The Stage

Irene Richmond

Published Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 09:20 by Michael Quinn

The daughter of pioneering cinema owners, Irene Richmond was to appear in some of the most important British films of the sixties and establish a popular profile in television and theatre.

Born in Wrexham on November 15, 1911, Richmond’s early interest in performing was quashed due to concerns over her falling academic standards. Her passion for acting survived, however, and on leaving school she studied at the Oxford School of Drama and made her professional debut in Henley-on-Thames.

During the Second World War she enlisted in ENSA and spent the conflict entertaining troops and starting a family, postponing a return to acting until the mid-fifties. It was a typically self-effacing and courageous decision. Although in her forties by then, she acquired a reputation as an actor of intelligence and emotional subtlety.

She rebuilt her career in repertory in Chichester, Worthing, Oxford and Bromley, later joining the Q Theatre in London where she worked alongside young emerging talents Sean Connery and Joan Collins. She regularly appeared at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Liverpool Playhouse and London’s Hampstead and Royal Court theatres.

In 1960 her first credited film role was as Shirley Anne Field’s mother in Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Significant roles in a number of horror films directed by Freddie Francis, as well as in John Schlesinger’s Darling and Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man!, followed.

Richmond’s television appearances included Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, ITV Playhouse, a six-month spell in the original incarnation of Crossroads, and as Rodney Bewes’ mother in The Likely Lads.

Retiring to Bournemouth, she remained active as organiser of a poetry group and fund-raiser for the town’s Shelley Theatre.

She died, aged 97, on May 24, and is survived by her daughter, Penelope Goddard and granddaughter Francesca Button, both of whom followed her into acting.