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Anne Heywood (born Violet Joan Pretty; 11 December 1931 – 27 October 2023) was a British film actress, who is best known for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1967 film version of D.H. Lawrence's The Fox.[1]
Anne Heywood | |
|---|---|
 Heywood in The Chairman, 1969 | |
| Born | Violet Joan Pretty 11 December 1931 |
| Died | 27 October 2023 (aged 91) Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1951–1989 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Mark Stross (b. 1963) |
Early life and career
editBorn as Violet Joan Pretty in 1931[2] to Harold James and Edna Elizabeth (née Lowndes) Pretty in Handsworth, Birmingham, she won the Miss Great Britain title under her real name in 1950.[3]
In 1947, aged 15, she joined Highbury Little Theatre [4] in Sutton Coldfield and then won a Birmingham University Carnival Queen competition. She then entered a National Bathing Beauty Contest and won. She had a small role in Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951).[5]
Heywood made three television appearances on the Carroll Levis TV Show and then spent four years touring UK theatres. Later she also attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She had a small part in the comedy Find the Lady (1956).[6]
Rank Organisation
editHeywood was signed to the Rank Organisation, who changed her name to Anne Heywood and gave her small supporting roles in Checkpoint (1956) and Doctor at Large (1957). The Danziger Brothers borrowed her for the lead femme fatale in the low-budget film noir The Depraved (1957) with Robert Arden.
Rank gave Heywood the second female lead in Dangerous Exile (1957) and she was the female lead in Violent Playground (1958) with Stanley Baker, which established her as a film name.[7] She made Floods of Fear (1958) with Howard Keel. Herbert Wilcox used her as Frankie Vaughan's leading lady in The Heart of a Man (1959), then for Rank she starred in a romantic comedy Upstairs and Downstairs (1959). She was loaned to an Italian company for the historical costume drama Carthage in Flames (1960).[8]
Raymond Stross
editHeywood starred in the war movie A Terrible Beauty (1960) opposite Robert Mitchum. It was produced by Raymond Stross, who married Heywood. She starred in some British comedies, Petticoat Pirates (1961) and Stork Talk (1962) then did three films produced by Stross: The Brain (1962), The Very Edge (1963), and 90 Degrees in the Shade (1965).
Heywood was making High Jungle for MGM with Eric Fleming but the film was cancelled when Fleming drowned.[9]
Heywood starred in The Fox (1967), a screen adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence novella, which was produced by Stross and co-starred Sandy Dennis and Keir Dullea. The film generated controversy at the time due to its lesbian theme and nudity from Heywood.[10] It was also a major commercial success. A newspaper referred to her and Stross as the "English Carlo Pontis."[11]
Heywood went to Italy to play a nun in The Lady of Monza (1969), playing The Nun of Monza, then did a movie with Richard Crenna produced by Stross, Midas Run (1969).[12][13] She was second-billed in an espionage adventure film with Gregory Peck, The Chairman (1969) but she was only on screen for five minutes.[14] She was mentioned as a possible star of Myra Breckinridge (1970), but did not appear in the final film.[15]
Later career
edit
Heywood starred in I Want What I Want (1972), a box-office and critical flop produced by Stross, then went to Italy for the giallo film The Killer Is on the Phone (1972) and The Nun and the Devil (1973), again as a nun. In Hollywood, she was the female lead in Trader Horn (1973), a failed remake of a 1931 classic film, then she returned to Italy for Love Under the Elms (1974).[16]
Heywood starred in Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979), produced by Stross[17] and in the Italian satanic horror Ring of Darkness (1979). Both films were failures. She then had supporting roles in Sadat (1981) and the science fiction film What Waits Below (1984). Her career declined in the 1980s. Her penultimate role was as Manon Brevard Marcel in a two-part episode of the popular US television series The Equalizer, starring fellow British actor Edward Woodward, in 1988.
After the death of Stross in 1988, she retired from acting.[18]
Personal life and death
editHeywood was married for twenty-eight years to British film producer Raymond Stross, who produced most of her films after they met in Ireland in July 1959 during the filming of A Terrible Beauty. After their marriage in Zurich, Switzerland on 12 February 1960, the couple subsequently collaborated on several British and international films, including The Brain, The Very Edge, Ninety Degrees in the Shade, The Fox, Midas Run, I Want What I Want, and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff.[19]
Following Stross' death in 1988, Heywood retired and never appeared on screen again. In 1990, she married her second husband, George Danzig Druke, a former Assistant Attorney General of New York State, who died on 7 October 2021 in Beverly Hills, aged 98.[20] Heywood lived in Beverly Hills, California.
Anne Heywood died from cancer in Houston, Texas on 27 October 2023, aged 91.[21][22]
Filmography
edit| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Lady Godiva Rides Again | Dorothy Marlowe (beauty contestant) | (as Violet Pretty) |
| 1956 | Find the Lady | Receptionist | |
| Checkpoint | Gabriela | ||
| 1957 | The Depraved | Laura Wilton | |
| Doctor at Large | Emerald | ||
| Dangerous Exile | Glynis | ||
| 1958 | Violent Playground | Catherine Murphy | |
| 1959 | The Heart of a Man | Julie | |
| Floods of Fear | Elizabeth Matthews | ||
| Upstairs and Downstairs | Kate | ||
| 1960 | Carthage in Flames | Fulvia | |
| A Terrible Beauty | Neeve Donnelly | ||
| 1961 | Petticoat Pirates | Chief Officer Anne Stevens | |
| 1962 | Stork Talk | Lisa Vernon | |
| The Brain | Anna Holt | ||
| 1963 | The Very Edge | Tracey Lawrence | |
| 1965 | Ninety Degrees in the Shade | Alena | Nominated – Golden Globe Nominee for Best English-Language Foreign Film |
| 1967 | The Fox | Ellen March | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1969 | The Lady of Monza | Virginia de Leyva | Winner – Maschera D'Argento (Silver Mask) Award – Best Actress (Italy)[23] |
| Midas Run | Sylvia Giroux | ||
| The Chairman | Kay Hanna | ||
| 1972 | The Killer Is on the Phone | Eleanor Loraine | |
| I Want What I Want | Roy/Wendy | ||
| 1973 | The Nun and the Devil | Mother Giulia | Winner – Maschera D'Argento (Silver Mask) Award – Best Actress (Italy)[24] |
| Trader Horn | Nicole Mercer | ||
| 1974 | The First Time on the Grass | Margherita | Entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival |
| 1979 | Ring of Darkness | Carlotta Rhodes | Also known as Satan's Wife |
| Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff | Evelyn Wyckoff | ||
| 1984 | What Waits Below | Frieda Shelley |
Awards and nominations
edit| Year | Award | Category | Title of work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | Golden Globe | Best Actress – Drama | The Fox | Nominated |
| 1968 | Laurel Award | Female Dramatic Performance | The Fox | 5th place |
Further reading
edit- Weedman, Christopher (January 2017). "Anne Heywood: Britain's Daring Beauty". Cinema Retro: 56–59.
References
edit- ^ "Anne Heywood". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
- ^ Joseph F. Clarke (1977). Pseudonyms. BCA. p. 83.
- ^ Hill, Mike (28 November 2020). "Golden age of the beauty pageant when hopefuls flocked to Lancashire". Lancashire Evening Post. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
- ^ Highbury Little Theatre
- ^ FANTASTIC LIVES: Anne's Pretty good start ... AND THEN: [FIRST Edition] Plimmer, John. Sunday Mercury; Birmingham (UK) [Birmingham (UK)], 14 September 2003: pg. 78.
- ^ The Life Story of ANNE HEYWOOD, Picture Show; London Vol. 70, Iss. 1828 (12 April 1958): pg. 12.
- ^ Veysey, Arthur. "THIS Beauty Queen Can Act!: Bored with Winning Cups, Our Cover Girl Broke the Habit and Became a Star A Hand from Her Majesty"
Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 April 1958: pg. C-37. - ^ McElwaine, Bernard (28 June 1959). "I Watch Anne Fired!". Sunday Pictorial. p. 22.
- ^ Martin, Betty. MOVIE CALL SHEET: "'Fox' Next for Miss Heywood'", Los Angeles Times, 18 October 1966: pg. C13.
- ^ Sterritt, David. "The Fox". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
- ^ Anne Heywood Playing Oscar Game by the Rules, Warga, Wayne. Los Angeles Times 3 February 1969: h1.
- ^ Fred Leads Elegant Gypsies to 'Midas', Chicago Tribune, 17 May 1968: pg. B16
- ^ Terry, Clifford. "Anne Heywood--After The Fox' Many Films Ahead", Chicago Tribune, 11 May 1969: pg F14.
- ^ Thomas, Kevin. "'Chairman' Shot in Crossfire", Los Angeles Times, 6 February 1969: pg. H13.
- ^ Norma Lee Browning. , "HOLLYWOOD TODAY: A new approach to 'Myra'", Chicago Tribune, 14 March 1969: pg. B-27.
- ^ Lane, Lydia. "BEAUTY: Therapy in Travel for Anne", Los Angeles Times (1923-1995); Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif], 21 October 1973: pg. K-11.
- ^ Lane, Lydia. "Anne Heywood: From Contestant to Star", Los Angeles Times (1923-1995); Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif], 16 July 1978: pg. J6.
- ^ Obituary: "Raymond Stross, 72; Avant-Garde Motion Picture Producer": [Home Edition] Los Angeles Times, 2 August 1988, pg. 16.
- ^ "Anne Heywood Marries". The Birmingham Mail. 12 February 1960. p. 1.
- ^ Noble, Peter (18 August 1990). "In Confidence". Screen International.
- ^ "Anne Heywood, British star of the sizzling DH Lawrence film adaptation The Fox – obituary". The Telegraph. 15 March 2024. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
- ^ "Anne Heywood obituary, actress best known for lesbian DH Lawrence role". The Times. 11 April 2024. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
- ^ "Anne Heywood Voted Top Award in Italy". The Los Angeles Times. 13 October 1970. p. IV-13.
- ^ Weedman, Christopher (January 2017). "Anne Heywood: Britain's Daring Beauty". Cinema Retro: 58.
External links
edit- Anne Heywood at IMDb