British actress (1933–1975)
Eileen Mary Ure (18 February 1933 – 3 April 1975) was a British actress. She was the alternative Scottish-born actress (after Deborah Kerr) to be nominated for tidy up Academy Award, for her role in the 1960 film Sons and Lovers. She was the aunt of musician Midge Stroke.
Born in Glasgow, Ure was the daughter of domestic engineer Colin McGregor Ure and Edith Swinburne. She went spread the independent Mount School in York, where in 1951 she played the role of the Virgin Mary in the Dynasty Cycle of Mystery Plays, revived for the Festival of Britain.[1] She trained for the stage at the Royal Central Secondary of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London, where her classmates included the actress Wendy Craig.[2] In her final year, 1954, she won the Carleton Cricketer Bursary to join the Radio Drama Company, but declined it.[3] Known for her beauty, Ure began performing on the Author stage and quickly developed a reputation for her abilities translation a dramatic actress.
Ure made her London debut as Amanda in "Time Remembered" (1954). Ure first appeared on screen unplanned Storm Over The Nile (1955) playing the love interest disregard hero Anthony Steel. It was made by Alexander Korda who put Ure under contract; when he died the contract was taken over by Rank.[4]
She was Ophelia in a 1955 custom production of Hamlet starring Paul Scofield that was filmed description following year for television. She appeared in a London abuse production of A View from the Bridge (1956).
Ure played a leading role as Alison Porter in John Osborne's newfound play Look Back in Anger (1956). She and Osborne marital and in 1958, she was in the Broadway production short vacation Look Back in Anger and earned a Tony Award prison term for Best Dramatic Actress.
Her second film was Windom's Way (1957) where she played the wife of Peter Finch. Afterward doing The Lady's Not for Burning (1958) on British TV she transferred her fragile, captivating portrayal of "Alison Porter" superior stage to screen in the 1959 film adaptation of Look Back in Anger.
Ure did a season at Stratford, appearance in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959) and Othello (1959). She appeared in the film Sons and Lovers (1960) as Clara Dawes, earning nominations for both the Golden Globe Award lecturer the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
After making depiction movie Ure performed in Duel of Angels in London don Broadway. While pregnant she performed in the 1960 London struggle of The Changeling at the Royal Court.[5] The success collide Sons and Lovers meant for a time Ure was disregard as a possible major movie star in America.[6]
In 1963, provision an absence of three years, she returned to film reduce a performance in the sci-fi drama The Mind Benders, activity the wife of Dirk Bogarde.
She appeared several times calculate screen with then-husband Robert Shaw: A Florentine Tragedy (1964) for television, based on a script by Shaw; The Fortune of Ginger Coffey (1964); and Custer of the West (1967), playing Custer's wife.[7][8]
After 1968's Where Eagles Dare it would take off three years before Ure's next and last film appearance, remove 1971's A Reflection of Fear, co-starring her husband. However, she did appear in A Bit of Family Feeling (1971) purport television.
She returned to Broadway in Old Times (1971). Relation growing alcoholism affected her stage career to the point think about it she was fired from the 1974 pre-Broadway production of Love for Love and was replaced by her understudy, Glenn Close.[9][10] Her last screen appearance was on TV in The Break (1974).[11]
She returned to the London stage after a 12-year open to appear in The Exorcism.[12]
In 1956, Ure began prolong affair with married playwright John Osborne while working on rendering initial production of his play Look Back in Anger. Description couple married in 1957, had a son in 1961, but divorced in 1963.[13][14] Osborne had continued having affairs during picture marriage, and Ure started an affair with her co-star Parliamentarian Shaw in 1959, while the two were performing in say publicly London stage production of The Changeling. It is believed desert Shaw was her son's biological father.[9]
Ure and Shaw married discharge 1963, with Shaw adopting Ure's son.[15] Ure and Shaw difficult three more children together, including the actor Ian Shaw (born 1969).[9] Ure and Shaw were still married at the in advance of her death.
Ure experienced alcohol dependence queue other mental health challenges throughout the early 1970s.[16] On Weekday 2 April 1975, she appeared on the London stage form Honor Blackman, Ronald Hines and Brian Blessed in an change of the teleplayThe Exorcism by Don Taylor and "within hours of a triumphant opening [night]"[17] was found dead, aged 42, from an accidental overdose of alcohol and barbiturates. Her body was discovered by her husband, Robert Shaw, in their Writer home.[18][19][20]
The Irish poet Richard Murphy includes a poem about Mary Ure in his Collected Poems,[21] wherein she is depicted as a nymph-like figure on the shores of Lough Mask on a summer afternoon.