Anna Massey

Anna Massey
Born	Anna Raymond Massey 11 August 1937 (1937-08-11) (age 72) Thakeham, West Sussex, England, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1958–present
Spouse(s)	Jeremy Brett (1958–1962) Uri Andres (1990–present)

Anna Raymond Massey, CBE (born 11 August, 1937) is an English actress.

Early life

Massey was born in Thakeham, West Sussex, England, the daughter of British actress Adrianne Allen and Canadian-born Hollywood actor Raymond Massey. Her late brother, Daniel Massey, was also an actor. She is the niece of Vincent Massey, a Governor General of Canada.

Career

Massey was on stage as a teenager and made her film debut in 1958. In 1960, she played a potential murder victim in Michael Powell's cult thriller Peeping Tom. She played the role of the cockney barmaid Babs in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972). She appeared with her brother Daniel playing deadly siblings in the 1973 horror film The Vault of Horror.

Massey continued to make occasional film and stage appearances, but has worked more frequently in television, in dramas such as The Pallisers (1974), the 1978 adaptation of Rebecca (in which she starred along with her ex-husband, Jeremy Brett), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978), The Cherry Orchard (1980), and Anna Karenina (1985). She had roles in the British sitcoms The Darling Buds of May (1991) and The Robinsons (2005). She has also appeared in a number of mysteries and thrillers on British television, including episodes of Inspector Morse, The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, Midsomer Murders, Strange, and Lewis. She is the narrator of This Sceptred Isle on BBC Radio. She also played the part of Josephine Daunt in Daunt and Dervish on BBC radio.

In 1986, Massey was awarded the British Academy TV Award for Best Actress for her role in Hotel Du Lac.

Personal life

In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December, 2004 she was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drama.

She is the ex-wife of late stage and screen actor Jeremy Brett .

She published an autobiography in 2006.

Partial filmography

• Peeping Tom (1960) (as Helen)
• Frenzy (1972)
• The Vault of Horror (1973)
• Hotel du Lac (1986)
• The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) (as Miss Prism)
• The Machinist (2004)
• He Knew He Was Right TV (2004)
• Belonging (2004)
• Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)
• The Gigolos (2006)
• Fairy Stories By The Brothers Grimm (audiobook) (2007)
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles (2008) as Mrs D'Urberville

Books

• Massey, Anna (2006). Telling Some Tales. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-179645-8. 

References

External links

• Anna Massey at the Internet Movie Database
• Anna Massey at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Actor's Compendium
• Anna Massey at Allmovie