Dame Dorothy Tutin (8 April 19306 August 2001) was an English actress of stage, film and television. For her work in the theatre, she won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She was made a CBE in 1967 and a Dame (DBE) in 2000.
Tutin began her stage career in 1949 and won the 1960 Best Actress Evening Standard Award for Twelfth Night. Having made her Broadway debut in the 1963 production of The Hollow Crown, she received a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1968 original Broadway production of Portrait of a Queen. In the 1970s, she won a second Best Actress Evening Standard Award and won the Olivier Award (then the Society of London awards) for Best Actress in a Revival for A Month in the Country and The Double Dealer. Her films included The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), The Beggar's Opera (1953), A Tale of Two Cities (1958), Savage Messiah (1972) and The Shooting Party (1985).
An obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage. With her husky voice, deep brown eyes, wistful smile and sense of humour, she brought an enduring charm to all kinds of stage drama, ancient and modern, as well as to films and television plays in a career that spanned more than 40 years".
Biography
Dorothy Tutin was born in London on 8 April 1930, the daughter of John Tutin and Adie Evelyn Fryers, a Yorkshire couple who married the following year.
She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, Surrey and studied for the stage at PARADA and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tutin was also a talented pianist.
In 1963 she married the actor Derek Waring, and they had two children, Nicholas (born 1966) and Amanda, both of whom became actors (mother and daughter appeared together in the 1989 All Creatures Great and Small episode "Mending Fences").
She also performed as the teacher Sarah Burton in the TV series South Riding (1974), based on the novel South Riding by Winifred Holtby. She starred as Mrs. Alving in Yorkshire Television production of Ibsen's Ghosts (1977). In the early 1980s, Tutin also appeared in the made-for-television film Murder with Mirrors (1985, based on an Agatha Christie novel) along with Helen Hayes and Bette Davis. Another of her notable roles was as Goneril in an Emmy-winning television production of Shakespeare's King Lear (1983), opposite Laurence Olivier as King Lear. She guest starred in an episode of the 1980s TV-series Robin of Sherwood as Lady Margaret of Gisbourne.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable"
!Year
!Award
!Category
!Work
!Result
!Ref
|-
|1953
|BAFTA Film Award
|Most Promising Newcomer to Film
|The Importance of Being Earnest
|
|
|-
|1960
|Evening Standard Award
|Best Actress
|Twelfth Night
|
|
|-
|1960
|Tony Award
|Best Actress in a Play
|Portrait of a Queen
|
|
|-
|1971
| BAFTA TV Award
|Best Actress
|The Six Wives of Henry VIII / Somerset Maugham Series (Flotsam and Jetsam)
|
|
|-
|1973
|BAFTA Film Award
|Best Actress
| Savage Messiah
|
|
|-
|1975
|Evening Standard Award
|Best Actress
|A Month in the Country
|
|
|-
|1975
|BAFTA TV Award
|Best Actress
|South Riding
|
|
|-
|1976
|Olivier Award
|Best Actress in a Revival
|A Month in the Country
|
|
|-
|1978
|Olivier Award
|Best Actress in a Revival
|The Double Dealer
|
|
|}
Honours
Tutin was created Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1967 and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 2000.
Filmography
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
|-
|1952 ||The Importance of Being Earnest || Cecily Cardew ||
|-
|1953 ||The Beggar's Opera || Polly Peachum ||
|-
|1958 ||A Tale of Two Cities || Lucie Manette ||
|-
|1970 ||Cromwell || Queen Henrietta Maria ||
|-
|rowspan=2|1972 ||The Spy's Wife || Hilda Tyler ||
|-
|Savage Messiah || Sophie Brzeska ||
|-
|rowspan=2|1985 ||The Shooting Party || Lady Minnie Nettleby ||
|-
|Murder with Mirrors || Mildred Strete ||
|-
|1994 ||Great Moments in Aviation || Gwendolyne Quim ||
|-
|1996 ||Indian Summer || Luna ||
|}
References
;Notes
;Sources
- Who's Who in the Theatre 17th edition, Gale (1981). .
- Theatre Record and its annual Indexes.
External links
- Obituary: The Independent
- Obituary: The Daily Telegraph