Sheila Burrell

Sheila Mary Burrell (9 May 1922 – 19 July 2011) was a British actress born in Blackheath, London, the daughter of a salesman and a cousin of Laurence Olivier. She received her training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, having previously attended St John's school in Bexhill-on-Sea. Her first marriage, to actor Laurence Payne, ended in dissolution; she subsequently married David Sim, a photographer specializing in portraiture and theatre work.

Burrell's stage career began in 1942, when she played Patsy in The Patsy in performances for the troops. Her first London appearance followed on 20 April 1944 at the Prince of Wales Theatre, where she played Rose in The Rest is Silence. Over the next several years she accumulated credits across a wide range of London venues and regional theatres, taking on roles including Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew in Liverpool in 1944, Maia Rubeck in When We Dead Awaken at the Chanticleer in March 1945, and Barbara Allen in Dark of the Moon at the Lyric Hammersmith and Ambassadors' Theatre in 1949. During the 1951–52 season with the Bristol Old Vic Company, she played Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men, Perpetua in Venus Observed, and Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost, among other roles. She returned to Bristol Old Vic in February 1956 to play Goneril in King Lear.

The role most closely associated with Burrell's stage career was Honor Klein in A Severed Head. She first played the part at the Theatre Royal, Bristol, in May 1963, and the production transferred to the Criterion Theatre in London in July of that year. In October 1964, Burrell brought the role to the Royale Theatre in New York, marking her first Broadway appearance. That New York engagement, produced in 1964, remains her sole Broadway credit.

Her subsequent stage work in Britain was extensive. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the 1970 Stratford season, playing Margaret in Richard III, Constance in King John, and Lucetta in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, reprising the last role at the RSC Aldwych in December 1970. In 1971 she appeared at the Royal Court in West of Suez, which transferred to the Cambridge Theatre, and in 1972 she performed at the National Theatre at the Old Vic in three productions: as the Duchess of Gloucester in Richard II, Lady Sneerwell in The School for Scandal, and First Witch in Macbeth. With the Actors' Company in August 1974, she played Agave in The Bacchae, Madame Pernelle in Tartuffe, and Madame Giry in The Phantom of the Opera. Her stage work continued into the 2000s, with appearances at venues including the National Theatre Cottesloe in Finding the Sun in 2001 and the Royal Court in The Lying Kind in 2002.

Burrell also maintained a parallel career in film and television. Her film appearances include Paranoiac in 1963, Laughter in the Dark in 1969, and Cold Comfort Farm in 1995, in which she played Ada Doom. On television, she appeared in the 1970 BBC series Six Wives of Henry VIII, playing Lady Rochford in three episodes, a performance for which she became particularly recognized by American audiences. Later television credits include Jane Eyre in 1996, The Woodlanders in 1997, and recurring appearances in Emmerdale in 2005 and 2007 as Phyllis King. Among her favorite stage roles, Burrell herself cited Barbara in Dark of the Moon, Honor Klein in A Severed Head, and Queen Margaret in Richard III.