Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 128. Photo: Rank Film. Dorothy Tutin in The Importance of Being Earnest (Anthony Asquith, 1952).
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1069, 1959. Photo: J. Arthur Rank. Michael Denison and Dorothy Tutin in The Importance of Being Earnest (Anthony Asquith, 1952).
Ablaze like a diamond in a mine
Dorothy Tutin was born in 1930 in London. She was the daughter of John Tutin and Adie Evelyn Fryers, a Yorkshire couple who married the following year.
Lyn Gardner in her obituary in the Guardian: "A solitary, pent-up child, she was much affected by the sudden death of her beloved 10-year-old elder brother Eric when she was six. Born in London and educated at St Catherine's school in Bramley, Surrey, Tutin was determined to make a career as a musician, but abandoned that ambition at the age of 15, accepting, with a maturity beyond her years, that she did not have the talent."
"It was her theatre-loving father who, impressed by her performance as a last-minute replacement in a school production of J.M. Barrie's 'Quality Street', pushed his self-conscious daughter - who professed a horror at performing in public - towards the stage." Tutin completed her schooling at St Catherine's School near Guildford and went on to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She graduated at the age of 19 and within a year she was playing Katherine in 'Henry V' at the Old Vic.
Quickly, she became a sought-after stage actress. She made her film debut in 1952 as Cecily in the Oscar Wilde adaptation The Importance of Being Earnest (Anthony Asquith, 1952), for which she received a BAFTA nomination. In the 1950s, she played two other literary characters on the big screen. She was Polly Peachum to Laurence Olivier's Macheath in The Beggar's Opera (Peter Brook, 1953) based on the play by John Gay. Her next major film role was as Lucie Manette in the Charles Dickens film A Tale of Two Cities (Ralph Thomas, 1958) starring Dirk Bogarde.
However, she turned down other cinema roles as she did not find the main female characters in British cinema of the 1950s interesting enough. On stage, she received great critical acclaim for her performance as a sexually liberated young Catholic in Graham Greene's first play 'The Living Room' in 1953. The critic Kenneth Tynan was entranced, describing her as being "ablaze like a diamond in a mine". In 1954, she played the role of Sally Bowles in the first English production of John Van Druten's play 'I Am a Camera', on which the musical 'Cabaret' is based. After this second memorable performance, she was firmly established.
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1071, 1959. Photo: J. Arthur Rank. Dorothy Tutin in The Importance of Being Earnest (Anthony Asquith, 1952).
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 207. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD.
A flop-turned-cult classic
Between 1958 and 1999, Dorothy Tutin performed regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in over two dozen of their productions.
Championed by Peter Hall, Tutin was a key figure in the early days of the RSC at Stratford and London's Aldwych theatre in the early 1960s. She played Desdemona, Varya in 'The Cherry Orchard', Polly Peachum in 'The Beggar's Opera' and, later in the decade, Rosalind.
By the end of her career, she had played almost all of Shakespeare's major female roles, including Juliet, Ophelia, Portia and Lady Macbeth. She was also seen several times in plays by Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. She also appeared several times in the works of Harold Pinter, for example in the world premiere of 'Old Times' in 1971.
By the early 1970s, partly preoccupied with marriage and motherhood, Tutin was seen far less in the theatre and more on the big screen again. She played Queen Henrietta in the historical film Cromwell (Ken Hughes, 1970) starring Richard Harris, and in the lead role of the flop-turned-cult classic Savage Messiah (Ken Russell, 1972) in which she played a Polish noblewoman and writer Sophie Brzeska married to the much younger sculptor, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
In 1984 she starred with James Mason, Edward Fox and Sir John Gielgud in the critically acclaimed The Shooting Party (Alan Bridges, 1984). The film is set in 1913, less than a year before the beginning of the First World War, and shows a vanishing way of life amongst English aristocrats, focusing on a shooting party gathered for pheasant shooting. Their situation is contrasted with the life of the local rural poor, who work on the estate and during the shoot serve as beaters, driving the game.
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1102, 1959. Photo: J. Arthur Rank.
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1070, 1959. Photo: J. Arthur Rank. Dorothy Tutin in The Importance of Being Earnest (Anthony Asquith, 1952).
An uncomprehending, terrified middle-aged Sleeping Beauty
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Dorothy Tutin was frequently seen on British television in distinctive character roles in literary adaptations or historical material. She played Anne Boleyn in the BBC's series The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Naomi Capon, John Glenister, 1970), which starred Keith Michell in the title role.
She was nominated three times for a BAFTA Award. In 1970, she was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for The Six Wives of Henry VIII, in 1973 for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Savage Messiah, and in 1975 for Best Actress for her role as the teacher Sarah Burton in the TV series South Riding (1974), based on the novel 'South Riding' by Winifred Holtby.
Another of her notable roles was as Goneril in an Emmy-winning television production of Shakespeare's King Lear (1983), opposite Laurence Olivier as King Lear. She guest starred in an episode of the 1980s TV series Robin of Sherwood as Lady Margaret of Gisbourne. Both on TV and in the West End, she gave a desperately moving performance, in Harold Pinter's 'A Kind Of Alaska' (1985).
Lyn Gardner in the Guardian: "She played Deborah, a teenager struck down by encephalitis lethargia who awakens 29 years later when given the drug L-DOPA. Tutin was mesmerising as this uncomprehending, terrified middle-aged Sleeping Beauty who still perceived herself as a tomboy teenager, and this should have given a boost to her career. Alas, it didn't. She was pained by her lack of job opportunities, telling the Guardian in 1991: 'You may as well ask, why aren't you employed more, Miss Tutin? One can get depressed'."
For her work in the theatre, Dorothy Tutin won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She also received a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1968 original Broadway production of 'Portrait of a Queen'. In 1967, Tutin was made a Commander in the Order of the British Empire for her artistic merits, and in 2000 she was ennobled as a Dame. From 1964 until her death, Tutin was married to the actor Derek Waring. They had a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Amanda, both of whom were also sometime actors. In 2001, Dorothy Tutin died of leukaemia in King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, West Sussex, at the age of 71.
British postcard in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre series, no. 37. Photo: Angus McBean. Caption: Richard Johnson and Dorothy Tutin as Romeo and Juliet, Stratford-upon-Avon 1958.
English postcard by British Broadcasting Corporation, 1970, no. SBN 563 10218 7. Dorothy Tutin as Anne Boleyn in the BBC TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Naomi Capon, John Glenister, 1970).
Sources: Lyn Gardner (The Guardian), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
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