Miriam Karlin

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Miriam Karlin

Miriam Karlin , actually Miriam Samuels , (born June 23, 1925 in Hampstead , London , North London, † June 3, 2011 in St. John's Wood , London, England ) was a British actress .

Life

Education and theater

Karlin was born as the daughter of Harry Samuels and his wife Celine Aronowitz into a wealthy, Orthodox Jewish family in London. Her father was a successful barrister specializing in business law , labor law and trade union law . Her mother's relatives were later murdered in Auschwitz . Karlin admired her father's work and social commitment all her life, which also explains her own later social and socio-political activities. She herself had a great interest in theater and politics since her youth . Karlin grew up in the London borough of Hampstead. She attended South Hampstead High School. During this time Karlin was very overweight ; She later combated this with radical weight loss programs and diets .

After graduating from school, Karlin completed an acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art . She had her first stage appearances during the Second World War in 1943 with the Entertainments National Service Association in stage shows and programs in the context of troop support . She starred there in the comedy The Family Upstairs by Harry Delf (1893-1964).

In 1946 she made her London theater debut at the Lyric Hammersmith Theater with the role of Lorene , an unattractive woman, in the play The Time of Your Life by William Saroyan . This was followed in 1947, at the side of Bonar Colleano , an engagement at The Strand in London as Miss Sharpe in the comedy Separate Rooms by Joseph Carole, Alan Dinehart, Alex Gottlieb and Edmund Joseph. In the following ten years Karlin appeared in numerous stage roles in London's West End .

Early 1956 she played at the Lyric Hammersmith Theater the role of the Polish pilot and acrobatic pilot Lina Szczepanowska in the comedy Mesallianz or wrong number ( Misalliance ) by George Bernard Shaw ; for this role she had lost over 12 pounds in four weeks . At the end of 1956 she took on the role of Mrs. van Daan in a stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank at the Phoenix Theater in London . 1959/1960 she played the role of Lily Smith , a lovable "easy girl", in the musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used T 'Be by Lionel Bart , first at the Theater Royal Stratford East in London and later at the Garrick Theater in the West End. In 1966 she appeared at the Jeannetta Cochrane Theater in London in three plays by Saul Bellow , The Bellow Plays . In 1967 she played the golds in the musical Fiddler on the Roof at Her Majesty's Theater in London, opposite the Israeli actor Topol .

In 1972 she appeared at the Palace Theater in Watford with the title role in Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children . In 1974 she played Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in a touring production of the UK . Other stage roles in the 1970s and 1980s were: Madame Hortense in the musical Zorba by John Kander (Greenwich 1973), the mother in Tonight is played impromptu by Luigi Pirandello (Chichester Festival Theater 1974), Iokaste in Oedipus Rex ( Haymarket Theater 1975), Grace Hoyland in Bus Stop by William Inge ( Phoenix Theater 1976), Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina in Die Möwe (Haymarket Theater 1976), Judith Blis s in Heufieber ( Hay Fever ) by Noël Coward (Haymarket Theater 1976) and Alma in Bed Before Yesterday (Leicester 1978), the last play by Ben Travers (1886–1980).

In 1975 she appeared at the Phoenix Theater in the solo evening Diary of a Madame ; she read from letters translated into English from Liselotte von der Pfalz , wife of the homosexual Duke Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans . With this program Karlin also made guest appearances at the original location in the Palace of Versailles , in Vienna and in Australia .

In 1981 she played the title role in the drama The Witch of Edmonton by John Ford , Thomas Dekker and William Rowley with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon . She designed the role with complete acting and physical commitment. She always played the scene in which she was beaten up by the residents of the village without any artificial upholstery in her costume. In 1990 she was the first woman at the Sherman Theater in Cardiff to play the title role in Harold Pinter's stage hit The Caretaker . Her late stage roles the grandmother belonged Zofia in the play Tongue of a Bird by Ellen McLaughlin ( Almeida Theater London, 1997) and the shop owner Mrs. Steinberg in the comedy Mrs. Steinberg and The Byker Boy (Bush Theater London, 2000) by Michael Wilcox .

In 2008, at the age of 83, Karlin played her last stage role at the Finborough Theater in London. She played the wheelchair-bound Jewish retirement home resident Stella in the play Many Roads To Paradise by Stewart Permutt .

Movie and TV

Karlin made her film debut in a tiny role as a shop customer in the British comedy Down Among the Z Men . Numerous small roles and minor roles followed by the end of the 1950s, in which Karlin was often only seen briefly in a single scene and was not even mentioned in the credits of the film.

In 1960 she had a small role as soubrette in the film The Comedian by Tony Richardson , a film adaptation of the play The Entertainer by John Osborne . In the romantic comedy Die Millionärin (1960) she took on the role of Mrs. Maria Joe. She made a brief but impressive appearance as the cat lady in Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange (1971). She played a single woman who was attacked with a phallic statue and killed by Alex, the leader of the youth gang, who invaded her house . Directed by Ken Russell , she played Gustav Mahler's Aunt Rosa in the biography Mahler (1974).

In 1990 she was seen as the greedy brothel owner Mrs. Hackett in the crime film Jekyll and Hyde . In the Franco-British film drama The Man Who Cried (2000) she played the role of Jewish neighbor Madame Goldstein, who in filling Paris from the Nazis is kidnapped. In the thriller Children of Men (2006) she had a small role as a trapped grandmother. She had her last film role, alongside Daniel Craig , as grouchy widow and neighbor Mrs. Rogers in the drama Flashbacks of a Fool (2008).

Karlin also often worked for television . Karlin achieved particular fame here through her role in the British sitcom The Rag Trade (1961–1963). In the gambling in a small textile factory television series embodied Karlin the ever-ready to strike militant council chairman Paddy that with a whistle and their command "Everybody out of here!" ( Everybody out! Each begins a new strike). The slogan “Everybody Out!” Became a popular phrase in Great Britain. In 1962 she also played this role in a stage version of The Rag Trade at the Piccadilly Theater in London. 1977/1978 there was a revival of the series, in which Karlin again successfully took over the role of Paddy.

She had another continuous series role from 1992 to 1994 as Yetta Feldman in the sitcom So Haunt Me , in which she played the ghost of the Jewish previous owner of the house. She also took on episode roles in various other television series, including Rooms (1974–1976), Crown Court (1975), Casualty (1996), Doctors (2001; 2004) and Dalziel and Pascoe (2005).

Political commitment

Karlin was for many years a member of the Board of Directors ( Council ) of the British Actors Guild equity .

She was a supporter of the British Humanist Association . She also supported the British non-governmental organization Burma Campaign UK , which campaigns for the protection and implementation of human rights in Myanmar . She appeared publicly as part of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament . She was also involved in the Anti-Nazi League against fascism and anti-Semitism all her life . She took part in protest rallies against the Holocaust denier David Irving and warned against the Austrian politician Jörg Haider by pointing out his proximity to National Socialist ideas.

In 1975 she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of her work in the trade union movement in public welfare .

She was the patron of the British euthanasia organization Dignity in Dying .

Private

Karlin was unmarried and lived in South London . She described herself as a "fundamentalist atheist ".

In 2007 she published her memoir Some Sort of a Life . Karlin, as she revealed in her autobiography , had suffered from eating disorders since the 1950s. From the 1970s onwards there were other massive health problems. She had back problems and suffered from peripheral neuropathy , which she attributed in part to her radical slimming diets in the 1950s. Karlin joined the Neuropathy Trust ; she was also in contact with the euthanasia organization Exit (now: Dignity in Dying ) and considered the possibility of assisted euthanasia .

Karlin had had cancer since 2006 . She died on the morning of June 3, 2011 at the age of 85 in St. John's Hospital in St. John's Wood, London .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1952: Down among the Z Men
  • 1955: Alluring Depth (The Deep Blue Sea)
  • 1957: The Flesh Is Weak
  • 1958: The Big Money
  • 1959: The Way Up (Room at the Top)
  • 1960: Der Komödiant (The Entertainer)
  • 1960: The millionaire (The Millionairess)
  • 1960: Crossroads to Crime
  • 1961: The Fourth Square
  • 1961: hand in hand
  • 1961: Watch It, Sailor!
  • 1961–1963: The Rag Trade (TV series)
  • 1962: The Mystery of the Eerie Mask (The Phantom of the Opera)
  • 1963: The Gehetzte of Soho (The Small World of Sammy Lee)
  • 1963: Love Story (TV series, episode: Some Grist from Mervyn's Mill )
  • 1967: Just Like a Woman
  • 1971: A Clockwork Orange (A Clockwork Orange)
  • 1974: Mahler (Mahler)
  • 1974–1976: Rooms (TV series, 3 episodes)
  • 1975: Crown Court (TV series, episode: Take Back Your Mink )
  • 1977–1978: The Rag Trade (TV series)
  • 1990: Jekyll and Hyde (Jekyll and Hyde)
  • 1992: Utz
  • 1992–1994: So Haunt Me (TV series)
  • 1996: Casualty (TV series, episode: Thicker Than Water )
  • 2000: In Stormy Times (The Man Who Cried)
  • 2001: The Bill (TV series, episode: Lifelines )
  • 2001-2004: Doctors (TV series, 2 episodes)
  • 2004: Suzie Gold
  • 2005: Dalziel and Pascoe (TV series, 2 episodes)
  • 2005: Waverly
  • 2006: Miss Marple: Lots of lovely old ladies (episode: Marple: By the Pricking of My Thumbs )
  • 2006: Children of Men
  • 2008: Flashbacks of a Fool

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FINGS AINT WOT THEY USED T'BE Performance review and photos of the scene, March 1960
  2. ↑ Oh! What a lovely store ( Memento of the original from November 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. WalesHome 18 October 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / waleshome.org
  3. ↑ Tongue of a Bird ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Cast and photos @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / dspace.dial.pipex.com
  4. ↑ Sexually bold and politically shy  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Performance review in: London Evening Standard, June 12, 2000@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thisislondon.co.uk  
  5. ↑ Many Roads To Paradise Performance review in: The Jewish Chronicle, June 20, 2008
  6. ↑ Miriam Karlin Dies: Woman Beaten to Death with Phallus in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Alt Film Guide , 2011
  7. ↑ Miriam Karlin OBE ( Memento of the original from March 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Official website of the British Humanist Association @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.humanism.org.uk
  8. ^ A tribute to Miriam Karlin (1925-2011) Unite Against Fascism; Retrieved June 12, 2011
  9. ^ Death of BHA Distinguished Supporter Miriam Karlin OBE Official website of the British Humanist Association
  10. ↑ Miriam Karlin dies at 85  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Celebrity News from June 4, 2011@1@ 2Submission: Dead Link / celebrityonthenews.com  
personal data
SURNAME Karlin, Miriam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Samuels, Miriam (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Hampstead , London , North London
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 2011
Place of death St. John's Wood , London, England