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Irene Worth | |
|---|---|
 Worth inThe Scapegoat (1959) | |
| Born | Harriett Elizabeth Abrams (1916-06-23)June 23, 1916 Fairbury, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Died | March 10, 2002(2002-03-10) (aged 85) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Royal Central School of Speech and Drama |
| Years active | 1943–2001 |
Irene Worth,CBE (June 23, 1916 – March 10, 2002),[1] bornHarriett Elizabeth Abrams, was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the British and American theatre. She pronounced her first name with three syllables: "I-REE-nee".
Worth made herBroadway debut in 1943, joined theOld Vic company in 1951 and theRoyal Shakespeare Company in 1962. She won theBAFTA Award for Best British Actress for the 1958 filmOrders to Kill. Her other film appearances includedNicholas and Alexandra (1971) andDeathtrap (1982). A three-time Tony Award winner, she won theTony Award for Best Actress in a Play forTiny Alice in 1965 andSweet Bird of Youth in 1976, and won the 1991Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play forLost in Yonkers, a role she reprised in the 1993film version. One of her later stage performances was oppositePaul Scofield in the 2001 production ofI Take Your Hand in Mine at theAlmeida Theatre in London.
Harriett Elizabeth Abrams was born inFairbury, Nebraska, the eldest of three children born toMennonite parents, Heinrich "Henry" Abrams (who was born in Russia) and Agnes (née Thiessen) Abrams, both teachers.[2] The family moved from Nebraska to Southern California in 1920.[3] She was educated atNewport Harbor High School, Santa Ana Junior College, andUCLA. After graduation, she followed her parents and became a teacher, while pursuing acting.[2] She changed her name to Irene Worth[2] and by 1944 had settled in London, where she remained for much of her career.[4]
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She joined theOld Vic company in 1951, worked withTyrone Guthrie and there playedDesdemona, Helena inA Midsummer Night's Dream, Portia inThe Merchant of Venice and her firstLady Macbeth. The company went to South Africa with Worth as one of the leading ladies.
In 1953, she joined the fledglingShakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario for its inaugural season. There she was the principal leading lady, performing under an enormous tent withAlec Guinness inAll's Well That Ends Well andRichard III.
She returned to London inN.C. Hunter's "Chekhovian" dramaA Day by the Sea, with a cast that includedJohn Gielgud andRalph Richardson. She joined the Midland Theatre Company in Coventry forUgo Betti'sThe Queen and the Rebels. Her transformation from "a rejected slut cowering at her lover's feet into a redemption of regal poise" ensured a transfer to London, whereKenneth Tynan wrote of her technique: "It is grandiose, heartfelt, marvellously controlled, clear as crystal and totally unmoving."
In the 1950s, Worth demonstrated her exceptional versatility by playing in the farceHotel Paradiso in London withAlec Guinness, high tragedy in the title role ofSchiller'sMary Stuart, co-starringEva Le Gallienne, and on Broadway and Shakespearean comedy inAs You Like It at Stratford, Ontario. InIvor Brown's playWilliam's Other Anne, she played Shakespeare's first girlfriendAnne Whateley oppositeJohn Gregson as Shakespeare.
She also made a number of well-regarded appearances in British films of the period, most notably her powerful performance as a French Resistance agent inAnthony Asquith's 1958 wartime espionage dramaOrders to Kill, which earned her the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1962, she joined theRoyal Shakespeare Company at theAldwych Theatre, and it was there that she gave some of her great performances. She was Goneril toPaul Scofield's Lear inPeter Brook's acclaimedKing Lear, the first of many collaborations with Brook. She recreated her implacable Goneril in the stark, black-and-white film version of this production.
She repeated her Lady Macbeth and appeared again for Brook inFriedrich Dürrenmatt'sThe Physicists. Playing an asylum superintendent, she showed the darker side of her acting. She then went to New York City in 1965 for the opening ofEdward Albee's enigmaticTiny Alice, in which she co-starred with SirJohn Gielgud and which won her the first of her threeTony Awards.
She returned to theRSC at the Aldwych to repeat her role. She worked with Peter Brook in Paris and toured Iran withOrghast, Brook's attempt to develop an international theatre language. She joined theNational Theatre at the Old Vic in 1968 to play Jocasta in Peter Brook's production ofSeneca'sOedipus, opposite Gielgud. She appeared with SirNoël Coward's in his trilogy,Suite in Three Keys, in which he made his last on-stage appearance.
In 1974, she appeared in three thematically linked plays at theGreenwich Theatre directed byJonathan Miller under the umbrella title of Family Romances and using the same actors for each play. Worth took the roles of Gertrude inHamlet, Madame Arkadina in Chekhov'sThe Seagull, and Mrs Alving in Ibsen'sGhosts.
Worth spent most of the 1970s in North America. She was an acclaimedHedda Gabler at Stratford, Ontario, a role she considered one of her more satisfying achievements and which promptedWalter Kerr to write inThe New York Times "Miss Worth is just possibly the best actress in the world."
She played Princess Kosmonopolis inTennessee Williams'sSweet Bird of Youth oppositeChristopher Walken, which brought her a second Tony Award. She was Madame Ranevskaya inThe Cherry Orchard, for which she received another Tony nomination and which featuredRaúl Juliá,Mary Beth Hurt andMeryl Streep, whose career was in its beginning stages. Toward the end of the decade she played Winnie inBeckett'sHappy Days.
Worth also appeared in the premiere ofThe Lady from Dubuque, another Albee play, which closed after 12 performances; a revival ofIbsen'sJohn Gabriel Borkman;Toys in the Attic byLillian Hellman; andThe Golden Age byA.R. Gurney.
She starred as the goddess Athena in TheNational Radio Theater's 1981Peabody Award-winning radio drama ofTheOdyssey of Homer. On screen in 1982, Worth co-starred withMichael Caine andChristopher Reeve in the film version of a Broadway murder mysteryDeathtrap, playing a psychic.
In 1984, SirPeter Hall invited her to return to the National Theatre to play Volumnia inCoriolanus, with SirIan McKellen in the title role. The impresarioJoseph Papp persuaded her to repeat Volumnia off-Broadway in a production bySteven Berkoff, when she again was partnered by Christopher Walken as Coriolanus.
She was seen in SirDavid Hare'sThe Bay at Nice (National, 1987), for which she was nominated for theLaurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year.[5] She then appeared inChère Maître (New York, 1998 and Almeida, London 1999), compiled byPeter Eyre from the letters ofGeorge Sand andGustave Flaubert. Worth also starred along with SirMichael Hordern inGeorge Bernard Shaw's playYou Never Can Tell at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1987 and 1988.
In 1991, she won a third Tony for her performance as the tough-as-nails Grandma Kurnitz inNeil Simon'sLost in Yonkers, and later appeared in the film version along withRichard Dreyfuss andMercedes Ruehl.
In 1999, she appeared in the filmOnegin. As she was about to begin preview performances in a Broadway revival ofAnouilh'sRing Round the Moon, Worth had a stroke and never appeared in the production. She continued to act, and in September 2001, one of her later appearances was with Paul Scofield at theAlmeida Theatre in the two-handed playI Take Your Hand in Mine, by Carol Rocamora based on the love letters ofAnton Chekhov andOlga Knipper.
During the mid-1960s in New York, Worth and Gielgud had collaborated in a series of dramatic readings, first from T.S. Eliot andEdith Sitwell and then from Shakespeare. It was a form of theatre at which she became more adept as she grew older, drawing fromVirginia Woolf,Ivan Turgenev and Noël Coward. She referred to them as "her recitals".
In the mid-1990s, she devised and performed a two-hour monologuePortrait of Edith Wharton, based onWharton's life and writings. Using no props, costumes or sets, she created characters entirely through vocal means.
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Worth died following a stroke in 2002, in New York's Roosevelt Hospital, at the age of 85.[3]
At her memorial service, held atthe Public Theater in New York City, numerous speakers paid tribute to her, includingEdward Albee,Christopher Walken,Mercedes Ruehl,Gene Saks,Meryl Streep,Bernard Gersten, andAlan Rickman. PianistHoracio Gutierrez performed Liszt’s Sonetto 104 del Petrarca.[1]
Worth was awarded anhonorary Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE) in 1975.[citation needed]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | One Night with You | Lina Linari | Film debut |
| Another Shore | Bucksie Vere-Brown | ||
| 1952 | Secret People | Miss Jackson | |
| 1958 | Orders to Kill | Léonie | |
| 1959 | The Scapegoat | Francoise | |
| 1962 | Seven Seas to Calais | Queen Elizabeth I | |
| 1963 | To Die in Madrid | Co-Narrator | Documentary |
| 1971 | King Lear | Goneril | |
| Nicholas and Alexandra | The Dowager Empress Marie Fedorovna | ||
| 1979 | Rich Kids | Madeline's Mother | |
| 1980 | Happy Days | Winnie | TV Movie |
| 1981 | Eyewitness | Mrs. Sokolow | |
| 1982 | Deathtrap | Helga ten Dorp | |
| 1983 | Separate Tables | Mrs. Railton-Bell | TV Movie |
| 1984 | The Tragedy of Coriolanus | Volumnia | TV Movie |
| Forbidden | Ruth Friedländer | ||
| 1985 | Fast Forward | Ida Sabol | |
| 1989 | The Shell Seekers | Dolly Keeling | TV Movie |
| 1993 | Lost in Yonkers | Grandma Kurnitz | |
| 1998 | Just the Ticket | Mrs. Haywood | |
| 1999 | Onegin | Princess Alina | Final film role |
