Diana Quick

Diana Quick (born 23 November 1946) is an English actress.

Life and career

Quick was born in London, England. She grew up in Dartford, Kent, the third of a dentist's four children. She was educated at Dartford Grammar School for Girls, Kent and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. While at Oxford, she was the first woman president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

She was greatly aided by her English teacher, Miss Davis, at Dartford Grammar School for Girls, who encouraged her to pursue acting. She became a member of an amateur dramatic society in Crayford, Kent whilst at school as well as appearing in many school productions. She was feted as one of the most beautiful and talented actresses of her generation and in 1984 a magazine ran a cover of her with the caption "Is this the most beautiful woman in the world?"^{[citation needed]}

Quick is best known for her role as Julia Flyte in the television production of Brideshead Revisited. Her former longtime partner is actor Bill Nighy and they have one daughter, the actress Mary Nighy (born 1984). They have recently separated. The couple met in 1981 when co-starring in a play at the National Theatre in London. She was previously married to the actor Kenneth Cranham for a short time and had a relationship with Albert Finney which lasted seven years.

Quick spent seven years researching a book about her paternal family's life in India which has now been published (2009) by Virago with the title "A Tug on the Thread: From the British Raj to the British Stage". In it she reveals that she is of mixed race (Anglo-Indian) descent. Her great-grandfather served 23 years in the army in India before becoming a policeman and her great-grandmother had to flee from the Indian Mutiny after her father was killed.

Filmography

External links

• Diana Quick at the Internet Movie Database
• How love kept Bill Nighy and Diana Quick together, by Lester Middlehurst

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