published on in blog

Thora Hird

Character actor Thora Hird, winner of three BAFTA TV awards and a beloved elder stateswoman of British stage and screen, died March 15 in London after suffering a stroke the week before. She was 91.

Despite ailments including osteoarthritis, hip replacements and a heart bypass, she remained a trouper, appearing in more than 700 roles, most often playing working-class women — something she honed during 10 years clerking at her local co-op as a lass.

Related Stories

Photo illustration of a pixelated Taylor Swift with caution signs on her face VIP+

How Celebrity Reps Are Fighting the Flood of Unauthorized AI Content

Carin Leon

Latin Music's Most Likely (or Eligible) Grammy Noms: Carin León, Kali Uchis, Young Miko

She was a favorite actress of John Osborne’s (at his request, she was cast in the 1960 film of his “The Entertainer”) and of John Schlesinger’s, for whom she co-starred in “A Kind of Loving” (1962). She also gave a powerful turn in Derec Longden’s televised “Lost for Words” (1999), for which she won her third BAFTA kudo. And of course she played the nurse in “Romeo and Juliet” onstage.

Popular on Variety

Born to actress Mary Hird and stage manager James Hird in Morecambe, Lancashire, she made her theatrical debut at 8 weeks old when her mother carried her onstage. She took to the boards on her own at 3, singing for wounded WWI soldiers.

Later she appeared early at Morecambe’s Royalty Theater, where her father was a stage manager.

Discovered by George Formby for films in 1939, she was put under contract to Ealing Studios, but the onset of World War II derailed that for much of the duration, though there were parts throughout (“The Big Blockade,” “The Black Sheep of Whitehall,” etc.).

Instead, she turned to the West End before returning to pics more fully post-WWII.

Onscreen, she developed her smaller, signature, working-class roles such as maids, landladies, clerks and the like — adopting in a wide range of regional accents that her father had helped her to master.

Among her many credits are “The Courtneys of Curzon Street,” “The Galloping Major,” “The Creeping Unknown,” “Sailor Beware,” “Fools Rush In” and “The Nightcomers.”

Playwright Alan Bennett wrote many TV plays for Hird, including “Me! I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “Afternoon Off” and powerful “Talking Heads” monologues. Before those she was in “Meet the Wife,” “The First Lady” and numerous other televised fare.

She won a 1989 BAFTA actress kudo for the first run of “Talking Heads” — “A Cream Cracker Under the Settee” — and won on her return to the series 10 years later. Among her numerous other TV credits are “In Loving Memory,” “Flesh and Blood,” her own religious show “Your Songs of Praise Choice/Praise Be!” (with “me pal oopstairs”) and “Last of the Summer Wine,” in which she starred as Edie Pengden for some 19 years.

She received an OBE in 1983 for her contributions to the arts and was made a dame in 1993. She received an honorary doctorate from Lancaster U. in 1989 Her autobiography, “Scene and Hird,” appeared in 1976.

Her drummer husband of 55 years, James Scott, died in 1994. She is survived by daughter Janette (who was a film actress as a child and teenager) and her grandchildren; her son-in-law was the late singer-songwriter Mel Torme.

Jump to Comments

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9nfXF%2FjqyanqaVZL2mu8%2BlnGamlazAcMDHqKmaZZiev6V5kGpocHBoaH51gI4%3D