Margaret Francesca Ramsay (27 May 1908 - 4 September 1991) was an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n-born British

theatrical agent A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, broadcast journalists, film directors, musicians, models, professional athletes, screenwriters, writers, and other professionals in various entertainment or s ...

.Christopher Stevens ''Born Brilliant: The Life Of Kenneth Williams'', London: John Murray, 2010, p.409

Early life

Peggy Ramsay was born to English parents in

Molong Molong is a small town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia, in Cabonne Shire. History The name Molong comes from the Aboriginal word for 'all rocks'. William Lee of Kelso is said to have had cattle in the area by 1819. H ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia. Her father's name was originally Vilenski, but her mother believed this Jewish name was a social drawback so had it changed to Venniker. Her family had settled in South Africa by the end of the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, in which her father served in the South African Medical Corps. During a brief and unhappy marriage, she came to England in 1929; her husband Norman Ramsay was under investigation in South Africa. After touring with an opera company, and a spell as an actress, she began reading scripts for theatrical managers including Peter Daubeny, who was later known for organising annual

World Theatre Season The World Theatre Season was a festival of foreign plays held annually at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Aldwych Theatre in London from 1964 to 1973, with a final season in 1975. It originated as a one-off celebration in 1964 organised by Peter ...

Theatrical agent

As she was gaining no financial return from scripts she was finding, in 1953 her friends and acquaintances persuaded her to open her own agency, in which they invested. For her entire career her business was based in Goodwin's Court, an alley off

St Martin's Lane St Martin's Lane is a street in the City of Westminster, which runs from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre. At its northern end, it becomes Monmouth Street. St Marti ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. She was able to buy out her partners in 1963, after the success of her first "discovery'",

Robert Bolt Robert Oxton Bolt (15 August 1924 – 20 February 1995) was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays for ''Lawrence of Arabia'', ''Doctor Zhivago'', and '' A Man for All Seasons'', ...

. Sometimes she could be wrong in her opinions. Of '' A Man for All Seasons'' (1966), Bolt's own screen adaptation of his play, she was dismissive: "We don’t expect it to succeed as it’s not very dramatic and has no sex at all". She represented many of the leading dramatists to emerge from the 1950s onwards, including

Alan Ayckbourn Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director o ...

Eugène Ionesco Eugène Ionesco (; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco inst ...

J. B. Priestley John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator. His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Compa ...

, Stephen Poliakoff and David Hare. After discovering

Joe Orton John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brie ...

, then living on National Assistance, she persuaded producer

Michael Codron Sir Michael Victor Codron (born 8 June 1930) is a British theatre producer, known for his productions of the early work of Harold Pinter, Christopher Hampton, David Hare, Simon Gray and Tom Stoppard. He has been honoured with a Laurence Olivi ...

to stage Orton's ''

Entertaining Mr Sloane ''Entertaining Mr Sloane'' is a three-act play written in 1963 by the English playwright Joe Orton. It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964. Plo ...

''. Ramsay represented the dramatist, and then his estate, for the rest of her life. The 1978 biography of Orton by

John Lahr John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at ''The New Yorker''. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been ca ...

, initiated by Ramsay in 1970, led to friction between the author and the playwright's former agent. For about ten years, she consulted her client, David Hare, about the quality of the work of other writers represented by her agency. Ramsay's last years were affected by the onset of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. Her long term companion, the actor William Roderick, died in April 1991. She died on 4September 1991 in

from the effects of a heart condition and circulation problems.

Legacy

The Peggy Ramsay Foundation has been established by her estate and makes grants and awards to help writers and writing for the stage. Her archive has been donated to the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

. In 2009, a blue plaque was unveiled at Ramsay's former home in Kensington Place,

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

by her friend and biographer Simon Callow. Margaret Ramsay - Blue Plaque

Portrayals and books

In ''

Prick Up Your Ears ''Prick Up Your Ears'' is a 1987 British film, directed by Stephen Frears, about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based on the 1978 biography by John Lahr. The film stars Gary ...

'' (1987), the Orton film biopic based on the Lahr book, Ramsay is portrayed by

Vanessa Redgrave Dame Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over seven decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Television Award, two ...

, while in ''Peggy For You'' (1999), a play by

Alan Plater Alan Frederick Plater (15 April 1935 – 25 June 2010) was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s. Career Plater was born in Jarrow, County Durham, although his fami ...

set in the late 1960s, Ramsay is placed centre stage. Two books have been written about Ramsay; the work by Colin Chambers cited below is a straightforward biography, while

Simon Callow Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View (1985 ...

's memoir ''Love Is Where It Falls: The Story of a Passionate Friendship'' (1999) is an account of their friendship. ''Peggy to her Playwrights: The Letters of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent'', a collection of her letters edited by Colinn Chambers, was published in 2018. From December 2021 to January 2022

Tamsin Greig Tamsin Margaret Mary Greig (; born 12 July 1966) is an English actress, narrator and comedian. She played Fran Katzenjammer in the Channel 4 sitcom ''Black Books'', Dr Caroline Todd in the Channel 4 sitcom ''Green Wing'', Beverly Lincoln in Br ...

played Ramsay in a revival of Plater's ''Peggy For You'', directed by Richard Wilson at the

Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. Roxana Silbert has been the artistic director since ...

References

External links

The Peggy Ramsay FoundationArchive of Margaret Ramsay Ltd
at the British Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramsay, Peggy 1908 births 1991 deaths British literary agencies Literary agents Australian emigrants to South Africa Australian emigrants to England Australian people of English descent People from New South Wales People with Alzheimer's disease