Geraldine McEwan

Geraldine McEwan, born Geraldine McKeown on 9 May 1932 in Old Windsor, Berkshire, England, was an English actress whose career spanned film, theatre, and television across more than six decades. The daughter of Donald and Norah McKeown, she came from a family with Irish roots on both sides: her maternal grandfather was from Kilkenny and her paternal grandfather from Belfast. Her father, a printers' compositor, ran the local Labour Party branch in Old Windsor. McEwan later simplified the spelling of her surname from McKeown to McEwan. She died on 30 January 2015.

McEwan's interest in theatre took hold during her teenage years, and her professional life in the field began at age fourteen as an assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Her first appearance on the Windsor stage came in October 1946, when she played an attendant of Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream. From March 1949 to March 1951, she performed numerous roles with the Windsor Repertory Company, including a part in the Ruth Gordon biographical play Years Ago alongside guest player John Clark. She won a scholarship to Windsor County Girls' School, where she took elocution lessons, and later credited a teacher named Miss Meech with fostering her love of English.

Her first West End appearance came on 4 April 1951 at the Vaudeville Theatre, where she played Christina Deed in Who Goes There. The following year she returned to the same venue in Sweet Madness by Peter Jones. Her television debut followed in 1954 in the BBC series Crime on Our Hands, alongside Jack Watling, Dennis Price, and Sonia Dresdel. In 1957, she took over from Joan Plowright in the Royal Court production of John Osborne's The Entertainer during its West End run at the Palace Theatre.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, McEwan appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was in the process of becoming the home venue of the newly formed Royal Shakespeare Company, and at the Aldwych, the RSC's original London base. In the 1958 Stratford season she played Olivia in Twelfth Night, directed by Peter Hall, as well as Marina in Pericles and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. She returned to Stratford in 1961 to portray Ophelia in Hamlet opposite Ian Bannen and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing with Christopher Plummer as Benedick.

McEwan's Broadway debut came in early 1963, when a production of Sheridan's The School for Scandal, directed by Sir John Gielgud, transferred to the Majestic Theatre in New York following an American tour. In the production, which had originated at the Haymarket Theatre in London, McEwan had replaced Anna Massey as Mrs. Teazle, with Sir Ralph Richardson playing her husband. Following the Broadway run of The School for Scandal, she appeared in the original 1965 production of Joe Orton's Loot alongside Kenneth Williams, though the production closed at the Wimbledon Theatre before reaching London.

At the suggestion of Sir Laurence Olivier, then artistic director of the National Theatre Company, McEwan joined the company at the Old Vic and performed in eleven productions over five years. Among her roles there were Angelica in William Congreve's Love for Love, Raymonde Chandebise in Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear, Millamant in Congreve's The Way of the World, and Vittoria Corombona in John Webster's The White Devil. She also appeared with Olivier in August Strindberg's Dance of Death, staged by Glen Byam Shaw and first performed in February 1967, with a film version featuring the same two leads released in 1969. Olivier's biographer Philip Ziegler recorded that Olivier had chosen the Strindberg play partly to provide McEwan with a strong role. Her work in the Strindberg and Webster productions was considered to have broadened her range beyond the comic parts for which she had previously been known.

In 1983, McEwan played Mrs. Malaprop in a National Theatre production of Sheridan's The Rivals, directed by Peter Wood and also featuring Michael Hordern as Sir Anthony Absolute. The performance earned her the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress. She made her directorial debut in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, co-produced with the Birmingham Rep and concluding with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Her contribution was a staging of As You Like It, with Kenneth Branagh playing Touchstone as an Edwardian music hall comedian.

McEwan took the title role in a Scottish Television adaptation of Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1978, a portrayal Spark herself considered the closest to her own conception of the character. Her other television work during this period included The Barchester Chronicles in 1982 and Mapp and Lucia from 1985 to 1986, in which she played Lucia opposite Prunella Scales as Mapp. In 1990, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her performance in the television serial Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. She won a second Evening Standard Award for Best Actress in 1995 for her portrayal of Lady Wishfort in a revival of The Way of the World at the National Theatre. From 2004 to 2009, she starred as Agatha Christie's detective Miss Marple in the ITV series Marple.

McEwan returned to Broadway in 1998, starring alongside Richard Briers in a revival of Eugène Ionesco's absurdist play The Chairs, which had begun its run in November 1997. She also appeared on Broadway in The Public Eye. Her performance in The Chairs earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play, one of five Olivier Award nominations she received over the course of her career. Born in Old Windsor, England, McEwan performed on Broadway across a span of years stretching from 1963 to 1998.