Maxine Audley

Maxine Audley was born in London on 29 April 1923. Her parents were Henry Julius Hecht and Katherine Arkandy, a coloratura soprano. Audley attended the Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire. She trained for the stage at the Tamara Daykharhanova School in New York City and the London Mask Theatre School. Audley died in London on 23 July 1992. == Stage work ==

Audley made her first professional stage appearance in July 1940 at the Open Air Theatre in a walk-on role in a production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream. From 1940 to 1942, Audley performed with repertory companies in Tonbridge, Maidenhead and Birmingham. She again performed at the Open Air Theatre in 1942 and 1943, appearing in such roles as Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the 1955 season, Audley appeared as Lady Macduff in Macbeth, a performance that was praised by Kenneth Tynan as having "exceptional power". She worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company again in 1977, playing Volumnia in Coriolanus'' in Stratford and at the Aldwych Theatre. Other venues at which Audley appeared included the Haymarket Theatre in 1963, the Palace Theatre, Watford in 1968 and the Warehouse Theatre in 1978. ==Film and TV work==

Maxine Audley appeared in more than 20 films, her first appearance being in the 1948 adaptation of Anna Karenina. She then appeared in The Prince and the Showgirl, A King in New York (both 1957), The Vikings, Dunkirk (both 1958), Our Man in Havana (1959) and Peeping Tom (1960). Her other films include The Trials of Oscar Wilde (also 1960) as Ada Leverson, The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965), Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968), House of Cards (1968), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Sinful Davey, The Looking Glass War (1970) and Running Scared (1972). Her television appearances included International Detective and Danger Man (1960), "The Edgar Wallace Mysteries" and "Man at the Carlton Tower" (1961), Great Expectations (1967), Mr. Rose (1967), The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972), Space: 1999 (1976) and the television miniseries adaptations of Zastrozzi, A Romance (1986) and A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990). ==Filmography==