Anna Massey CBE
Massey inBunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Born	Anna Raymond Massey (1937-08-11)11 August 1937 Thakeham,Sussex, England
Died	3 July 2011(2011-07-03) (aged 73) Kensington,London, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1955–2011
Spouses	Jeremy Brett ​ ​ (m. 1958; div. 1962)​ Dr Uri Andres ​ (m. 1988)​
Parent(s)	Raymond Massey Adrianne Allen
Relatives	Daniel Massey (brother) Vincent Massey (uncle) Alice Massey (aunt)
Anna Massey's voice from the BBC programmeThe Film Programme, 17 August 2007[1]

Anna Raymond Massey (11 August 1937 – 3 July 2011)^[2][3] was an English actress.^[4] She won aBAFTA Best Actress Award for the role of Edith Hope in the1986 TV adaptation ofAnita Brookner's novelHotel du Lac,^[5] a role that one of her co-stars,Julia McKenzie, has said "could have been written for her".^[6] Massey is also well known for her role inAlfred Hitchcock'sFrenzy (1972) as a barmaid who becomes involved with a suspected killer. She performed over one hundred character roles in British film and television.^[7] On the stage, in1982, Massey won theLaurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a Supporting Role forThe Importance of Being Earnest and was nominated for theAward for Actress of the Year in a New Play forSummer.^[8]

Massey was born inThakeham,Sussex, England, the daughter of British actressAdrianne Allen and Canadian-bornHollywood actorRaymond Massey.^[9] Her parents divorced when she was an infant and she continued to live in England with her mother. Her older brotherDaniel Massey also became an actor. She was the niece ofVincent Massey, aGovernor General of Canada, and her godfather was film directorJohn Ford.^[10]

Although she had no formal training at either drama school or inrepertory, Anna Massey made her first appearance on stage in May 1955 at the age of 17, at theTheatre Royal, Brighton, as Jane inThe Reluctant Debutante, subsequently making her first London appearance in the same play at theCambridge Theatre in May 1955 "and was suddenly famous".^[11] She then left the cast in London to repeat her performance inNew York in October 1956.^[12] In the 1990s she appeared withAlan Bennett in a dramatised reading ofT.S. Eliot's andVirginia Woolf's letters, in a production at theCharleston Festival devised byPatrick Garland.

Several of her early film roles were in mystery thrillers. She made her cinema debut in theScotland Yard filmGideon's Day (1958) as Sally, daughter ofJack Hawkins's Detective Inspector. The director was her godfather John Ford.^[11] She played a potential murder victim inMichael Powell's cult thrillerPeeping Tom (1960) and appeared inOtto Preminger'sBunny Lake Is Missing (1965). In 1972 she played the role of the barmaid Babs inAlfred Hitchcock's penultimate filmFrenzy. In the documentary on the film's DVD release, Massey mentioned that she originally auditioned for the much smaller role of the secretary Monica, a part for whichJean Marsh was cast. She also noted that her character's nude scenes inFrenzy were performed by body doubles. She appeared alongside her brother Daniel—they played siblings—in the horror filmThe Vault of Horror (1973).

Massey continued to make occasional film and stage appearances, but worked more frequently in television. She made her first small-screen appearance as Jacqueline inGreen of the Year in October 1955,^[12] and thereafter featured in dramas such asThe Pallisers (1974),The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978), the 1979 adaptation ofRebecca (in which she starred with her ex-husbandJeremy Brett),The Cherry Orchard (1980), andAnna Karenina (1985). She had roles in the British comedy seriesThe Darling Buds of May (1991)^[13] andThe Robinsons (2005). She also appeared in a number of mysteries and thrillers on television, including episodes ofInspector Morse,The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries,Midsomer Murders,Strange,Lewis, andAgatha Christie's Poirot.

WithImelda Staunton, she co-devised and starred as Josephine Daunt inDaunt and Dervish on BBC radio. She was the narrator ofThis Sceptred Isle onBBC Radio 4, a history of Britain fromRoman times which ran for more than 300 fifteen-minute episodes. In 2009, she also appeared in a new radio version ofThe Killing of Sister George.^[11]

In 1987, Massey was awarded theBAFTA Award for Best Actress for her role inHotel du Lac^[14] after acquiring the TV rights two years earlier, only a few weeks before the novel won theBooker Prize.^[6] She also appeared as Mrs D'Urberville in the 2008 BBC adaptation ofTess of the D'Urbervilles.^[10]

One of Massey's assets as an actress was her "extraordinary voice... it was so listenable".^[6] Although Massey's parts were varied, her "cut-glass English accent conveyed a cold and repressed character on screen".^[15] Michael Billington ofThe Guardian characterised her work as being informed by "stillness", such as in the National Theatre's production ofHarold Pinter'sA Kind of Alaska.^[16] Massey was the principal narrator of theBBC Radio series on British historyThis Sceptred Isle. She also recorded several audiobooks, includingDaphne Du Maurier'sRebecca.

She was known for a high level of preparation and effort, with one producer saying that she had a practice of using five different coloured pens on scripts to mark out "breaths and pauses" and the development of a scene; for example, "if a phrase early in a paragraph was going to be picked up again later, she would highlight those two bits in the same colour, so that it would remind her that that first phrase was referring to something later".^[6]

In the New Year's Honours List published on 31 December 2004, she was created aCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services todrama.^[17]

Massey published an autobiography in 2006,Telling Some Tales, in which she revealed a difficult early life, including a distant relationship with her father and estrangement with her brother. She described her failed marriage (1958–1962) to actorJeremy Brett, discussing his struggle withbipolar disorder. Brett and Massey divorced on 22 November 1962 after she claimed he left her for a man.^[18][19] The couple had one son.^[20] At an August 1988 dinner party held at the home of their mutual friend,Joy Whitby,^[9] she met Russian-born metallurgist Uri Andres, who had been based atImperial College, London since 1975.^[21] The couple were married from November 1988 until her death in 2011.^[16]

Massey was quoted as saying, "Theatre eats up too much of your family life. I have a grandson and a husband and I'd rather I was able to be a granny and a wife."^[22]

She died from lung cancer in Kensington, London^[23] on 3 July 2011, aged 73.^[5][10]

• Massey, Anna (2006).Telling Some Tales. London: Hutchinson.ISBN 0-09-179645-8.

• Massey family

• Anna Massey atIMDb
• Anna Massey at theBFI'sScreenonline
• Stage performances in Theatre Archive University of Bristol
• Obituary inThe Independent
• Obituary inThe Telegraph

• 1937 births
• 2011 deaths
• Massey family
• Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
• Deaths from cancer in England
• Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
• English film actresses
• English radio actresses
• English television actresses
• English people of Canadian descent
• People from Thakeham
• Actresses from West Sussex
• 20th-century English businesspeople
• Actors from Horsham District

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