Frances de la Tour

Infobox actor
name = Frances de la Tour


caption =
birthname = Frances de la Tour
birthdate = birth date and age|1944|7|30|df=yes
birthplace = Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England
occupation = Actress
yearsactive = 1970-present
tonyawards = Best Featured Actress in a Play
2006 "The History Boys"
awards = Evening Standard British Film Awards Best Actress
1981 "Rising Damp"

Frances de la Tour (born 30 July 1944) is an English actress perhaps best known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the British sitcom "Rising Damp" or her role as Madame Olympe Maxime in the film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

Biography

De la Tour was born in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, the daughter of Moyra (née Fessas) and Charles De La Tour. She was educated at London's "Lycée Français" and the Drama Centre, (a college of the University of the Arts London). In the 1970s, she was a member of the Trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party alongside Vanessa Redgrave. She continued to work frequently with Redgrave, and later joined the same political grouping – the Marxist Party. In recent years she has continued her political activism working for Respect - The Unity Coalition when it was founded in 2003-4. She is the sister of Andy de la Tour, and was briefly married to playwright Tom Kempinski. She has a son and a daughter. [http://www.filmreference.com/film/40/Frances-Tour.html Frances de la Tour Biography] accessed 23 May 2007]

Career

RSC and National companies

On leaving drama school she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1965 where she studied with Michel Saint-Denis. Over the next six years, she played many small roles with the RSC in a variety of plays, gradually building up to larger parts such as Hoyden in "The Relapse" and culminating in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in which she played Helena as a comic "tour de force".In the 1970s, she worked steadily both on the stage and on television. Some of her notable appearances were Rosalind in "As You Like It" at the Oxford Playhouse in 1975, Isabella in "The White Devil" at the Old Vic in 1976. She enjoyed a collaboration with Stepney's Half Moon Theatre, appearing in the London première of Dario Fo's "We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay" (1978), Eleanor Marx's "Landscape of Exile" (1979), and in the title role of "Hamlet" (1980).

In 1980, she played Stephanie, the violinist with MS in "Duet for One", a play written for her by Kempinski, for which she won the Olivier for Best Actress. She played Sonya in "Uncle Vanya" opposite Donald Sinden at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1982. Her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten" won her another Olivier for Best Actress in 1983. She joined the National Theatre for the title role in "Saint Joan" in 1984 and appeared there in "Brighton Beach Memoirs" in 1986. She again won the Olivier for Best Supporting Actress for Martin Sherman's play about Isadora Duncan, "When She Danced" with Vanessa Redgrave at the Globe (now the Gielgud) Theatre in 1991, Leo in "Les parents terribles" at the National in 1994. She co-starred with Maggie Smith in Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women" at the Wyndham's in 1994 and with Alan Howard in Albee's "The Play About the Baby" at the Almeida in 1998). In 1999, she returned to the RSC to play Cleopatra opposite Alan Bates in "Antony and Cleopatra". In 2004, she played Mrs Lintott in Alan Bennett 's "The History Boys" at the National, later on Broadway and in the film version (2006).

Television Roles

Her many television appearances include the 1980 miniseries "Flickers" alongside Bob Hoskins, the TV version of "Duet for One", the series "A Kind of Living", "Tom Jones", episodes of "Poirot", "Marple" and "Waking the Dead". Of all her TV roles, however, she is best-known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire Television comedy "Rising Damp". De la Tour did not get on well with her "Rising Damp" co-star Leonard Rossiter, and has generally declined commenting publicly about this period of her life. She told Richard Webber, who p [enned a 2001 book about the series, that Ruth Jones "was an interesting character to play. We laughed a lot on set, but comedy is a serious business and Leonard took it particularly seriously, and rightly so. Comedy, which is so much down to timing, is exhausting work. But it was a happy time."

Recent activity

In 2003, de la Tour played a terminally ill woman in the film "Love Actually", although her scenes were cut from the film's theatrical release, and only appear on the DVD.

In 2005 she played Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". She recently (Dec 2005) starred in the London production of the highly acclaimed anti-Iraq-war one-woman play "Peace Mom" by Dario Fo, based on the writings of Cindy Sheehan. She won a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award in 2006 for her work in "The History Boys" on Broadway. New York's critics have described her performance as "the drollest performance you'll ever see", "superb", "sublime", "marvellous" and "perfect". [http://www.historyboysonbroadway.com/reviews.php]

She was nominated for the 2006 BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role for her work on the film version of "The History Boys". She is also set to play the role of Endora in the forthcoming new UK remake of Bewitched for the BBC.

Awards and nominations

;Awards
* 1980: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a New Play – "Duet for One"
* 1983: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival – "A Moon for the Misbegotten"
* 1992: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role – "When She Danced"
* 2006: Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play – "The History Boys"
* 2006: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play – "The History Boys"

;Nominations
* 1986: British Academy Television Awards for Best Actress – "Duet for One"
* 2007: BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role – "The History Boys"

Filmography

*"Rising Damp" (1974-1978) - Miss Ruth Jones
*"" (1977) - Maggie
*"Rising Damp" (1980) - Miss Ruth Jones
*"Flickers" (1980) - Maud Cole
*"Cold Lazarus" (1996) - Emma Porlock
*"The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" (1997) - Aunt Western
*"The Cherry Orchard" (1999) - Charlotte Ivanovna
*"Agatha Christie's Poirot - Death on the Nile" (2004) - Salome Otterbourne
*"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005) - Madame Olympe Maxime
*"The Moving Finger" (2006) - Mrs. Maud Dane Calthrop
*"The History Boys" (2006) - Dorothy Lintott
*"Nutcracker: The Untold Story" (2009) - Rat Mother/Frau Eva

References

External links

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* [http://alanbates.com/abarchive/interviews/cleoint.html "But you're beautiful, Miss Jones": Interview]
* [http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/awards/winners#Actress Oliviers for Actress category]