Margaret Maud Tyzack CBE (9 September 1931 â€" 25 June 2011) was an
English actress. Her television roles included The Forsyte Saga (1967)
and I, Claudius (1976). She won the 1970 BAFTA TV Award for Best
Actress for the BBC serial The First Churchills, and the 1990 Tony
Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage,
opposite Maggie Smith. She also won two Olivier Awards-- in 1981 as
Actress of the Year in a Revival and in 2009 as Best Actress in a
Play. Her film appearances included 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A
Clockwork Orange (1971), Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and Match Point
(2005).Tyzack was born in Essex, England, the daughter of Doris (née
Moseley) and Thomas Edward Tyzack. She grew up in West Ham (now
Greater London). She attended the all-girls' St Angela's Ursuline
School, Newham, and was a graduate of RADA.Tyzack was noted for her
classical stage roles, having joined the Royal Shakespeare Company to
play Vassilissa in Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths in 1962, and had
major roles in their 1972 Roman Season as Volumnia in Coriolanus,
Portia in Julius Caesar and Tamora in Titus Andronicus. She appeared
in another Gorky play, as Maria Lvovna in Summerfolk RSC 1974. In 1977
she joined the acting company of the Stratford Festival in Canada,
where she played Mrs Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts, Queen Margaret in
Richard III and the Countess of Roussillon in All's Well That Ends
Well. In a feature of Stratford's 1977 season, New York Times writer
Richard Eder noted "One of the main excitements was the discovery of
Margaret Tyzack [...] her work here has been a revelation". Tyzack had
been engaged on short notice by the Festival when Canadian actress
Kate Reid dropped out, which initially spurred some protests from
Canadian nationalists. Theatre critic Robert Cushman later wrote that
had the protests succeeded "Canadian audiences would have been
deprived of three great performances", noting of her performance in
Richard III: "there can never have been a better (Queen) Margaret".
She played the Countess role again for the Royal Shakespeare Company
on Broadway in 1983.She received her first Olivier award as Actress of
the Year in a Revival in 1981 for the National Theatre revival of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in which she played Martha, replacing
Joan Plowright who was ill,. In 1990, she won the Tony Award for Best
Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Lotte Schoen in the play
Lettice and Lovage, in which she appeared in both the London and
Broadway productions opposite Dame Maggie Smith. The American Actors'
Equity initially refused permission for Tyzack to join the New York
production, but Smith refused to appear without Tyzack because of the
"onstage chemistry" she believed the two women had created in their
roles. In 1994, she played Sybil Birling in the Royal National Theatre
production of An Inspector Calls. In 2008, she was acclaimed for her
portrayal of Mrs St Maugham in a revival of Enid Bagnold's The Chalk
Garden at the Donmar Warehouse, London, for which she won the Best
Actress award in the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the Olivier
award for Best Actress in a Play in 2009. In 2009, she also appeared
alongside Helen Mirren in Phedre at the Royal National Theatre.
English actress. Her television roles included The Forsyte Saga (1967)
and I, Claudius (1976). She won the 1970 BAFTA TV Award for Best
Actress for the BBC serial The First Churchills, and the 1990 Tony
Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage,
opposite Maggie Smith. She also won two Olivier Awards-- in 1981 as
Actress of the Year in a Revival and in 2009 as Best Actress in a
Play. Her film appearances included 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A
Clockwork Orange (1971), Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and Match Point
(2005).Tyzack was born in Essex, England, the daughter of Doris (née
Moseley) and Thomas Edward Tyzack. She grew up in West Ham (now
Greater London). She attended the all-girls' St Angela's Ursuline
School, Newham, and was a graduate of RADA.Tyzack was noted for her
classical stage roles, having joined the Royal Shakespeare Company to
play Vassilissa in Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths in 1962, and had
major roles in their 1972 Roman Season as Volumnia in Coriolanus,
Portia in Julius Caesar and Tamora in Titus Andronicus. She appeared
in another Gorky play, as Maria Lvovna in Summerfolk RSC 1974. In 1977
she joined the acting company of the Stratford Festival in Canada,
where she played Mrs Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts, Queen Margaret in
Richard III and the Countess of Roussillon in All's Well That Ends
Well. In a feature of Stratford's 1977 season, New York Times writer
Richard Eder noted "One of the main excitements was the discovery of
Margaret Tyzack [...] her work here has been a revelation". Tyzack had
been engaged on short notice by the Festival when Canadian actress
Kate Reid dropped out, which initially spurred some protests from
Canadian nationalists. Theatre critic Robert Cushman later wrote that
had the protests succeeded "Canadian audiences would have been
deprived of three great performances", noting of her performance in
Richard III: "there can never have been a better (Queen) Margaret".
She played the Countess role again for the Royal Shakespeare Company
on Broadway in 1983.She received her first Olivier award as Actress of
the Year in a Revival in 1981 for the National Theatre revival of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in which she played Martha, replacing
Joan Plowright who was ill,. In 1990, she won the Tony Award for Best
Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Lotte Schoen in the play
Lettice and Lovage, in which she appeared in both the London and
Broadway productions opposite Dame Maggie Smith. The American Actors'
Equity initially refused permission for Tyzack to join the New York
production, but Smith refused to appear without Tyzack because of the
"onstage chemistry" she believed the two women had created in their
roles. In 1994, she played Sybil Birling in the Royal National Theatre
production of An Inspector Calls. In 2008, she was acclaimed for her
portrayal of Mrs St Maugham in a revival of Enid Bagnold's The Chalk
Garden at the Donmar Warehouse, London, for which she won the Best
Actress award in the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the Olivier
award for Best Actress in a Play in 2009. In 2009, she also appeared
alongside Helen Mirren in Phedre at the Royal National Theatre.
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