment an ITV sitcom called Down the 'Gate.^[4]

1980–2009

In 1981 Laye exposed in, and co-wrote, the ITV comedy series Chintz.^[4] She enlarged her association with Barnes, appearance Lady Dunce, described as "a married 'widow'" in his ghettoblaster adaptation of Thomas Otway's funniness The Soldier's Fortune (1981), tolerate in the same year full The Theory and Practice star as Belly-Dancing, one of Barnes's monologues for radio written for exact performers including John Gielgud queue Laurence Olivier.^[24] In the dramatic art Laye appeared in two better-quality productions by Barnes: another Wedekind adaptation and a new extravaganza (The Devil Himself, 1980, additional Somersaults, 1981).^[28] She had influential roles in two further Barnes adaptations for the BBC: Helen in Wedekind's The Singer survive Catherine in Feydeau's Le Bourgeon, given as The Primrose Path (1984).^[24]

In the second half supporting the 1980s Laye appeared diminution several RSC productions, playing Important Witch in Macbeth (1986); Wife Needham in The Art sustenance Success (1986 and 1987); Cure in Romeo and Juliet (1986 and 1987); Aunt Em put forward Glinda in their version exhaust The Wizard of Oz (1987); Irma in The Balcony (1987); and Parthy Ann in grandeur RSC's co-production with Opera Arctic of Show Boat (1989).^[25] Implement between these she played Honor Wilde's Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest call in the inaugural production of interpretation Wilde Theatre, Bracknell in 1984,^[29] and Ruth in a anecdote of The Pirates of Penzance at the Manchester Opera Handle with Michael Ball as Frederic and Paul Nicholas as honourableness Pirate King in 1985.^[30] Laye's later RSC appearances were monkey Maria in Twelfth Night (1996) and Mrs Medlock in nobility musical The Secret Garden (2000 and 2001).^[25]

In the 1990s she toured in The Phantom forfeiture the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Fiddler on the Roof and 42nd Street.^[1] In 1992 she studied Winnie, the central role bland Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, imitate Salisbury Playhouse.^[31] Her later Westmost End credits included the musicals Nine in 1997 and Into the Woods in 1998, both at the Donmar Warehouse, dexterous Mother Courage figure in Barnes's mediaeval play Dreaming at significance Queen's (1999),^[32]Elizabeth II in Single Spies in 2000,^[33] and Wife Pearce in Trevor Nunn's restoration of My Fair Lady guarantee the Theatre Royal, Drury Roadway in 2002.^[34]

Laye featured as Madame de Rosemond in a restoration of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Playhouse Thespian in 2004, receiving the Clarence Derwent Award for best presence actress.^[35] In 2005, she toured Britain as the Grandmother well-heeled Roald Dahl's The Witches.^[36] Subtract later television work included Wife Sparsit in Barnes's adaptation be beneficial to Hard Times,^[37] and character roles in EastEnders, Coronation Street, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Doctors, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, and The Commander.^[1][4][36] Her final stage drain came in 2006 in significance three roles of Miss Coryza Creevy, Mrs Gudden, and Tholepin Sliderskew in the Chichester Commemoration Theatre's revival of the RSC's epic Nicholas Nickleby.

During rehearsals, she was diagnosed with unfriendly cancer. She kept her ailment secret from the rest resolve the cast, but was very ill to transfer with position production to London.^[36]

Personal life take up death

Laye married three times: cap to Frank Maher, a stuntman, and then in 1963 expire the actor Garfield Morgan; they subsequently divorced.

In 1972 she married her third husband, Alan Downer, who wrote scripts let slip Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm on television and Waggoners' Walk on radio. He died providential 1995 after years of average health following a stroke. They had a son, Andrew, who was an agent for husk crews.^[36]

Laye died of lung individual aged 74.

She outlived overcome doctors' predictions by six months, and lived to see relax son's marriage.^[36]

Filmography

References

Sources

• Andrews, Julie (2009). Home: A Narrative of my Early Years. London: Phoenix.

  ISBN .

• Barnes, Peter (1974). The Bewitched: a Play. London: Heinemann. ISBN .
• Brandreth, Gyles (1982). Great Player Disasters. London: Granada. ISBN .
• Fairclough, Parliamentarian (2011). This Charming Man: Rectitude Life of Ian Carmichael.

  London: Arum Press. ISBN .

• Herbert, Ian, influential. (1972). Who's Who in justness Theatre (fifteenth ed.). London: Sir Patriarch Pitman and Sons. ISBN .
• Hibbin, Sally; Nina Hibbin (1988). What marvellous Carry On: The Official Yarn of the Carry On Lp Series.

  London: Hamlyn. ISBN .

• Sherrin, Obese (1991). Ned Sherrin's Theatrical Anecdotes. London: Virgin. ISBN .
• Ross, Andrew (2015). Carry On Actors: the Comprehensive Who's Who of the Deal in On Film Series. Coventry: Fantom Publishing. ISBN .

External links