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Sheila Sim
Sheila Beryl Grant Sim, Baroness Attenborough (5 June 1922 – 19 January 2016) was an English film and theatre actress. She was also the wife of the actor, director and peer Richard Attenborough. Career Sheila Beryl Grant Sim was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, only daughter of banker Stuart Grant Sim (1893–1975) and his wife Ida Isabel Carter, who were married in April 1920. Brought up at "Carnlea" overlooking Calderstones Park in Liverpool and later, 18 The Ridge at Purley in Surrey, Sim was privately educated before training at RADA. Sim was mainly active as an actress in the 1940s and 1950s. She appeared in the Powell and Pressburger film, '' A Canterbury Tale'' (1944); she acted alongside her husband in the Boulting brothers' '' The Guinea Pig'' (1948); and starred opposite Anthony Steel in '' West of Zanzibar'' (1954). In theatre, she co-starred with her husband, Richard Attenborough, in the first cast of '' The Mousetrap'' by Agatha Christie, from its London prem ...
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Sheila Burrell
Sheila Mary Burrell (9 May 1922 – 19 July 2011) was a British actress. A cousin of Laurence Olivier, she was born in Blackheath, London, the daughter of a salesman. She attended St John's, Bexhill-on-Sea and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Her first marriage to actor Laurence Payne was dissolved and she then married David Sim, a portrait and theatre photographer. She is primarily remembered in the United States for her performance as Lady Rochford in three episodes of the television series Six Wives of Henry VIII. Theatre career Burrell made her first appearance on the stage in 1942, playing Patsy in ''The Patsy'', entertaining the troops, and made her first appearance in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 20 April 1944, as Rose in '' The Rest is Silence''. Subsequent theatre credits include: *Chanticleer, June 1944, Sonja in ''Happily Ever After?'' *Liverpool, 1944, Katherine in ''The Taming of the Shrew'' *Arts, October 1944, Judy in '' The Brea ...
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RADA
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central London, close to the Senate House complex of the University of London, and is a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. RADA is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, founded in 1904 by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It moved to buildings on Gower Street in 1905. It was granted a royal charter in 1920 and a new theatre was built on Malet Street, behind the Gower Street buildings, which was opened in 1921 by Edward, Prince of Wales. It received its first government subsidy in 1924. RADA currently has five theatres and a cinema. The school's principal industry partner is Warner Bros. Entertainment. RADA offers a number of foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Its higher education awards are validated ...
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Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central London, close to the Senate House (University of London), Senate House complex of the University of London, and is a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. RADA is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, founded in 1904 by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It moved to buildings on Gower Street in 1905. It was granted a royal charter in 1920 and a new theatre was built on Malet Street, behind the Gower Street buildings, which was opened in 1921 by Edward VIII, Edward, Prince of Wales. It received its first government subsidy in 1924. RADA currently has five theatres and a cinema. The school's principal industry partner is Warner Bros. Entertainment. RADA offers a number of foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate courses. ...
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Denville Hall
Denville Hall is a historic building in Northwood, a town in the London Borough of Hillingdon, England, which is used as a retirement home for professional actors, actresses and members of other theatrical professions. The present building incorporates part of a 16th-century house, which was substantially rebuilt in 1851 and later considerably extended after becoming a retirement home in 1926. Many well-known British actors and actresses have lived there. History and description The hall includes part of a 16th-century house called Maze Farm. In the 18th century it belonged to the judge Sir John Vaughan. In 1851 it was rebuilt in Victorian Gothic style by Daniel Norton, and renamed Northwood Hall. Alfred Denville, impresario, actor-manager and MP, bought the hall in 1925 and dedicated it to the acting profession in memory of his son Jack, who had died at the age of 26 after onstage complications with re-aggravated World War I injuries. He renamed the building Denville Hall ...
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TACT (The Actors' Charitable Trust)
The Actors' Orphanage was started in 1896 and established as the Actors' Orphanage Fund in 1912. The fund continues but the orphanage closed in 1958. History The charity was started in 1896 by "Kittie" Carson and Mrs Clement Scott The first building was in Croydon. It was established as the Actors' Orphanage Fund in 1912. In 1915 the Orphanage moved to Langley Hall at Langley (was in Buckinghamshire - now in Berkshire). The orphanage was both a home and a school to approximately 60 children. At ages 15–17 pupils sat the School Leaving Certificate of Cambridge University and if 10 subjects were taken to Matriculation. The home and school was moved to Silverlands at Chertsey, Surrey in 1938 where it remained until 1940. In September 1940 the Orphanage was evacuated to the USA where the children were housed in New York City at the Edwin Gould Foundation, and the children were sent to local schools. After the war ended the Fund established a home (once again at Silverlands, ...
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Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise"."Noel Coward at 70"
''Time'', 26 December 1969, p. 46
Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as ''Hay Fever (play), Hay Fever'', ''Private Lives'', ''Design for Living'', ''Pr ...
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Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery ''The Mousetrap'', which has been performed in the West End theatre, West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a nickname now trademarked by her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. She is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies. Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, and was ...
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The Mousetrap
''The Mousetrap'' is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The play opened in London's West End in 1952 and ran continuously until 16 March 2020, when the stage performances had to be temporarily discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic. It then re-opened on 17 May 2021. The longest-running West End show, it also has by far the longest run of any play in the world, reaching its 30,000th performance on 19 March 2025. Attendees at St Martin's Theatre often get their photo taken beside the wooden counter (showing a count of the number of performances) in the theatre foyer. As of 2022 the play had been seen by 10 million people in London. A whodunit, the play has a twist ending which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre. There are eight members of the cast, and by 2012 more than 400 actors had played the roles. Richard Attenborough was the original Detective Sergeant Trotter, and his wife, Sheila Sim, the first Mollie Ralston – o ...
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West Of Zanzibar (1954 Film)
''For the 1928 film starring Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter, see West of Zanzibar (1928 film)'' ''West of Zanzibar'' is a 1954 British adventure film directed by Harry Watt and starring Anthony Steel, Sheila Sim and Edric Connor. It is a sequel to '' Where No Vultures Fly'' (1951), from the same director and producer, and continues the adventures of game warden Bob Payton, played again by Anthony Steel. The subject of the film is ivory smuggling, and although the film appears to side with the African natives against economic exploitation, it was banned by the government of Kenya, which considered its approach too paternalistic. Plot The rural African Galana tribe move to Mombasa following a drought. The tribe's peaceful ways are destroyed by the influence of illegal ivory traders. Game warden Bob Payton turns detective, travelling to Zanzibar to discover the ringleader behind the ivory smuggling. Payton tracks his quarry through some of the most treacherous ...
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Anthony Steel (actor)
Anthony Maitland Steel (21 May 1920 – 21 March 2001) was an English actor and singer who appeared in British war films of the 1950s such as ''The Wooden Horse'' (1950) and ''Where No Vultures Fly'' (1951). He was also known for his tumultuous marriage to Anita Ekberg. He was described as "a glorious throwback to the Golden Age of Empire... the perfect imperial actor, born out of his time, blue-eyed, square-jawed, clean-cut." As another writer put it, "whenever a chunky dependable hero was required to portray grace under pressure in wartime or the concerns of a game warden in a remote corner of the empire, Steel was sure to be called upon." Another said "Never as popular as Stewart Granger or as versatile as Kenneth More, he enjoyed a brief period of fashionability embodying the kind of idealised, true-blue Englishman who probably rowed for his university, played cricket on the village green and exuded calm under pressure as he bravely fought for king and country." Early life ...
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The Guinea Pig (film)
''The Guinea Pig'' (U.S. title ''The Outsider'') is a 1948 British film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Richard Attenborough, Sheila Sim and Bernard Miles. The screenplay was by Warren Chetham-Strode and Bernard Miles, in association with Boulting, adapted from the 1946 play of the same name by Chetham-Strode. It was produced by John Boulting. Plot The "guinea pig" of the title is 14-year-old Jack Read, a tobacconist's son who, following the Fleming Report, is given a scholarship to Saintbury, an exclusive public school. Read's uncouth behaviour causes him difficulties in fitting into the school. Cast *Richard Attenborough as Jack Read *Sheila Sim as Lynne Hartley * Bernard Miles as Mr. Read * Cecil Trouncer as Lloyd Hartley * Robert Flemyng as Nigel Lorraine * Edith Sharpe as Mrs. Hartley *Joan Hickson as Mrs. Read * Timothy Bateson as Tracey * Herbert Lomas as Sir James Corfield * Anthony Newley as Miles Minor * Anthony Nicholls as Mr. Stringer * Wally Patch a ...
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