RIP Margaret Tyzack

[aeolium]

Very sorry to hear that Margaret Tyzack has died. She was heard only a few months ago on Do3 in The Chalk Garden and she was an excellent character actress in all kinds of media and repertoire. Two years ago she was in the NT's Phèdre which was also coincidentally the first production to be broadcast live by the NT to cinemas around the UK and also in a number of other countries. I particularly remember her performance as Claudius' mother in I Claudius in the 1970s, and also performances in the BBC Shakespeare, e.g. The Winter's Tale.

RIP.

[vinteuil]

Very strong memories of her magnificent Cousin Bette for the BBC [1971]...

Let us hope they will repeat some of her marvellous work in her honour.

[Nick Armstrong]

Another great performer gone

I second your hope, vinteuil

Poor work from the BBC TV news room when covering this: the clip from "I, Claudius" showed... Siân Phillips (happily still going strong)...

[ostuni]

Yes, I remember her Cousin Bette well, too. Though I have to admit that in 1971, the 18-year-old me was desperately in love with the programme's 25-year-old Helen Mirren...

[mercia]

ah yes, great memories, I Claudius especially, Forsyte Saga, 2001 Space Odyssey. I had forgotten she was in A Clockwork Orange which is on TV this Sunday.

[Mandryka]

Shocked to hear this. 79 is no great age, these days.

I remember her best from The Forsyte Saga, where she played the only consistently sympathetic character (Freddie), imo. Her performance in I, Claudius was also hugely impressive. I have Cousine Bette on DVD, but have yet to watch it.

[barber olly]

I remember her well from Sheffield Rep in the early 60s!

[Stillhomewardbound]

Poor work from the BBC TV news room when covering this: the clip from "I, Claudius" showed... Siân Phillips (happily still going strong)...

Prompt mea culpa from the BBC. Don't journalists double check thesee things any more. Probably not much else you can expect in a newsroom where no one is over forty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/06_june/28/news.shtml

[french frank]

I mentally had her in the same category as Paul Scofield, a top-notch 'jobbing actor', superb, even commanding, when in character but returning to the mundane when she went home, no off-stage histrionics or showbiz. And what a wonderfully modest quote from the Telegraph obit:

"Really, I'm a refugee from the typing pool," Margaret Tyzack said later. "That would have been the alternative. Or maybe selling something in Harrods."

[aeolium]

There seemed to be such a wealth of fine character actors in Tyzack's generation (especially 1960s - 1980s). I think we were very lucky.

I can't imagine Tyzack in a typing pool - she always seemed to have a powerful presence that drew the eye, and of course a wonderful voice.

[vinteuil]

for them as what is innarested in genealogy - from a site:

"All Tyzacks in the world appear to have come from a group of glassmakers living in Lorraine before 1400. For two hundred years there the family exploited privileges as glassmakers, granted to them by the Dukes. By 1600 they introduced Lorraine window glass into England. During the early years they moved a lot. Then, for about one-hundred and twenty years, they anchored in Newcastle and Stourbridge. Later some moved into other crafts such as edge tools.
The reason for the switch from glass to tools was the depression in the broad glass industry about 1710. It is now over four hundred years since the first settlers went to England and there are now Tyzacks in countries all round the world."

[Mandryka]

I love these actors who are completely untheatrical and low-key in real life but then can suddenly 'turn it on' and give a breathtaking performance on stage/screen. Tyzack was definitely one of these.

[mercia]

just listening to the lovely Margaret in the radio adaptation of Vanity Fair