Vivien Merchant
Known For
Acting
Born
1929-07-22 in Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK
Died
1982-10-03
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Vivien Merchant (born Ada Thompson 22 July 1929 – 3 October 1982) was a British actress. She performed in many stage productions and several films, including Alfie (1966) and Frenzy (1972). Her performance in Alfie earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress, and the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was the first wife of the playwright Harold Pinter, whom she met when working as a repertory actress and married in 1956. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1958. Having performed the role of Rose in a production of his first play, The Room (1957) at the Hampstead Theatre in 1960, she also appeared in many of Pinter's subsequent works, including as Ruth in The Homecoming (1964) on stage (1965) and screen (The Homecoming, 1973). The last of his plays in which she performed was Old Times (1971) as Anna. Their marriage began disintegrating in the mid-1960s. From 1962 to 1969, Harold Pinter had a clandestine affair with Joan Bakewell, which informs Pinter's play Betrayal and his film adaptation, also called Betrayal. In 1975 Pinter began a serious affair with the historian Lady Antonia Fraser, the wife of Sir Hugh Fraser, which he confessed to his wife that March. At first, Merchant took it very well, saying positive things about Fraser, according to her friend artist Guy Vaesen (as cited by Billington); but, Vaesen recalled, after "a female friend of Vivien's trotted round to her house and poisoned her mind against Antonia ... Life in Hanover Terrace [where the Pinters then lived] gradually became impossible". Pinter left, and Vivien Merchant filed for divorce and gave interviews to the tabloid press, expressing her distress.The Frasers' divorce became final in 1977 and the Pinters' in 1980. In 1980 Pinter married Antonia Fraser. Vivien Merchant never overcame her grief and bitterness at losing Pinter, dying at the age of 53 on 3 October 1982, from acute alcoholism Description above from the Wikipedia article Vivien Merchant , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Most Known For
BBC Play of the Month
as Evelyn Daly
BBC Play of the Month
as Dona Ana
BBC Play of the Month
as Jane Noble
Theatre 625
as Gertrude
Theatre 625
as Natalia Petrovna
Secret Army
as Mlle. Gunet
Studio 4
as Olivia Curtis
The Lover
as Sarah
Frenzy
as Mrs Oxford
Studio 4
as Olivia
Alfie
as Lily Clamacraft
The Offence
as Maureen Johnson
The Collection
as Stella
Accident
as Rosalind
Breakaway
as Isabel Black
Funeral Games
as Tessa
The Man in the Iron Mask
as Reine Maria Theresa
NBC Experiment in Television
as (voice)
Ella
as Ella
A Tale of Two Cities
as Miss Pross