Susannah York trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she won the Ronson Award for most promising student (1960). The film Tunes of Glory immediately followed, in which she played Alec Guiness’ daughter, and lead roles in The Greengage Summer, Tom Jones and John Huston’s Freud. Other films include A Man for all Seasons with Paul Scofield, The Killing of Sister George with Beryl Reid, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? with Jane Fonda, which won her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress, Country Dance with Peter O’Toole, Jane Eyre with George C Scott, The Shout with Alan Bates, Superman and its sequel opposite Marlon Brando, The Maids with Glenda Jackson, Zee and Company with Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Caine and Robert Altman’s Images in 1972 for which she won the Palme D’Or for best actress in a starring role at the Cannes Film Festival.
Ms. York has starred in 62 internationally released motion pictures.
In the theatre she has worked widely on the London stage notably in Wings of a Dove, J.P. Donleavy’s A Singular Man, Edna O’Brien’s A Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers, Peter in Peter Pan, Prince Charming in Cinderella, The Apple Cart, Fatal Attraction, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Daphne du Maurier’s September Tide. Other key roles include Kleist’s Penthisilea, Blanche in A Street Car Named Desire, Amanda in Private Lives, and many others. In New York she starred in the Roundabout Theatre’s celebrated production of Hedda Gabler and in Dublin co-starred again with Peter O’Toole in Man and Superman. In Paris she played Blanche in Appearances for the Compagnie Renault-Barrault. She has starred in many major television plays including Arthur Miller’s The Crucible opposite Sean Connery and in Noel Coward’s Star Quality, and in two popular series Second Chance and We’ll Meet Again.
Susannah produced a huge show for peace at the Apollo Victoria in the mid-80’s and later edited The Big One, an anti-war anthology published by Methuen. She has written two children’s books In Search of Unicorns and Lark’s Castle, and toured world-wide in two one-woman shows Independent State and in her own translation of Cocteau’s The Human Voice. She also translated Paul Claudel’s Partage de Midi, performing it in London and Manchester, and in 1993 was made Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French ministry of culture. In London she has directed Cocteau’s The Eagle Has Two Heads, Joshua Goldstein’s Beginnings and The First Years, and Pushkin’s epic tale of Eugene Onegin. She has also served on the jury at the Cannes, Edinburgh and Berlin Film Festivals.
Most recent stage appearances have been with the Royal Shakespeare Company in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet and Camino Real in Stratford and London; and in An Ideal Husband and Tennessee William’s Small Craft Warnings; and in Picasso’s Women at the Edinburgh and Hong Kong arts festivals. Other recent work includes a nation-wide tour of David Hare’s Amy’s View, a short film Jean for Anthony Fabian; writing a television drama series, and the newly devised The Loves of Shakespeare’s Women, which she has performed in England, Scotland, Hungary, France, Italy, Georgia, and the United States. A companion book has been published by Nick Hern Books of London.
In November 2002 Ms. York returned to the West End playing the role of the elderly Wendy in an all-new musical adaptation of Peter Pan at the Royal Festival Theatre. In 2003 Ms. York reprised The Loves of Shakespeare’s Women at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in London, and she starred in a UK national tour of John Barton’s The Hollow Crown, an anthology of monologues on 800 years of the British monarchy. In the winter of 2005 she will co-star opposite Tony Curtis in the forthcoming feature film, Love is a Survivor, based upon the true story of Holocaust survivor of Herman Rosenblatt.
Susannah is a Director of the British Children’s Film Unit, and Trustee of the Campaign to Free Vanunu and has completed scripts for two films, the first of which is in the early stages of pre-production. She is the mother of two children and lives in London in a renovated house with a garden in which she loves to toil.
“Beautiful blonde actress who alternated conventional ingenue roles with daring performances and off-beat characterizations in controversial projects. She transcended the initial hype surrounding her beauty and sex appeal, which incidentally included an artful pictorial in Playboy magazine in 1964, to gradually become a first woman of the British stage and screen.”
Sir Alec Guiness, Sir John Geilgud, Marlon Brando, Ray Milland, Montgomery Clift, Charlton Heston, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O’Toole, Beryl Reid, George C. Scott, Paul Scofield, Sean Connery, Jane Fonda, Albert Finney, Gene Hackman, Robert Shaw, Michael Caine, Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson, Roger Moore, Warren Beatty, Elliot Gould and Christopher Reeve.
Susannah York Artistic Bio
