Eva Griffith | |
---|---|
Born | 1963 (age 60–61) Knightsbridge, London, England |
Other names | Eva Griffiths |
Education | Birkbeck College |
Alma mater | King's College London |
Occupation(s) | Actress and historian |
Parent(s) | Kenneth Griffith and Doria Noar |
Website | www |
Eva Griffith, also credited as Eva Griffiths (born 1963), [1] is a British actress, and a historian of the English Renaissance theatre. She began her career as child actress.
Eva Griffith was born in Knightsbridge, London, the daughter of Welsh actor Kenneth Griffith and his second wife, Doria Noar, also an actor. In some of her acting work she has been credited as Eva Griffiths, her father's original surname. She spent part of her childhood living in the home of the actor Peter O'Toole; and she later lived with her maternal grandmother in St Albans, Hertfordshire. [1]
She was educated at More House, a private Catholic school for girls in London, paying her fees with her own earnings as an actress. [1]
Griffith was auditioning for acting roles by the age of seven. [1] Her first part was in the two-part television film Divorce His, Divorce Hers (1973), in which she played the daughter of characters played by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. She subsequently appeared in the horror film Voices (1973) and the TV film The Turn of the Screw (1974). She starred as the handicapped daughter of a ranch owner in the 1975 Disney film Ride a Wild Pony , set and filmed in Australia.
She later acted in stage roles, including parts in Scraps (a musical version of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl") at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond; Ibsen's The Wild Duck at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, and later at the National Theatre, London; and Edward Bond's Restoration at the Royal Court Theatre (1981). [1]
Television work included Coming Home (1981), a BBC situation comedy; a production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible , also for the BBC; Nanny (1981–2), a BBC historical drama; Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House (1982); Shall I Be Mother? (1983), a BBC Play for Today ; and The Diary of Anne Frank (1987).
Grffith had left school without A-levels, but in the 1990s she returned to extramural classes at Birkbeck College. She went on to study at King's College London for a BA, an MA, and eventually a PhD. [1]
In 2013, she published A Jacobean Company and its Playhouse: The Queen’s Servants at the Red Bull Theatre (c. 1605–1619), a monograph study of the Red Bull Theatre, London, based on her doctoral thesis. [2] She has also published a number of articles and chapters in books. [3]
Griffith has one son. [1]
Dame Flora McKenzie Robson was a British actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from queens to murderesses.
Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips, known professionally as Siân Phillips, is a Welsh actress. She has performed the title roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan and is also particularly known for her performance as Livia in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius.
Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, suo jure 14th Baroness de Clifford was an English peeress. In 1605 she inherited her father's ancient barony by writ and became suo jure 14th Baroness de Clifford. She was a patron of literature and as evidenced by her diary and many letters was a literary personage in her own right. She held the hereditary office of High Sheriff of Westmorland which role she exercised from 1653 to 1676.
The Red Bull was an inn-yard conversion erected in Clerkenwell, London, operating in the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the City and its suburbs, developing a reputation over the years for rowdiness. After Parliament closed the theatres in 1642, it continued to host illegal performances intermittently, and when the theatres reopened after the Restoration, it became a legitimate venue again. There is a myth that it burned down in the Great Fire of London but the direct reason for its end is unclear.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play in five acts by Francis Beaumont, first performed at Blackfriars Theatre in 1607 and published in a quarto in 1613. It is the earliest whole parody play in English. The play is a satire on chivalric romances in general, similar to Don Quixote, and a parody of Thomas Heywood's The Four Prentices of London and Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday. It breaks the fourth wall from its outset.
Elizabeth, Lady Coke, was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark. She was the daughter of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, and Dorothy Neville, and the granddaughter of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. She was the wife of Sir William Hatton and later of Sir Edward Coke.
The Great North Road was the main highway between England and Scotland from medieval times until the 20th century. It became a coaching route used by mail coaches travelling between London, York and Edinburgh. The modern A1 mainly parallels the route of the Great North Road. Coaching inns, many of which survive, were staging posts providing accommodation, stabling for horses and replacement mounts. Nowadays virtually no surviving coaching inns can be seen while driving on the A1, because the modern route bypasses the towns in which the inns are found.
The Masque of Blackness was an early Jacobean era masque, first performed at the Stuart Court in the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall Palace on Twelfth Night, 6 January 1605. It was written by Ben Jonson at the request of Anne of Denmark, the queen consort of King James I, who wished the masquers to be disguised as Africans. Anne was one of the performers in the masque along with her court ladies, all of whom appeared in blackface makeup. In a ceremony earlier on the day, Prince Charles, Anne's second son was given the title of Duke of York.
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was named The Phoenix.
Beeston's Boys was the popular and colloquial name of The King and Queen's Young Company, a troupe of boy actors of the Caroline period, active mainly in the years 1637–1642.
Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford was a major aristocratic patron of the arts and literature in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, the primary non-royal performer in contemporary court masques, a letter-writer, and a poet. She was an adventurer (shareholder) in the Somers Isles Company, investing in Bermuda, where Harrington Sound is named after her.
Robert Browne was an English actor and theatre manager and investor of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He was also part of a long-standing confusion in the scholarship of English Renaissance theatre.
Ladies Hall in Deptford, London is thought to have been the first girls' school in England. Founded in approximately 1615 by Robert White, the school was for aristocratic girls connected with the royal court, and they performed before Queen Anne in May 1617. The school taught basic reading and writing in English, and it is likely they covered other skills a lady was encouraged to acquire, in music, dance, and needlework. Archival evidence for the school and its pupils beyond the published text of Robert White's masque is sparse.
Anne Bedingfeild was an English theatre landlord and a benefactor.
Elizabeth Roper was a member of the household of Anne of Denmark. She married Robert Mansell, a glass-making entrepreneur and became involved in his business. She was noted for her business activities as a "capitalist" by the historian Alice Clark.
Elizabeth Howard (1564—1646) was an English aristocrat and courtier to Elizabeth I of England.
Dorothy Hastings was a courtier to Elizabeth I of England and Anne of Denmark
Elizabeth Southwell (1584–1631) was an English courtier who lived in Florence.
Anne Keilway was an English courtier.
William Thornhurst (1575-1606) was an English landowner.