Betty Marsden

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Betty Marsden (born February 24, 1919 in Liverpool , † July 18, 1998 in London ) was a British actress .

Life

Marsden, who came from a poor background, left her parents' home at the age of six and was brought up by a music teacher from Somerset. She recognized the talent of her protégé early on and encouraged her. At the age of 12 Betty Marsden won a scholarship for the Italia Conti Acting School and received her first appearances. During the Second World War she worked in troop support ("Ensa").

Although she aspired to a career as a stage actress in classic roles, she was mostly committed to comic roles due to her comedic talent. In the 1950s she played in numerous revues a . a. at the Edinburgh Festival, on London's West End as the youngest Peter Pan actress of her time and alongside Stanley Baxter in the revue The Brighter Side .

Betty Marsden was particularly successful as a radio comedian. From 1958 she worked alongside Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams in the radio programs Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne . She played numerous skits from the pen of the authors Barry Took and Marty Feldman and still embodied popular characters in her home country such as "Daphne Whitethigh", "Fanny Haddock", "Dame Celia Volestrangler" and "Lady Beatrice Counterblast". When Kenneth Horne died in 1969, these radio broadcasts were canceled.

In the following years, Betty Marsden starred in various feature film productions such as Was der Butler sah (with Michael Ward , directed by Lindsay Anderson ) and two films in the Carry-on… film series : Carry on Regardless and Carry on Camping .

Marsden later shifted her artistic focus back to the stage. In 1975 she took on the role of " Aunt Dahlia " in the loosely based musical By Jeeves by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the Wodehouse novel Alter Adel ist nicht rostet . She played "Lady Bracknell" in Oscar Wilde's Being Serious Is Everything , "Martha" in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and appeared in a Peter Pan production at the National Theater a few months before her death .

In addition, she continued to work for radio and as a speaker for audio books. Her last production was a radio play version of CS Lewis ' Chronicles of Narnia for the BBC in July 1998.

Betty Marsden died after multiple heart attacks on July 18, 1998 at the age of 79.

Filmography

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Alan Ayckburn: Background to the Musical By Jeeves , accessed May 3, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Marsden, Betty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actress
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1998
Place of death London