Phoebe Nicholls | |
---|---|
Born | Phoebe Sarah Nicholls 7 April 1957 London, England |
Alma mater | Royal Central School of Speech and Drama |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1964–present |
Spouse | |
Children | 3; including Tom and Matilda |
Father | Anthony Nicholls |
Relatives | Horace Nicholls (grandfather) |
Phoebe Sarah Nicholls (born 7 April 1957) is an English film, television, and stage actress. She is known for her roles as Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited and as the mother of John Merrick in The Elephant Man .
Nicholls is the daughter of actors Anthony Nicholls and Faith Kent. [1] She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. [2] Nicholls married director Charles Sturridge on 6 July 1985; [3] they have two sons, Tom and Arthur, and a daughter Matilda. [3] [4] Her grandfather is photojournalist Horace Nicholls. [5]
As a child actress in several films she was billed as Sarah Nicholls. [6] In her early 20s, she appeared in David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980), Richard Loncraine's The Missionary (1982) and as Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited (1981). Since then, she has worked almost exclusively in television and theatre. Cast in Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original staging of Whose Life Is It Anyway? in 1978, she later performed in Robert Strura's revival of Three Sisters with Vanessa Redgrave. At the National Theatre she appeared in Stephen Daldry's acclaimed version of J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls [2] and in David Hare's Pravda (starring Sir Anthony Hopkins). At the Royal Court Theatre she appeared the Olivier Award-winning production of Terry Johnson's Hysteria . [7] Her supporting performances in the 2008 West End revivals of Noël Coward's The Vortex and Harley Granville Barker's Waste earned her the 2009 Clarence Derwent Award from Equity. She also played the conniving art critic Rivera in the National Theatre production of the Howard Barker drama, Scenes from an Execution .
Nicholls appeared in the BBC film Persuasion (1995), an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. She has made guest appearances on several television mystery series, including Kavanagh QC , Prime Suspect , Midsomer Murders , Lewis , The Ruth Rendell Mysteries ("May and June", 1997), Foyle's War , Second Sight starring Clive Owen, and the 2012 Christmas episode of Downton Abbey , a role she reprised for the 2014 season. She has also appeared in several works directed by her husband, Charles Sturridge, including his 1995 television adaptation of Gulliver's Travels , where she portrayed the Liliputian Empress, the 1997 film Fairy Tale: A True Story and Shackleton in 2002.
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1964 | The Pumpkin Eater | Elizabeth | |
1965 | Dr. Terror's House of Horrors | Carol Rogers | Segment: "Creeping Vine" |
1967 | Our Mother's House | Gerty | |
1969 | Women in Love | Winifred Crich | billed as Sarah Nicholls |
1980 | The Elephant Man | Merrick's Mother | |
1982 | The Missionary | Deborah Fitzbanks | |
1983 | Party Party | Rebecca | |
1984 | Ordeal by Innocence | Tina Argyle | |
1987 | Maurice | Anne Durham | |
1997 | FairyTale: A True Story | Polly Wright | |
1999 | The Miracle Maker | Old Woman (voice) | |
2012 | The Scapegoat | Charlotte | |
2016 | Three Women Wait for Death | Miranda | Short |
Starfish | Tom's Mother | ||
Chubby Funny | Aunty Jane | ||
2017 | Transformers: The Last Knight | Aunt Helen | |
Finding Your Feet | Janet | ||
2019 | Berlin, I Love You | Capucine | |
2020 | The Empty Man | Nurse Allerton | |
2021 | The Electrical Life of Louis Wain | Mrs. Wain | |
2023 | Widow Clicquot | Marie-Catherine Clicquot |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1975 | Prometheus: The Life of Balzac | Augustine de Berny | Episode: "Apprenticeship of a Genius" |
1977 | Van der Valk | Treesje | Episode: "Gold Plated Delinquents" |
1979 | Telford's Change | Jean | Episode: "1.8" |
Bless Me, Father | Nurse Owen | Episodes: "Father Neil's First Miracle", "The Heart of a Curate" | |
Secret Orchards | Stella | TV film | |
1980 | BBC2 Playhouse | Geraldine | Episode: "Hesther for Example" |
Blade on the Feather | Christabel Cavendish | TV film | |
1981 | Brideshead Revisited | Cordelia Flyte | TV miniseries |
1982 | Tales of the Unexpected | Carol | Episode: "A Harmless Vanity" |
1983 | Pictures | Babs | Episode: "1.3" |
All for Love | Christine | Episode: "To the Camp and Back" | |
1984 | Hay Fever | Sorel Bliss | TV film |
1985 | Screen Two | Louie Jermy | Episode: "Poppyland" |
1987 | Gentry | Susannah | TV film |
1990 | Screen Two | Sarah | Episode: "Drowning in the Shallow End" |
1991 | 4 Play | Annabel | Episode: "Seduction" |
1993 | Heart of Darkness | The Intended | TV film |
1995 | Kavanagh QC | Jackie Jarvis | Episode: "Heartland" |
Screen Two | Elizabeth Elliot | Episode: "Persuasion" | |
1996 | Gulliver's Travels | Empress of Lilliput | Episode: "1.1" |
1997 | The Ruth Rendell Mysteries | May Thrace | Episode: "May and June: Parts 1 & 2" |
1999 | Second Sight | Judith Bendrix | TV film |
2002 | Shackleton | Emily Shackleton | TV miniseries |
I'm Alan Partridge | Karen Colman | Episode: "Bravealan" | |
2003 | Midsomer Murders | Laura Smythe-Webster | Episode: "A Tale of Two Hamlets" |
Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness | Shaw | Episode: "Part 2" | |
Foyle's War | Amanda Reece | Episode: "The Funk Hole" | |
2004 | Hawking | Isobel Hawking | TV film |
The Brief | Sally Graydon | Episode: "Children" | |
2006 | Spooks | Janet Wheeler | Episode: "5.10" |
2007 | The Trial of Tony Blair | Cherie Blair | TV film |
Lewis | Caroline Croft | Episode: "Expiation" | |
All About Me | Helen Conroy | TV film | |
Clapham Junction | Natasha | TV film | |
2010 | The Road to Coronation Street | Mrs. Simpson | TV film |
2012 | Loving Miss Hatto | Mrs. Hatto | TV film |
2012–2014 | Downton Abbey | Susan MacClare | Episodes: "A Journey to the Highlands", "5.8" |
2013 | New Tricks | Annie Banks | Episode: "The One That Got Away" |
2015 | Fortitude | Dr. Allerdyce | 9 episodes |
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Mrs. Wintertowne | Episodes: "The Friends of English Magic", "How Is Lady Pole?" | |
2016 | Doctor Thorne | Countess de Courcy | Episodes: "1.1", "1.2", "1.3" |
2017 | Endeavour | Caroline Bryce-Morgan | Episode: "Lazaretto" |
2021 | A Very British Scandal | Helen Whigham | Episode #1.1 |
2022 | Anatomy of a Scandal | Tuppence Whitehouse | Episode #1.4 |
2024 | Eric | Anne Anderson | Miniseries [8] |
Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Lord Sebastian and Lady Julia. The novel explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy. A well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. In 2008, it was adapted as a film.
Charles B. G. Sturridge is an English director and screenwriter. He is the recipient of a BAFTA Children's Award and four BAFTA TV Awards. He has also been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Juliet Maryon Mills is a British-American actress.
Anthony Colin Gerald Andrews is an English actor. He played Lord Sebastian Flyte in the ITV miniseries Brideshead Revisited (1981), for which he won Golden Globe and BAFTA television awards, and was nominated for an Emmy. His other lead roles include Operation Daybreak (1975), Danger UXB (1979), Ivanhoe (1982) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), and he played UK Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in The King's Speech (2010).
Thomas Sidney Jerome Sturridge is an English actor. His early films include Being Julia (2004), Like Minds (2006), and The Boat That Rocked (2009). He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performances in Orphans (2013) and Sea Wall/A Life (2020). He was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in American Buffalo (2016). Since 2022, Sturridge has starred as Dream in the Netflix fantasy series The Sandman.
Diana Marilyn Quick is an English actress.
FairyTale: A True Story is a 1997 fantasy drama film directed by Charles Sturridge and produced by Bruce Davey and Wendy Finerman. It is loosely based on the story of the Cottingley Fairies, and follows two children in 1917 England who take a photograph soon believed to be the first scientific evidence of the existence of fairies. The film was produced by Icon Productions.
Jonathan Cake is an English actor who has worked on various TV programmes and films. His notable screen roles include Jack Favell in Rebecca (1997), Oswald Mosley in Mosley (1997), Japheth in the NBC television film Noah's Ark (1999), Tyrannus in the ABC miniseries Empire (2005) and Det. Chuck Vance on the ABC drama series Desperate Housewives (2011–2012).
Maria Zena Schneider, known professionally as Maria Charles, was an English film, television and stage actress, director and comedienne. She was probably best known for her performance as the overbearing mother Bea Fisher in the ITV sitcom Agony. Charles also appeared on the stage in original West End productions including musicals by Stephen Sondheim, Charles Strouse and Sandy Wilson.
Hayley Elizabeth Atwell is a British and American actress. After appearing on various West End productions, Atwell gained popularity for her roles in period-drama films, appearing in the films Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Duchess (2008) and the miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (2010); for the latter two, she was nominated for a British Independent Film Award and a Golden Globe Award respectively.
Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. It was produced by Granada Television for broadcast by the ITV network. Significant elements of it were directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who handled the initial phases of the production, before Charles Sturridge carried on with the series. The first episode is credited to both men equally.
Brideshead Revisited is a 2008 British drama film directed by Julian Jarrold. The screenplay by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies is based on the 1945 novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh, which previously had been adapted in 1981 as the television serial Brideshead Revisited.
Anthony Nicholls was an English actor.
Hysteria: Or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis is a two-hour comedy play, by British dramatist Terry Johnson, fictionalising a real-life 1938 meeting between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud a year before the latter's death. It is named after the Freudian psychological term "hysteria".
Matilda Alyson Faith Rosenblatt is an English actress.
Horace Walter Nicholls was an English photographer, notable as a war photographer during World War I.
A Handful of Dust is a 1988 British film directed by Charles Sturridge, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh. It stars James Wilby and Kristin Scott Thomas. Originally conceived as a television project, it was the first feature film financed by London Weekend Television.
Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh is an Irish costume designer. Much of her career has been in Irish and British-Irish productions, such as Michael Collins (1996), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Ondine (2009), The Guard (2011), Calvary (2014), The Rhythm Section (2020), Foundation (2021), and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). She has been nominated eleven times for Best Costume Design from the Irish Film & Television Academy, winning for The Rhythm Section. Other nominations include Emmy, Critics Choice, and Satellite Awards. Eimer was elected to AMPAS in 2020.
Kiran Sonia Sawar is a Scottish actress best known for her role in the one-off drama Murdered by My Father. In 2017, Sawar appeared in "Crocodile", an episode of the fourth season of anthology series Black Mirror.
Derek Granger was a British film and television producer, and screenwriter. He worked on Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, and Where Angels Fear to Tread.