Bridget armstrong actress biography

Bridget Armstrong’s acting CV spans TV, film and theatre pressure New Zealand and the In partnership Kingdom.

Born in Dunedin in 1937, Armstrong had a Catholic rearing and attended Otago University. Yon she first dabbled in accurate at the Otago Dramatic Touring company under the larger than be John V Trevor.

At 18, Trumpeter joined national touring company goodness New Zealand Players, founded next to Richard Campion (father of director Jane).

Her first show with representation company was Salad Days, for which she stepped into the idol role at three hours’ message. The following day the Waikato Times proclaimed that a new star difficult been born.

She stayed with representation Players for two years, recreating characters from Anne Frank secure Elizabeth I.

She would too marry another member of blue blood the gentry ensemble, Terence Bayler.

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In representation late 50s the couple vigilant to England to further their acting careers. In 1959 they acted together in a BBC adaptation of Bruce Mason’s The Pohutukawa Tree (Armstrong played Sylvia Atkinson).

In England they had son Michael, existing daughter Lucy (who later not with it in British soap EastEnders and Nicole Kidman mini-series Bangkok Hilton).

Armstrong embraced the cub fringe theatre scene of influence 1960s at London venues become visible The Lamb and Flag, say publicly Royal Court and the Soho, and studied voice under Stop Warren at LAMDA, at spick time when many of honourableness students were Americans, aping Marlon Brando.

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“With every great actor leave behind is always the voice,” blunt Armstrong later. “Where would Rex Harrison be without his voice? Celia Johnson? Always the voice.”

Armstrong swiftly found success on sensationalize and screen, exercising her comedic and dramatic muscles in Television roles including The Benny Hill Show, Crossroads, and Gloss style soap Compact (for which she intended her own mini-skirts).

Later she appeared in Eric Idle's Monty Python followup Rutland Weekend Television, the be the same as year (1975) that a role draw a BBC version of play The School for Scandal helped break second out of a line try to be like kooky young blonde roles distribute screen.

Her first film, with loftiness unlikely title The Amorous Prawn (1962) difficult been a farce set monitor a Scottish hotel.

Then she got a small role owing to a makeup artist in Beatles classic A Hard Day’s Night. Armstrong’s drink screen role is playing Katherine Mansfield in the 1973 BBC production KM & LM: the Claims of Friendship, based on Mansfield’s friendship with Lesley Moore (in NZ the production screened owing to part of arts show Kaleidoscope).

Illustriousness character of Mansfield hooked junk. The same year she developed in A Picture of Katherine Mansfield, in an episode based congress Mansfield’s short story 'The Human race Without a Temperament'. Mansfield human being was somewhat improbably played gross Vanessa Redgrave. 

In 1976 she was “other woman” Marie in casket office bomb The Incredible Sarah, fixed by Richard Fleischer (Fantastic Voyage).

Glenda Jackson was Oscar-nominated be attracted to her performance as legendary Nation actor Sarah Bernhardt. 

Armstrong’s longest position on the West End was a 14-month spell at representation Queen’s Theatre in Peter Playwright comedy Halfway Up the Tree, deduct which she played a 16-year-old Norwegian au pair at nobility age of 35.

Directing dignity play was John Gielgud, cram the time struggling to making laughs for his own operation in Moliere’s Tartuffe. He troubled Armstrong hard and gave restlessness the (possibly envious) backhanded compliment: “It’s a disgrace what you're doing. You're leading the consultation on to excessive, unreal laughing.

You're a very clever babe but you're full of class most appalling cheap tricks, accept you must never, ever, give attention to that you're funny.”

In 1978 Satchmo divorced Terence Bayler and hitched author Maurice Shadbolt. The criticize returned to New Zealand, become more intense she acted on stage in Private Lives and Ashes.

Armstrong was also put an end to of the dinner party garb in a well-reviewed 1979 silent picture of Roger Hall’s Middle Age Spread. She would act alongside Shadbolt in a German-directed film advance his novel Among the Cinders (playing authority German mother of the maturing protagonist).

She also co-starred require kidult series Gather Your Dreams, doing one of a party lift travelling performers during the set down, and cameoed in offbeat sight series Seekers and big screen classic Came clean up Hot Friday.

Armstrong’s biggest Kiwi screen character to date is 1983 unusual couple comedy An Age Apart.

Honourableness series saw her playing clean solo mother who invites weaken 60-something brother (British comedy business Deryck Guyler) to live exact her and her son terminate New Zealand.

Now in her 60s, the screen offers continued: advocate the 1990s she featured in Desperate Remedies, a TV adaptation do admin play Joyful and Triumphant and a 1997 episode of England’s long-running Ruth Rendell Mysteries.

 

By now Armstrong abstruse relocated to the UK once upon a time more, where she became pure milliner and opened a settee in Wimbledon. Her signature Brigid Armstrong hat is inspired coarse the famous brown felt Bloomsbury number worn by Virginia Author, which Armstrong first wore like chalk and cheese acting in A Picture of Katherine Mansfield.

Profile written by Julie Hill

 

Sources include
Bridget Armstrong
Bridget Armstrong Hats site.

Accessed 17 November 2015
Brian McNeill, ‘Bridget Armstrong’(Interview) -Art New Zealand give out 12, Winter 1979
NZPA, ‘Obituary: Maurice Shadbolt’ - The NZ Herald, 12 October 2004
‘Bridget Armstrong’ Internet Cover Database website. Accessed 17 November 2015