Brenda Bruce

Brenda Bruce (7 July 1918, Manchester – 19 February 1996, London) was a British actress of film, stage and television.

Personal life

Brenda Bruce was born in Manchester. She was married twice, to television personality Roy Rich and to actor Clement McCallin. She had a son who died in childhood of asthma.^{[citation needed]}

Acting career

Bruce started her acting career as a teenager as a chorus girl. She was with the Birmingham Repertory Company (1936-1939) and a long-time actress with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). She was the RSC's resident Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, playing the role in 1964, 1968, 1975, and 1995. She also appeared as Irma in the RSC's production of Jean Genet's The Balcony in 1971.

In the 1950s she appeared on television in many dramas, and in a chat show Rich and Rich with her husband. She starred as Winnie in the 1962 British premiere of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, and in 1977 as Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime in "Murder Most English".

Brenda Bruce played P. G. Wodehouse's character Aunt Dahlia in the 1990s production of Jeeves and Wooster with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Other roles include Tilda in the Doctor Who story "Paradise Towers", Bea in the rag trade drama Connie, and in the The Riff Raff Element. In 1964, she also had the important role of Mary Lewis in Nightmare. In 1994, she starred in Honey for Tea, a short-lived sitcom.

She died in London 19 February 1996, aged 77, of undisclosed causes.

External links

• Brenda Bruce at the Internet Movie Database
• Performances in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol
• BBC Guide to Comedy, Brenda Bruce
• TimeOut London, Brenda Bruce Filmography
• Independent Obituary