Award-winning stage and screen star Anna Massey dies at 73
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:18 AM on 5th July 2011
Tributes: Anna Massey, pictured here with Darling Buds of May co-star David Jason, died at the age of 73 after a battle with cancer
Award-winning actress Anna Massey has died from cancer at the age of 73.
The veteran of stage and TV passed away peacefully on Sunday with her husband and son David, 51, by her side, said her agent Pippa Markham.
Miss Massey, who overcame severe stage fright and anorexia, won a Bafta for the 1986 TV adaptation of Hotel du Lac among a series of other awards.
From a family of actors, and with director John Ford as godfather, she made her stage debut at 18 and received a CBE for services to drama in 2005.
Miss Massey was married to actor Jeremy Brett and after their divorce was single for 27 years until marrying Russian scientist Uri Andres in 1988.
Her TV credits included The Darling Buds of May, Poirot, Midsomer Murders, Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, He Knew He Was Right and Oliver Twist.
In 2006, she played Baroness Thatcher in the TV film Pinochet In Suburbia.
Miss Markham said: 'Actress Anna Massey CBE passed away peacefully on Sunday, with her husband and son by her side.
'She will be remembered as a loving wife and mother, a cherished grandmother, a generous colleague and, always, a consummate professional. She will be greatly missed.'
Massey’s film work included roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Possession with Gwyneth Paltrow and the adaptation of The Importance Of Being Earnest.
Well known for her supporting roles, she often playing a spurned or repressed aunt.
She had been suffering from cancer, her agent said later.
Massey was born into show business - both her parents were actors, while her godfather was the veteran director John Ford.
Black and white: Anna Massey pictured with first husband Jeremy Brett (left) and as a child (right)
Her father, Canadian actor Raymond Massey, walked out when Massey was one, and remained 'the glamorous film star who lived far away'.
Her mother, actress Adrianne Allen, delegated much of the childcare to a nanny.
Massey drafted in her own former nanny to look after her son David when her marriage to Brett - who is said to have left her for a man and went on to play TV's Sherlock Holmes - ended.
'I find acting incredibly difficult - it demands much more of my time than it does for some people. I'm not instinctive. It takes enormous discipline and bravery to get me there.'
But when the nanny died in 1965, Massey was on her way to a nervous breakdown and her hair turned white overnight.
She suffered from severe stage fright and anorexia, but continued to perform, often helped by pills.
Massey underwent psychoanalysis, saying later it was 'an absolute life-saver' and that without it she 'would probably have ended up in some clinic'.
Massey made her stage debut at the age of 18 in The Reluctant Debutante playing the lead.
Her film debut came three years later in Gideon's Day, directed by Ford, and she starred as the murderous cameraman's girlfriend in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom in 1960.
She has appeared in numerous plays including The Doctor's Dilemma, School For Scandal, The Glass Menagerie and The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.
One of her last film roles was Miss Prism in The Importance Of Being Earnest, which starred Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon, in 2002.
Despite such a prolific career, Massey once said: 'I find acting incredibly difficult - it demands much more of my time than it does for some people.
'I'm not instinctive. It takes enormous discipline and bravery to get me there.'
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