Barbara Jefford as Isabella in "Measure for Measure", 1950

Barbara Jefford OBE, full name Barbara Mary Jefford (born in Plymstock, Devon, England in 1930), is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are... Plymstock is a parish and a suburb of Plymouth, England. ... Devon is a large county in South West England, bordered by Cornwall to the west, Dorset and Somerset to the east. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link is to a full 1930 calendar). ... William Shakespeare—born April 1564; baptised April 26, 1564; died April 23, 1616 (O.S.), May 3, 1616 (N.S.)—has a reputation as the greatest of all writers in English. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon The Royal Shakespeare Company is a British theatre company. ... The exterior of the Old Vic. ... The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge The Royal National Theatre is a building complex and theatre company located on the South Bank in London, England immediately east of the southern end of Waterloo Bridge. ... Molly Bloom is a fictional character in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. ... James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (Irish Seamus Seoighe; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ... Ulysses is a film shot in 1967 and based on James Joyces novel Ulysses. ...

Biography

Born and brought up in the West Country, Barbara Jefford attended Weirfield School in Taunton, Somerset before training at RADA in London, where she was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal. In 1946, whilst still a student, she obtained small parts in the radio production of Westward Ho! and other radio plays, but her stage debut came in 1949, when she played the part of Viola in Twelfth Night at the Dolphin Theatre, Brighton. The West Country is an informal area of southwestern England, roughly corresponding to the administrative region South West England. ... Taunton School is an independent school in Taunton, Somerset, England. ... Statistics Population: 58,241 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: ST228250 Administration District: Taunton Deane Shire county: Somerset Region: South West England Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: Somerset Historic county: Somerset Services Police force: Avon and Somerset Constabulary Ambulance service: South Western Post office and telephone... Somerset is a county in the south-west of England. ... Rada is the term for council or assembly borrowed by Polish from Middle High German Rat (council) and later passed into Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Westward Ho! is an 1855 British historical novel by Charles Kingsley, inspired in part by the Crimean War. ... Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, named after the Twelfth Night holiday of the Christmas season. ... Statistics Population: 155,919[1] Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: TQ315065 Administration District: Brighton & Hove Region: South East England Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: East Sussex Historic county: Sussex Services Police force: Sussex Police Fire and rescue: {{{Fire}}} Ambulance: South East Coast Post office and...

Theatre

Stratford

After spending just one year working in repertory theatre, in 1950 she was given the part of Isabella in Peter Brook's production of Measure for Measure at the Shakespeare Memorial Company, (now the Royal Shakespeare Company) in Stratford upon Avon, playing opposite John Gielgud (Angelo) and Harry Andrews (Vincentio). Properly, repertory is a style of a number of repertory companies which rehearsed and performed plays in a fortnight. ... Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH CBE (born 21 March 1925) is a highly influential British theatrical producer and director. ... Measure for Measure is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1603. ... Map sources for Stratford-upon-Avon at grid reference SP1955 Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon is a town on the River Avon in south Warwickshire, England. ... John Gielgud as photographed in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten Sir Arthur John Gielgud OM, CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000), known as Sir John Gielgud, was an English theatre and film actor, regarded by many as one of the greatest British actors in history. ... Harry Andrews (November 10, 1911 - March 6, 1989) was a British actor. ...

Over the next four years she went on to play many more major Shakespearean roles: Anne Bullen in Henry VIII opposite Tyrone Guthrie in 1950; Calphurnia in Julius Caesar opposite Anthony Quayle and Michael Langham in 1950; Hero, opposite John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft in 1950; Lady Percy in Henry IV, opposite John Kidd, Anthony Quayle and Michael Redgrave in 1951; Isabel opposite Richard Burton in Henry V , in 1951; Desdemona to Anthony Quayle's Othello in 1952; Rosalind in As You Like It (New Zealand Tour, 1953); Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part 1 ( New Zealand Tour and International Tour, 1953); Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream] in 1954; Kate to Keith Michell's Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew in 1954; and Helen in Troilus and Cressida in 1954. Dame Ellen Terry as Catherine of Aragon The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth was one of the last plays written by the English playwright William Shakespeare, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. ... Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 - 15 May 1971) was a British theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada and the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ... The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a tragedy by William Shakespeare probably written in 1599. ... Anthony Quayle Sir John Anthony Quayle (7 September 1913 – 20 October 1989) was an English actor and director. ... Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, DBE (22 December 1907–14 June 1991) was an English actress. ... Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, widely considered the greatest of the histories. ... John Kidd (September 10, 1775 - September 7, 1851) was an English physician, chemist and geologist. ... Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes (1938) Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, KBE (March 20, 1908 — March 21, 1985) was an English actor and the son of the Australian silent film star Roy Redgrave and the actress Margaret Scudamore. ... Richard Burton CBE (November 10, 1925 – August 5, 1984) was a Welsh actor. ... Title page of the first quarto (1600) Henry V is a play by William Shakespeare based on the life of King Henry V of England. ... Title page of the first quarto edition of Othello, published in 1622 The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1603. ... Scene from As you like it, Francis Hayman, c. ... Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, widely considered the greatest of the histories. ... Title page of the first quarto (1600) A Midsummer Nights Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare written sometime in the mid-1590s. ... Keith Michell (born 1 December 1928) is an Australian actor and producer. ... Taming of the Shrew by Augustus Egg The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ... The History of Troilus and Cressida is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1602, shortly after the completion of Hamlet. ...

The Old Vic

After leaving Stratford she co-starred with Michale Redgrave, in Tiger at the Gates in the West End and on Broadway, before returning to work at the Old Vic. Amongst other roles she played there were Portia in The Merchant of Venice; Imogen in Cymbeline; Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing; Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Tamora in Titus Andronicus; Lady Anne in Richard III; Viola in Twelfth Night; Queen Margaret in Henry VI 1-3 ; Isabella in Measure for Measure; Regan in King Lear; Rosalind in As You Like It; and Viola in Twelfth Night. In 1978 she played Gertrude to Derek Jacobi's Hamlet. The Trojan war will not take place (original title: La guerre de Troie naura pas lieu) is a play by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux, written in 1935. ... West End is the name of some places in the world, including: The West End of London, England West End Theatre, is where many of Londons major theatres are located and premier cinema screenings take place. ... This article is about the street in New York City. ... Title page of the first quarto (1600) The Merchant of Venice is one of William Shakespeares best-known plays, written sometime between 1594 and 1597. ... Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare. ... Title page of the first quarto (1600) Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ... The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy by William Shakespeare from early in his career. ... Title page of the first quarto edition (1594) The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus may be Shakespeares earliest tragedy. ... Frontispage of the First Quarto Richard The Third. ... Measure for Measure is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1603. ... Title page of the first quarto edition, published in 1608 King Lear is generally regarded as one of William Shakespeares greatest tragedies. ... Sir Derek Jacobi plays Gracchus in Gladiator. ... The third quarto of Hamlet (1605); a straight reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604) The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and is one of his best-known and most-quoted plays. ...

She also played Beatrice in Shelley's The Cenci and Joan in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, emulating her friend Sybil Thorndike. Many of these productions toured the USA, the USSR, the Middle East and Europe. Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 - July 8, 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. ... The Cenci was a verse drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819, and inspired by a real Italian family, the Cencis (in particular, Beatrice Cenci). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Saint Joan is a 1923 play by G. Bernard Shaw that he wrote shortly after the Roman Catholic Church canonized Joan of Arc. ... Dame Sybil Thorndike (October 24, 1882–June 9, 1976) was a British actress. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... World map showing Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. ...

Other productions

Jefford next started a period of work with Frank Hauser's Oxford Playhouse which included the first of her three Cleopatras, Racine's Phèdre and Lina in Misalliance which transferred to the Criterion Theatre. Other West End plays included Ride A Cock Horse, Filumena, Mistress of Novices and The Dark Horse, as well as the Almeida Theatre's Racine Season at the Albery Theatre. With this company she also played her second Volumnia in Coriolanus, opposite Ralph Fiennes in London, New York and Tokyo, her first being at Stratford with Charles Dance . In 1976 she was in the opening production at the Olivier Theatre playing Zabina in Tamburlaine the Great with Albert Finney. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Antony and Cleopatra is a historical tragedy by William Shakespeare first performed in 1607 or 1608 and printed in the First Folio, 1623. ... Racine is the name of several communities in the United States of America: Racine, Minnesota Racine, Missouri Racine, Ohio Racine, West Virginia Racine, Wisconsin Racine County, Wisconsin It is also the name of dramatist Jean Racine. ... Phèdre was a 1677 play by Jean Racine, based on both the play Hippolytus by Euripides, and a later Roman play Phaedra by Seneca the Younger. ... Misalliance is a play written in 1909-1910 by the Nobel Prize-winning playwright G. Bernard Shaw. ... The Criterion Theatre The Criterion Theatre is a theatre situated on Piccadilly Circus in the West End of London. ... The Dark Horse was the two-part episode premiere of the HBO series Tanner 88. ... Founded in 1980, the Almeida Theatre has become one of the key theatres in London. ... Originally known as the New Theatre, the Albery Theatre was built by Charles Wyndham on St. ... Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, based on the life of the legendary Roman leader. ... Ralph Fiennes in Spider. ... Tokyo , literally Eastern capital)   is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, the home of the Japanese Imperial Family, and the de facto[1] capital of Japan. ... Charles Dance OBE (born October 10, 1946 in Redditch, Worcestershire) is an English actor. ... Statue of Timur in Samarkand, Uzbekistan Timur, (also known as Temur, Taimur, Timur Lenk, Timur i Leng, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, or Taimur-e-Lang, which translates to Timur the Lame, as he was lame after sustaining an injury in battle) (1336–February 1405) was a renowned 14th century Tatar/Turco-Persian... Albert Finney (born May 9, 1936 in Salford, Lancashire) is a five-time Academy Award nominated English actor. ...

She has repeated many Shakespeare roles in her long career, appearing in 54 productions of all but four of his plays. The last of these was Michael Grandage's Richard III with Kenneth Branagh in 2002, at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield in which she played Queen Margaret, having previously appeared with Derek Jacobi, in the play at the Phoenix Theatre, London, in 1988. Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Kenneth Charles Branagh (born December 10, 1960) is an Emmy Award-winning Northern Irish-born British actor and film director. ... The Crucible Theatre, located in the city centre of Sheffield, England is known for being a producing theatre, meaning shows are designed and rehearsed in-house. ... For other uses, see Sheffield (disambiguation). ... Phoenix is the name of serveral major theatres. ...

Film and television

In 1959 she appeared as Ophelia in a TV production of Hamlet. In 1963 she provided the voice (uncredited) of the Russian heroine of the James Bond film From Russia With Love. The James Bond 007 gun logo James Bond 007 is a fictional British agent (the Bond character is usually referred to as a spy, but was actually a counter-agent and a professional assassin) created by writer Ian Fleming in 1952. ... A 2002 Penguin Books paperback edition From Russia with Love, published in 1957, is the fifth James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming. ...

Her first major film role was as Molly Bloom in Ulysses in 1967, for which she was nominated for a British Academy Award. This was followed by The Bofors Gun (Jack Gold, 1968); The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) and Lust for a Vampire (1971) She played Magda Goebbels in Hitler: the Last Ten Days (Ennio de Concini, 1973). Other films include Nelly's Version (1983) E la nave va (1983) Claudia (1985) and The Ninth Gate (Roman Polanski, 2000). The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organization that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ... The Shoes of the Fisherman is a 1963 novel by Morris West, as well as a 1968 film based on the novel. ... Lust For a Vampire is a 1971 British Hammer Horror film directed by Jimmy Sangster starring Yutte Stensgaard, Michael Johnston and Barbara Jefford. ... Magda Goebbels Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels (November 11, 1901 - May 1, 1945) was the wife of Joseph Goebbels and First Lady of the Third Reich. ... o reily? the devil said when ennio appeard, and there he was. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Roman Polański at Cannes with Adrien Brody, 2002 Roman Polański (born August 18, 1933) is a Franco-Polish film director and actor. ...

Barbara Jefford has appeared in several television dramas in the Play For Today series and has guest starred in several other popular television series. These include Edna, the Inebriate Woman in 1971; Walter and June (TV, 1986); Porterhouse Blue (TV, 1987); When the Whales Came (1989); Harold Pinter's Reunion (1989); Mrs Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread (Charles Sturridge, 1991); The House of Eliott (TV, 1991); The Saint (Philip Noyce, 1997); Midsomer Murders (TV, 2000) and Madame Bovary (TV, 2000). She has also appeared in episodes of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, and the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries. The Play for Today logo, seen here in the opening title sequence from 1976. ... Edna, the Inebriate Woman is a one-off British television drama transmitted by the BBC under the Play for Today banner in 1971. ... Porterhouse Blue is a novel written by Tom Sharpe, first published in 1974. ... Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born 10 October 1930) is a British playwright, screenwriter, poet, actor, director, author, and political activist, best known for his plays The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), and for his screenplay adaptations of novels by others, such as The... The House Of Eliott is a British TV series about two sisters who start off their tailoring business. ... The Saint refers to the fictional character created by Leslie Charteris in one of the following contexts: Simon Templar, the character also known as The Saint (main article on this topic) The Saint (TV series), a TV series that ran from 1962 to 1969, starring Roger Moore as Simon Templar. ... Midsomer Murders is a popular British television series about murders that take place in the fictional English county of Midsomer. ... For the film, see Madame Bovary (1949 film) Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert that was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialised in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that... Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, (born February 17, 1930), is a British best-selling mystery and psychological crime writer, often called the Queen of Crime. ... Roderick Alleyn is a fictional character: the hero and detective from Ngaio Marshs novels. ...

Awards

Despite being one of the world's foremost Shakespearean actresses, and also having a distinguished career in film, television and radio, Barbara Jefford has never courted celebrity. In 1965, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire for service to the theatre, becoming the youngest ever recipient of the award. In 1977 she was also awarded the Jubilee Festival Medal. Elizabeth IIs Silver Jubilee and her domestic and international visits proved very popular with her subjects. ...

References and external links

• The National Theatre Barbara Jefford In Conversation, 2003
• Article from Dictionary of the Royal Shakespeare Company by Simon Trowbridge, 2002
• Barbara Jefford at IMDB