Kathleen Byron

Kathleen Byron
Born	Kathleen Elizabeth Fell 11 January 1921(1921-01-11) West Ham, London, England, United Kingdom
Died	18 January 2009 (aged 88) Northwood, London, England
Other name(s)	Kathleen Jacob
Years active	1938–2001
Spouse(s)	Daniel Bowen (1943–1950) Alaric Jacob (1953–1995)

Kathleen Byron (11 January 1921 – 18 January 2009)^[1] was a British actress of stage, screen and television.

Biography

Byron was born in West Ham^[2] – now in the London Borough of Newham. Her father was a railway clerk; who later became a Labour mayor of the County Borough of East Ham. She attended the local grammar school and trained at Bristol's Old Vic Drama School before making her film debut in Carol Reed's The Young Mr Pitt (1942), in which she had two lines as a maid opposite Robert Donat.^[1]

In 1943, she married a USAAF pilot, Lt John Daniel Bowen; and moved to the United States. The director Michael Powell persuaded her to return to England where she was to make her most successful films.^[1] She was best known for her roles in the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger: as an angel in A Matter of Life and Death (1946), as leading lady opposite David Farrar in The Small Back Room (1949), and, most memorably of all, as the disturbed Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus (1947). Byron was romantically linked with Michael Powell around the time the film was made; and he was named as co-respondent when she was divorced in 1950.^[1]

Her success in Black Narcissus led her to Hollywood, which resulted with a supporting role in Young Bess (1953). She found the experience an unrewarding one and soon returned to Britain. Her subsequent roles of the time were mostly in B-Movies. In the 1960s and '70s she did mostly television work, including the role of Mme Celeste Lekeu in two episodes of the BBC drama Secret Army in 1977, a brief stint on the soap opera Emmerdale Farm in 1979, and a small role as Queen Louise of Denmark in Edward the Seventh in 1975.

Byron continued to act into the 1980s, 1990s and the new millennium, her film, theatre and television work included Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap (1990), David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980), the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Stephen Poliakoff's series, Perfect Strangers (2001).

In 1953 she married the British journalist and writer Alaric Jacob (who predeceased her), who was then working for the BBC. They had one son and daughter; with a child from Jacob's previous marriage.^[3]

She died 18 January 2009 in Northwood in north London.^[4]

Partial filmography

• A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
• Black Narcissus (1947)
• The Small Back Room (1949)
• Prelude to Fame (1950)
• Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951)
• Young Bess (1953)
• The Elephant Man (1980)
• Emma (1996)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998)
• Les Misérables (1998)

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009)

Sources

• McFarlane, Brian. An Autobiography of British Cinema. London: Methuen. 1997. ISBN 0-413-70520-X

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kathleen Byron

• Kathleen Byron at the Internet Movie Database
• Kathleen Byron at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Video of Kathleen Byron
• Obituary in The Guardian
• Obituary in The Independent
• Obituary in The Daily Telegraph
• Kathleen Byron at the CinéArtistes (French)