Miriam Karlin

Miriam Karlin (23 June 1925 – 3 June 2011) was an English actress born Miriam Samuels in Hampstead, North London, whose career spanned more than six decades. She was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family; members of her extended family were among those murdered at Auschwitz. Her father, Harry Samuels, was a barrister who specialized in industrial and trade union law, and her mother was Céline, née Aronowitz. Her elder brother, Michael Samuels (1920–2010), was a historical linguist whose work contributed to the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. Karlin was widely recognized throughout her career for her deep, husky voice.

After training at RADA, Karlin began her performing career in wartime productions for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), later working in repertory theatre and cabaret. Her stage debut in one of her early radio appearances, Terry-Thomas's Top of the Town, drew on characters she based on individuals who had appeared before the rent tribunal chaired by her father. She made her film debut in Down Among the Z Men in 1952, and in 1954 took the part of a Martian alien in the BBC radio series Journey into Space.

Karlin's Broadway appearance came in 1952, when she performed in Women of Twilight, a production she had also appeared in during its West End run in 1951–52. Her West End career encompassed a wide range of productions over several decades, including The Bad Seed (1955), The Diary of Anne Frank (1956–57), The Egg (1957–58), Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (1960–61), Fiddler on the Roof (1967–69), Bus Stop (1976), Torch Song Trilogy (1985–86), and Separate Tables (1993). Her performance in Fiddler on the Roof took place at Her Majesty's Theatre, where she appeared alongside Israeli actor Topol. In 1972, she played the title role in Mother Courage and Her Children at the Palace Theatre, Watford, in a production noted for its adherence to the Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt. In 1990, she became the first woman to perform the title role in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, in a production staged at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. Karlin also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Aldwych Theatre, and the Barbican Centre, and appeared in a national tour of 84 Charing Cross Road. In 2008, at the age of 83, she appeared in Stewart Permutt's Many Roads to Paradise at the Finborough Theatre in London.

Her film work included A Touch of the Sun, Room at the Top, The Millionairess, Heavens Above!, Ladies Who Do, The Small World of Sammy Lee, The Bargee, Just Like a Woman, A Clockwork Orange, and Mahler, directed by Ken Russell. In 1960, she appeared opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in the film adaptation of John Osborne's The Entertainer.

On television, Karlin became best known for portraying the combative shop steward Paddy in The Rag Trade, a BBC sitcom set in a textile factory that ran from 1961 to 1963. The character's habit of seizing any pretext to call a strike was embodied in her signature move of blowing a whistle and shouting "Everybody out!" The series was later revived by ITV in 1977. In 1966, she was a regular cast member on the Australian satirical program The Mavis Bramston Show. From 1992 to 1994, she played the Jewish ghost Yetta Feldman in the BBC sitcom So Haunt Me, alongside Tessa Peake-Jones and George Costigan. She also appeared in the 1990 television film Jekyll & Hyde, starring Michael Caine. In late 2005, while filming the Agatha Christie television mystery By the Pricking of My Thumbs, she received a cancer diagnosis that required partial removal of her tongue.

Away from performing, Karlin was an active member of the actors' union Equity and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1975 for her union and welfare work. She was a member of the Anti-Nazi League, campaigned against Holocaust denier David Irving, and worked to expose the Nazi sympathies of Austrian politician Jörg Haider. She served as a patron of Burma Campaign UK and Dignity in Dying, and as a trustee of the Eddie Surman Trust, an HIV charity. Karlin was also a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. She acknowledged a lifelong struggle with anorexia and bulimia beginning in 1956, and attributed her peripheral neuropathy to the long-term effects of her eating disorder and the abuse of laxatives and appetite suppressants. Karlin never married and lived in South London. She died on 3 June 2011, aged 85. Her autobiography, Some Sort of a Life, edited by Jan Sargent, was published by Oberon Books in 2007.