Stars Gathered at the Memorial Service For Margaret Tyzack
Stars of stage and screen have gathered at a memorial service for Forsyte Saga star Margaret Tyzack.
The 79-year-old died last month shortly after her final role playing Lydia Simmonds in BBC One soap EastEnders.
Among the mourners was Downton Abbey star Dame Maggie Smith, playwright Alan Bennett and the artistic director of the National Theatre Sir Nicholas Hytner. Sir Nicholas read a list of some of her most notable performances but told mourners that “to read them all would take far too long”.
Actress Frances De La Tour read from a poem by American writer John Updike during the service, at the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Blackheath, south London, on Saturday.
Tyzack was awarded the CBE last year.
Her career took off more than 40 years ago when she landed the role of Winifred, Soames’s sister, in The Forsyte Saga in 1967.
The TV serial was so popular vicars complained it was affecting attendance at Sunday evening services.
Essex-born Tyzack learnt her craft at weekly rep, which she described as “my education”.
Her TV credits included Antonia in I, Claudius, the title role in Cousin Bette, for which she won a Bafta, Princess Anne in The First Churchills and, more recently, Midsomer Murders. She was acclaimed for her classical stage roles, winning an Olivier Award for a revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1982 and playing Portia in Julius Caesar among other roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
She won a Tony award in 1991 for the long-running Lettuce And Lovage, in which she starred opposite Dame Maggie in New York. Movies included two Stanley Kubrick films – A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey and Woody Allen’s Match Point.
Custom Search
Visit AmberNight Book News & Reviews
By Lauren Cole
Hi, I’m Kim Varley from Aberdeen, Scotland, bringing you daily reports on the UK TV news.
Link to this post!