Joyce Redman

Joyce Redman was born at 15 Osborne Terrace, Gosforth, Northumberland,^[1] into an Anglo-Irish family and grew up in County Mayo, Ireland.^[4][5] Her father was Sydney George Redman, who at the time of her birth was a consultant engineer serving as a major in the Northumberland Fusiliers. Her mother was Irish born Marie Edith McCormick.^[1] She was educated by a private governess in Ireland, along with her three sisters. She trained in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, graduating in 1936.^[6]

Redman’s early stage career in the 1940s included acclaimed performances in Shadow and Substance, Claudia, and Lady Precious Stream. She toured internationally, performing at the Comédie-Française in Paris and achieving notable success in New York in 1949 playing Anne Boleyn opposite Rex Harrison as Henry VIII in Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of the Thousand Days. In 1955, she joined Stratford-upon-Avon's Shakespeare Memorial Theatre to play Helena in All's Well That Ends Well and Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor.^[7] Later television work included the 1974 BBC serial Notorious Woman, in which she portrayed Sophie Dupin, the mother of George Sand.

Although primarily a stage actress, Redman appeared in a select number of films, earning critical recognition and international fame. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in Tom Jones (1963) as the sexually provocative Mrs. Waters and in Othello (1965) as the outspoken Emilia, acting alongside Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier.^[5][7][3] Her performance in Othello also garnered a Golden Globe nomination.^[8] In 1968, Redman starred in the birth-control comedy Prudence and the Pill, directed by Ronald Neame and featuring Deborah Kerr and David Niven. Her character became pregnant after her daughter substituted some contraceptive pills with aspirin, inadvertently undermining her mother’s intended "liberation".^[5]

Redman was admired for her ability to move seamlessly between comedy and tragedy, with stage roles ranging from Cordelia in King Lear to Dol Common in The Alchemist, and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible to Mrs Frail in Love for Love. She appeared in television dramas including Tales of the Unexpected and The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, concluding her screen career as an elderly Queen Victoria in Victoria & Albert (2001).

In 1949, Redman married Charles Wynne Roberts, a former British Army captain who later worked as a television executive. The couple had three children, including Crispin Redman, who pursued a career in acting. Redman and Roberts remained married until his death. Their three children and five grandchildren survive her.^[5] Her son Crispin Redman is an actor. Her son-in-law is the investment manager and media personality Justin Urquhart Stewart.^[4]

Redman maintained a connection to her native County Mayo. In 1949, she purchased Bartragh Island, which had been in her family for several generations, and retained ownership for several decades before selling it in 1984. She spent her later years living in Kent, England. Redman died in Pembury, Kent, England, on 9 May 2012 at age 96 from pneumonia.^[1]

• "Anne". The New Yorker. Vol. 24, no. 45. 1 January 1949. pp. 12–13.