Janet Munro

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Janet Munro (born September 28, 1934 in Blackpool , † December 6, 1972 in London ; actually Janet Neilson Horsburgh ) was a British film and television actress. During her career from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, she played roles in more than 20 film and television productions.

Life

Beginnings and collaboration with Disney

Janet Munro was born in 1934 as Janet Neilson Horsburgh , daughter of the Scottish actor and comedian Alex Munro (1911-1986, real name: Alexander Horsburgh ) and Phyllis Robertshaw, in England (according to other information in Scotland). As a child, she assisted her father, who during World War II looked after the members of the Royal Air Force . She later adopted his stage name. After working at the theater, Munro appeared in British film and television productions in the late 1950s. She made her debut with the supporting role of Effie in David MacDonald's comedy Small Hotel (1957), the film adaptation of a well-known play. A year earlier she had married the popular British actor Tony Wright .

She celebrated her breakthrough as an actress in 1958. Munro got the female lead in Quentin Lawrence's science fiction film The Devil's Cloud of Monteville , which was based on the hit series The Trollenberg Terror . Her role as a young and apparently deaf asylum patient in Philip Saville's television play The Deaf Heart also earned her praise . She was then voted "Miss Television of 1958" by the readers of a prominent magazine . In the same year, the American film producer Walt Disney became aware of the brunette actress and signed her. Munro then played leading roles in several Disney productions, including the mountain and adventure film The Third Man in the Mountain and Jungle of 1000 Dangers , an adaptation of The Swiss Robinson . She also acted successfully as the object of desire of the young Sean Connery in the Disney fairy tale film The Secret of the Haunted Cave . The part of the pretty Irish gardener's daughter won the 1960 Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actress , which she won together with Angie Dickinson and Tuesday Weld , among others .

Change to adult subject

After her contract with Disney ended in the early 1960s, Munro parted with the image of the spirited and innocent heroine that she had made known on both sides of the Atlantic. She turned back to work in British film and television, which offered her adult roles. A nomination for Best British Actress for the British Film Academy Award earned her the lead role in Basil Dearden's 1963 drama Burning Guilt , in which she is seen as a wife and mother whose child dies in an accident after the father ( played by Michael Craig ) refused to give the girl a blood transfusion for religious reasons. In the same year she gave one of her critically-rated best portraits in Ted Willis ' socially critical film School of the Sweet Life as a " fallen country girl " who goes astray despite the sincere love of a young man (played by John Stride ) in London Suicide ends.

Private life and early death

Munro was married twice. From 1956 to 1959 (according to other information from 1956 to 1961) she was the wife of actor Tony Wright (1925-1986). From 1963 to 1971 she was married to her fellow actor Ian Hendry , who was three years her senior , with whom she had starred in the 1962 television play Afternoon of a Nymph . From the mid-1960s, Munro's career began to stagnate due to an alcohol problem and she could no longer build on previous successes. She suffered two miscarriages and made her last film appearance in the supporting role of the alcoholic pop star Carol Fancy in The Mysterious Mr. Sebastian with Dirk Bogarde in the title role. Munro's marriage to Ian Hendry ended in divorce in 1971. A year later, she died at the age of 38 years from the effects of myocarditis and was in the Golders Green Crematorium in London cremated , where her ashes is located.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Miss Janet Munro. In: The Times . No. 58651, December 7, 1972, p. 21, Obituaries.
  2. ↑ Biography in the Internet Movie Database (English; accessed on February 21, 2009)
  3. ↑ a b c d Janet Munro. In: Ephraim Katz: The Macmillan international film encyclopedia. Macmillan, New York, NY, 1994, ISBN 0-333-61601-4 , p. 984.
  4. ↑ The Deaf Heart. In: The Times . No. 54340, December 22, 1958, p. 5.
  5. ↑ a b c biography in the All Movie Guide (English; accessed on February 21, 2009)
personal data
SURNAME Munro, Janet
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Neilson Horsburgh, Janet (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actress
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Blackpool , Lancashire
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1972
Place of death London