RACHEL ROBERTS: Llanelli’s three-time BAFTA winner would be 100 next year, and the town is being asked how to remember her
She won three BAFTAs, was nominated for an Oscar and a Tony, and played opposite Albert Finney and Richard Harris in two of the defining British films of the 1960s. She was born in a Baptist minister’s house in Llanelli.
Rachel Roberts was born 99 years ago today. Her centenary is exactly a year away, and the town’s MP wants Llanelli to mark it.
Dame Nia Griffith is asking anyone with memories of the actress, connections to her family or memorabilia from her career to get in touch with her office, on [email protected] or 01554 756374.
“In the 1960s and 1970s she was a famous name that guaranteed full theatres and cinemas and someone who lit up the entertainment world wherever she went,” she said.
From a Llanelli manse to two BAFTAs in three years
Roberts was born on 20 September 1927 at the manse of Emmanuel Baptist Chapel, where her father was minister. A blue plaque put up by Llanelli Community Heritage in November 2017 marks the house, calling her a “star of stage, screen and television”.
The blue plaque at the manse of Emmanuel Baptist Chapel, unveiled in November 2017 (Image: Llanelli Community Heritage)She studied at Aberystwyth and then at RADA, and learned her trade on stage at Stratford and the Old Vic.
Her breakthrough came in 1960 in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, opposite Albert Finney, which won her the BAFTA for best British actress. She won it again three years later for This Sporting Life, opposite Richard Harris, a performance that also earned her an Academy Award nomination.
The MP’s announcement credits her with two BAFTAs. She in fact won three: the last, for best supporting actress, came for Yanks in 1979.
In between came Murder on the Orient Express, and the role many film fans know her for, the headmistress Mrs Appleyard in Picnic at Hanging Rock. On Broadway she was nominated for a Tony in 1974 for two plays in the same season, Chemin de Fer and The Visit, and won a Drama Desk award two years later.
She married the actor Rex Harrison in 1962. They divorced in 1971, and she made her home in Los Angeles, where in 1976 she was starring in an American network sitcom, The Tony Randall Show.
She died by suicide in Los Angeles on 26 November 1980. She was 53.
‘One of our own’
Dame Nia said Roberts had used “her background, her life experiences and her strength of character to rise to fame in the UK, US and beyond”.
“With the centenary of her birth fast approaching, we have an ideal chance to mark her life and celebrate one of our own who left such an indelible impression on Hollywood and elsewhere,” she said.
No plans for the centenary have been announced. The MP says the first step is to gather what people know and what they have kept, and then “look at how we can work together to develop the best way to remember her”.
She hopes whatever follows will “inspire local people to follow in her footsteps”.
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