Joyce Olivia Redman (9 December 1915 - 10 May 2012) was an Anglo-Irish actress.

Early life

Joyce Redman was born in Northumberland and grew up in County Mayo, Ireland. She was born into an Anglo-Irish family and educated by a private governess in Ireland, along with her three sisters. She trained in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Career

Her acting roles were primarily in the theatre and in television movies. Her most successful appearances on the stage were during the 1940s, in Shadow and Substance, Claudia, and Lady Precious Stream, and she appeared at the Comédie-Française as well as The Old Vic. She made a big success in New York in 1949 playing Anne Boleyn opposite Rex Harrison as Henry VIII in Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of the Thousand Days, and, in 1955, she joined Stratford-upon-Avon's Shakespeare Memorial Theatre to play Helena in All's Well That Ends Well and Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor. In 1974, Redman played Sophie Dupin, the mother of George Sand, in the BBC serial Notorious Woman.

Redman also appeared in a few films. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Tom Jones (1963); and again for Othello (1965), in which she appeared as Emilia to the Desdemona of Maggie Smith and the Othello of Laurence Olivier. Her work on Othello also earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

Personal life

Redman married Charles Wynne Roberts in New York in 1949; he predeceased her. She is survived by their three children and five grandchildren. Her niece is actress Amanda Redman.

Death

Redman died in Cranbrook, Kent, England, on 10 May 2012 aged 96 from pneumonia following a short illness.

Selected filmography

• One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
• Tom Jones (1963)
• Othello (1965)
• Prudence and the Pill (1968)
• Les Misérables (1978)

Reviews / biographical pieces

• "Anne". The New Yorker 24 (45): 12-13. 1 January 1949.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]