Maureen Pryor

Maureen Pryor (23 May 1922 – 5 May 1977) was an Irish-born English character actress who made stage, film and television appearances.

Early life

Maureen Pryor was born Maureen Pook in 1922 in Limerick, Ireland, to a Cockney father and an Irish mother. She began acting with Manchester Repertory in 1938 and studied with Michel Saint-Denis at the London Theatre Studio (1939-40).

Career

She appeared in the West End in Seán O'Casey's Red Roses for Me, Noël Coward's Peace In Our Time, John Griffith Bowen's After the Rain (also on Broadway),^[1] Doris Lessing’s Play with a Tiger^[2] and plays such as Little Boxes and Where’s Tedd.^[3] She was a member of the Stables Theatre Company. She also appeared on Broadway in the premiere season of Boeing-Boeing (1965).^[1] In Manchester, she appeared in Eugene O'Neill's one-act play Before Breakfast, directed by Bill Gilmour.

She made over 500 television appearances, including a Play for Today, "O Fat White Woman" (1971),^[4] adapted by William Trevor from his owen short story, and Ken Russell's television film Song of Summer (1968), in which she played Jelka Delius, the long-suffering wife of the composer Frederick Delius. Russell cast her again in his cinema film The Music Lovers (1970) as Tchaikovsky's mother-in-law.

Selected filmography

• The Lady with the Lamp (1951)
• The Weak and the Wicked (1953)
• Doctor in the House (1954)
• Orders Are Orders (1954)
• The Secret Place (1957)
• Doctor at Large (1957)
• Heart of a Child (1958)
• Conspiracy of Hearts (1960)
• No Love for Johnnie (1961)
• Life for Ruth (1962)
• Madhouse on Castle Street (TV, 1963; Mrs Griggs; this was Bob Dylan's acting debut)
• The Sandwich Man (1966)
• Omnibus: Song of Summer (TV, 1968)
• The Music Lovers (1970)
• Lady Caroline Lamb (1972; Mrs Butler)
• The National Health (1973; the matron)
• The Black Windmill (1974)
• Shoulder to Shoulder (1974, BBC TV; as Dame Ethel Smyth)

Personal life

Her first marriage ended in divorce, her second in separation. She had one son, Mark, and died in 1977 from a heart ailment.

References

Sources

• IMDb biography
• IMDb