Susannah York

York was born in Chelsea, London, in 1939, the younger daughter of Simon William Peel Vickers Fletcher (1910–2002), a merchant banker and steel magnate, and his first wife, the former Joan Nita Mary Bowring. They married in 1935, and divorced prior to 1943. Her maternal grandfather was Walter Andrew Bowring, CBE, a British diplomat who served as Administrator of Dominica (1933–1935); she was a great-great-granddaughter of political economist Sir John Bowring. York had an elder sister, as well as a half-brother, Eugene Xavier Charles William Peel Fletcher, from her father's second marriage to Pauline de Bearnez de Morton de La Chapelle. At RADA, where her classmates included Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and future Beatles manager Brian Epstein, she won the Ronson award for most promising student before graduating in 1958. ==Career==

Film Her film career began with Tunes of Glory (1960), co-starring with Alec Guinness and John Mills. In 1961, she played the leading role in The Greengage Summer, which co-starred Kenneth More and Danielle Darrieux. In 1962, she performed in Freud: The Secret Passion with Montgomery Clift in the title role. York played Sophie Western opposite Albert Finney in the Oscar-winning Best Film Tom Jones (1963). She had turned the part down three times and only agreed to participate because she felt guilty over cooking a disastrous meal for the director Tony Richardson, who was determined not to accept her refusal. In 1972, she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Images. She played Superman's mother Lara on the doomed planet Krypton in Superman (1978) and its sequels, Superman II (1980) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987, voice role). York made extensive appearances in British television series, including Prince Regent (1979), as Maria Fitzherbert, the clandestine wife of the future George IV, and ''We'll Meet Again'' (1982). In 1984, York starred as Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (1984), based on the novel by Charles Dickens. She again co-starred with George C. Scott (as Ebenezer Scrooge), David Warner (Bob Cratchit), Frank Finlay (Jacob Marley), Angela Pleasence (The Ghost of Christmas Past) and Anthony Walters (Tiny Tim). In 1992, she was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. In 1997, York starred as Olivia in the British comedy Loop co-starring with Andy Serkis, based on the script by Tim Pears. In 2003, York had a recurring role as hospital manager Helen Grant in the BBC1 television drama series Holby City. She reprised this role in two episodes of Holby City's sister series Casualty in May 2004. Her last film was The Calling, released in 2010 in the UK. She was a patron of the Children's Film Unit and appeared in several of their films. Stage In 1978, York appeared on stage at the New End Theatre in London in The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs with Lucinda Childs, directed by French director Simone Benmussa. This was the first of 10 projects she completed with the producer Richard Jackson. In 2007, she appeared in the UK tour of The Wings of the Dove, and continued performing her internationally well-received solo show, ''The Loves of Shakespeare's Women. Also in 2007, she guest starred in the Doctor Who audio play Valhalla. In 2008, she played the part of Nelly in an adaptation by April De Angelis of Wuthering Heights''. According to the website of Italian symphonic metal band Rhapsody of Fire (previously known as Rhapsody), York had been recruited for a narrated part on the band's next full-length album Triumph or Agony. In 2009, she starred alongside Jos Vantyler in the Tennessee Williams season at the New End Theatre, London for which she received critical acclaim. York's last stage performance was as Jean in Ronald Harwood's Quartet, at the Oxford Playhouse in August 2010. Writing and personal appearances In the 1970s, York wrote two children's fantasy novels, In Search of Unicorns (1973, revised 1984) which was excerpted in the film Images, and ''Lark's Castle'' (1976, revised 1986). She was a guest, along with David Puttnam on the BBC Radio 4 documentary I Had The Misery Thursday, a tribute programme to film actor Montgomery Clift, which was aired in 1986, on the 20th anniversary of Clift's death. York had co-starred with him in Freud: The Secret Passion, John Huston's 1962 film biography of the psychoanalyst. ==Personal life==

In 1959, York married Michael Wells, with whom she had two children, including Orlando. They divorced in 1976. In the late 1970s, according to an interview in The Sunday Times, she had a two year relationship with the scientist Nick Humphrey. In the 1984 TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol, she played Mrs Cratchit and both of her children co-starred as Cratchit offspring. Politically, York was left-leaning, and publicly supported Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli dissident who revealed Israel's nuclear weapons programme. While performing ''The Loves of Shakespeare's Women'' at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv in June 2007, York dedicated the performance to Vanunu, evoking both cheers and jeers from the audience. ==Death==

Diagnosed with cancer late in 2010, York refused chemotherapy and honoured a contractual obligation to appear in Ronald Harwood's Quartet. from multiple myeloma on 15 January 2011, aged 72. ==TV and filmography==