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 played Mistress Quickly in Terry Hand's 1975/76 production of Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She made over 500 television appearances, including a Play for Today, "O Fat White Woman" (1971),^[4] adapted by William Trevor from his own 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. In the 1974 BBC television film Shoulder to Shoulder she played the composer Dame Ethel Smyth.

Selected filmography

• The Lady with a Lamp (1951) - Sister Wheeler
• The Weak and the Wicked (1954) - Prison Matron
• Doctor in the House (1954) - Mrs. Cooper
• Orders Are Orders (1954) - Miss Marigold
• The Secret Place (1957) - Mrs. Haywood
• Doctor at Large (1957) - Mrs. Dalton
• Heart of a Child (1958) - Frau Spiel
• Conspiracy of Hearts (1960) - Sister Consuela
• No Love for Johnnie (1961) - Labour Party Member
• Life for Ruth (1962) - Teddy's mother
• Madhouse on Castle Street (TV, 1963; Mrs Griggs; this was Bob Dylan's acting debut)
• Modesty Blaise (1966) - (scenes deleted)
• The Sandwich Man (1966)
• Three Bites of the Apple (1967) - Birdie Guffy
• Omnibus: Song of Summer (TV, 1968)
• The Music Lovers (1970) - Nina's Mother
• Lady Caroline Lamb (1972; Mrs Butler) - Mrs. Buller
• The National Health (1973; the matron) - The Matron
• Shoulder to Shoulder (1974, BBC TV; as Dame Ethel Smyth) - Dr. Ethel Smyth
• The Black Windmill (1974) - Jane Harper

Personal life

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

References

Sources

• IMDb biography
• IMDb