Ada Brand Thomson^[1] (22 July 1929 – 3 October 1982), known professionally asVivien Merchant, was an English actress. She began her career in 1942, and became known for dramatic roles on stage and in films. In 1956 she married the playwrightHarold Pinter and performed in many of his plays.

Vivien Merchant
Portrait of Vivien Merchant byCecil Beaton
Born	Ada Thomson (1929-07-22)22 July 1929 Manchester, Lancashire, England
Died	3 October 1982(1982-10-03) (aged 53) London, England
Spouse	Harold Pinter ​ ​ (m. 1956;div. 1980)​
Children	1

Merchant achieved considerable success from the 1950s to the 1970s, winning theBAFTA TV Award for Best Actress in 1964. For her role in the filmAlfie (1966), she received anAcademy Award nomination forBest Supporting Actress, and won theBAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 1967, she starred in theBroadway production of Pinter'sThe Homecoming, and received aTony Award nomination. Her other films includedAccident (1967),The Offence (1972),Frenzy (1972),The Homecoming (1973), andThe Maids (1975). Suffering from depression and alcoholism as her marriage ended, she died in 1982, two years after her divorce.

Merchant took her stage name as a composite of the actressVivien Leigh and her brother, who was a merchant seaman (cited byMichael Billington). She began acting professionally in 1942, with supporting juvenile roles in repertory, progressing to West End roles in such works asNoël Coward'sSigh No More andAce of Clubs, becoming an established lead in repertory in the early 1950s. Merchant subsequently performed in many stage productions and several films, includingAlfie (1966),Accident (1967),Frenzy (1972), andThe Offence (also 1972). Her performance inAlfie gained herAcademy Award andGolden Globe nominations forBest Supporting Actress, and won her theBAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer and theNational Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress.

After Merchant married the playwrightHarold Pinter in 1956, she appeared in many of his plays, including the 1960 revival of his first play,The Room at theHampstead Theatre,A Slight Ache,A Night Out,The Collection, andThe Lover; the last was also a celebrated television production partneringAlan Badel atAssociated Rediffusion, for which she was given anEvening Standard Theatre Award for Best Newcomer and theBAFTA Award for Best Actress, both in 1963.

Merchant subsequently appeared as Wendy inTea Party oppositeLeo McKern in 1965. She starred as Ruth inThe Homecoming (1964) on stage in both London in 1965 and New York in 1967, receiving aTony Award nomination forBest Actress in a Play. She went on to star in thefilm version in 1973. The last of his plays in which she performed on stage wasOld Times (1971) as Anna. She played Lady Macbeth toPaul Scofield's Macbeth for theRoyal Shakespeare Company in 1967, directed bySir Peter Hall.

Merchant took the role of Madame in theGreenwich Theatre revival ofJean Genet'sThe Maids partneringGlenda Jackson andSusannah York: This was filmed in 1974 byChristopher Miles. In 1975, Merchant andTimothy Dalton headed the cast of a revival of Coward'sThe Vortex at theGreenwich Theatre.^[2]

Merchant was the first wife ofHarold Pinter, whom she met while working as arepertory actress; he was then working as an actor under the stage name of David Baron. They married in 1956, and their son, Daniel, was born in 1958.^[3]

Their marriage began disintegrating in the mid-1960s. From 1962 to 1969, Pinter had a clandestine affair withJoan Bakewell, which inspired his playBetrayal.^[4] In 1975, he began a serious affair with the historian LadyAntonia Fraser, the wife of SirHugh Fraser, which he confessed to his wife that March.^[5] At first, Merchant took it very well, saying positive things about Fraser, according to her friend artist Guy Vaesen (as cited by Billington); but, Vaesen recalled, after "a female friend of Vivien's trotted round to her house and poisoned her mind against Antonia ... life in Hanover Terrace [where the Pinters then lived] gradually became impossible". Pinter left, and Merchant filed for divorce and gave interviews to thetabloid press, expressing her distress.^[6][7] Merchant made some unflattering comments about Fraser at this time: "He didn't need to take a change of shoes. He can always wear hers. She has very big feet, you know."^[8] Merchant believed Fraser to be the basis for the character of Emma in Pinter's playBetrayal, never learning about his prior affair with Joan Bakewell.^[9]

The Frasers' divorce became final in 1977, and the Pinters' in 1980. In 1980, Pinter and Fraser married.

Merchant became deeply depressed after the end of her marriage to Pinter and turned to drinking. She died at the age of 53 on 3 October 1982, from alcoholism.^[10][11]

• Vivien Merchant atIMDb