Rosalind Shanks is a British actress and broadcaster. In 1964, she joined the BBC's

Radio Drama Company The Radio Drama Company is a company of actors formed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War. It is sometimes referred to as RDC, or the Rep, a survival from its original name, the Drama Re ...

by winning the Carleton Hobbs Bursary. Shanks starred as

Margaret Hale Margaret Hale is the heroine of Elizabeth Gaskell's 1855 novel ''North and South''. Initially, Gaskell wanted the title of the novel to be ''Margaret Hale'', but Charles Dickens, the editor of '' Household Words'', the magazine in which the novel ...

the heroin in ''North and South'', in 1975, opposite

Patrick Stewart Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actor ...

as John Thornton. In the same year, she appeared as Joanna Childe in "The Girls of Slender Means" by Muriel Spark, a land mark series with a leading female cast by pioneering female director Moira Armstrong. In the theatre Rosalind took leading roles including in repertory, at the National Theatre (during Lord Olivier's time in charge), in a world tour of "Shakespeare's People" with Sir Michael Redgrave, and in the West End with Judi Dench and Sian Phillips directed by Sir John Gielgud. On radio she has played a great many leading roles, including Desdemona to Paul Scofield`s Othello (later in the BBC Radio Collection) and was well known to listeners to Radio 4's "Poetry Please" and "With Great Pleasure". Shanks recorded over 50 books for The RNIB`s Talking Book service, including a major project, with four other readers, of the first recording of the complete Authorised Version of The Bible. She has recorded many narrations, including the narration for the video about St. George’s Chapel Windsor. Her literary recital work is extensive with a repertoire of over forty programmes on such figures as D.H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas, Henry James, Keats, Shelley and “The Female Shakespeare”, Gabriel Woolf’s programme on George Eliot. Her first solo programme was on Florence Nightingale. Her recitals with musicians include “Facade” (Sitwell/Walton), “Wood Magic” (Elgar) and “The Road to Prague” (Mozart). Shanks has been a tutor at The Actors` Centre in Radio Drama and Verse and at The Central School of Speech and Drama for Shakespeare and Verse. She is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, having originally studied drama there.

Select filmography

* ''

North and South North and South may refer to: Literature * ''North and South'' (Gaskell novel), an 1854 novel by Elizabeth Gaskell * ''North and South'' (trilogy), a series of novels by John Jakes (1982–1987) ** ''North and South'' (Jakes novel), first novel ...

'' ... Margaret Hale * '' The Girls of Slender Means'' ... Joanna Childe * ''

Z-Cars ''Z-Cars'' or ''Z Cars'' (pronounced "zed cars") is a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it debuted ...

'' ** ''Intrusion: Part 2'' ... Ward Sister ** ''Intrusion: Part 1'' ... Ward Sister * ''

The Trojan Women ''The Trojan Women'' ( grc, Τρῳάδες, translit=Trōiades), also translated as ''The Women of Troy'', and also known by its transliterated Greek title ''Troades'', is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced in 415 BC during ...

'' ... Woman No copies of the episodes of ''

'' that Shanks acted in still exist.BBC Online - Cult - Treasure Hunt - The Missing Episodes - Z Cars

References

External links

* British television actresses British radio actresses Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{UK-tv-actor-stub