Susan Hampshire

Susan Hampshire, Lady Kulukundis, (born 12 May 1937) is an English actress known for her many television and film roles. A three-time Emmy Award winner, she won for The Forsyte Saga in 1970, The First Churchills in 1969, and for Vanity Fair in 1973. Her other television credits include The Pallisers (1974), The Grand (1997–98) and Monarch of the Glen (2000–2005). Early life Susan Hampshire was born in Kensington, London, to George Kenneth Hampshire and his wife June (née Pavey) and is of Irish descent. The youngest of five children, she had three sisters and one brother. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a director of Imperial Chemical Industries who was rarely at home, her parents having unofficially separated. As a child, she had some developmental difficulties, unable to spell her name until she was nine and unable to read well until she was 12. Her determined mother founded a small London school in 1928, The Hampshire (now Gems Hampshire School), where Susan was taught. Her childhood ambition was to be a nurse, but she did not have the O level in Latin it required, so she decided to become an actress. She was diagnosed as dyslexic at the age of 30. Career As an actress, Hampshire worked in the theatre before moving to film and television work. She took the title role in a dramatised version of Little Black Sambo recorded by HMV Junior Record Club in 1961 (words by David Croft, music by Cyril Ornadel) and sang on The Midday Show when ITV Anglia began broadcasting (as Anglia Television) in 1959. Her first starring role was in the film During One Night in 1960. She then took the leading role in a 1962 BBC adaptation of What Katy Did. Soon afterwards, she was taken up by Walt Disney and starred in The Three Lives of Thomasina (opposite Patrick McGoohan) and The Fighting Prince of Donegal. She would later appear opposite McGoohan again, in two episodes of Danger Man. She co-starred with Cliff Richard in Sidney J. Furie's 1964 musical Wonderful Life.