Rosalind Knight

Rosalind Knight

Birth : 1933-12-03, Marylebone, London, England, UK

Death : 2020-12-19

History

Born in Marylebone, London, versatile character actress Rosalind Marie Knight was born to theatrical parentage. Her father was the accomplished thespian Esmond Knight. Her mother, the comedienne Frances Clare, often featured in Ivor Novello operettas. Rosalind's interest in theatre was first kindled at the age of six when she and her mother attended a staging of Novello's "The Dancing Years" at Drury Lane. Rosalind was evacuated to the countryside with her nanny during the war years. In 1949, she accompanied her father to the Old Vic Theatre and became enthralled by a production of "The Snow Queen", primarily performed by drama school novices. The following year she won an audition and spent two years at the Old Vic Theatre School. This was succeeded by a lengthy apprenticeship in repertory which led to her gaining further experience as assistant stage manager for the West of England Theatre Company, the Midland Theatre Company in Coventry and the Piccolo Theatre Company in Manchester. In 1955, she made her first impact on screen as a lady-in-waiting in Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955), which also featured her father in the cast. A year later, having come to the attention of a movie producer, she played Annabel, one of the schoolgirls, in Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (1957) (decades later, she would return as a teacher in the sequel The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980)). This set the tone for a number of subsequent comedic roles which included a couple of early Carry On's and the Tony Richardson-directed Tom Jones (1963), in which she played the giddy Mrs. Harriet Fitzpatrick. While doing the Carry On films she was not under any form of contract and was paid a mere $50 a week. In 1957, Rosalind joined her father in an early BBC adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby (1957) as the spiteful Fanny Squeers. In a later miniseries based on Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (1964), she was a splendidly shrewish Charity Pecksniff. During her prolific career, Rosalind relished every opportunity to portray a diverse range of characters, good and bad, from servants to princesses (Alice of Battenberg in The Crown (2016)) to old maids (Aspasia Fitzgibbon in The Pallisers (1974)) to wealthy socialites (Margot Asquith in Nancy Astor (1982)) and unpleasant aristocratic dowagers (Daphne Winkworth in Jeeves and Wooster (1990)). She even essayed a retired prostitute turned landlady in the sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme (1999). In addition to a staple of period dramas she guested in numerous episodic TV dramas, including Poirot (1989), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996), Heartbeat (1992), Marple (2004), Midsomer Murders (1997) and Sherlock (2010). All the while, she remained heavily engaged in theatrical work with the Old Vic, The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre, her last appearance being the strict, incorruptible governess Mrs. Prism in Shaw's "The Importance of Being Earnest". Rosalind was married to director/producer Michael Elliott from 1959. In 1976, she helped rebuild and re-open the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, of which her husband was involved as one of five artistic directors. She was also a patron of the Actor's Centre in London and the Ladies' Theatrical Guild (a charity founded in 1891). Rosalind Knight continued to perform as an actress right up to her death on December 19 2020, at the age of 87.

Profile

Rosalind Knight

Movies

The Lady in the Van
Old Nun
The true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years.
The Lost World Cup
The film reconstructs the mysterious story of the 1942 Patagonia World Soccer championship, never acknowledged by the official sports organizations, and which for decades have remained shrouded in legend without the winner ever being known.
The Alchemistic Suitcase
Lady
A nervous and unsettling young boy takes a mysterious old suitcase across London... to a twisted and surreal conclusion.
The Shell Seekers
Mrs. Croftway
Penelope Keeling, a sixty-four-year-old daughter of a famous artist, reflects on her life, and the fate and choices that defined it, when she arrives in the Mediterranean to stay with her headstrong daughter. Shifting through time, and falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw, the truth of Penelope's rich, heartbreaking and surprising life unfolds.
The Moving Finger
Partridge
Troubled war veteran Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna rent a cottage in a seemingly tranquil English village which is plagued by a spate of poison pen letters... and murder.
About a Boy
Lindsey's Mum
Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
Gunslinger's Revenge
Miss Willow
The idealistic lifestyle of an old West farmer, his Indian wife, and half-breed son is interrupted when the boy's old gunslinger father returns. They are not happy with his return despite the old gunslinger's intention to retire. Things take a turn for the worse when another gunslinger arrives in town, trying to force a battle with the father.
Solitaire for 2
Receptionist
Katie can read minds. Being desirable, the male minds she reads are all thinking of one thing. She always responds by hitting them and storming off without explanation. Daniel is an expert in body language and interprets this as a sign she wants to be pursued. Since Daniel spends most of his time, when not terrorizing his students, pursuing women, Katie gets ever more exasperated that he is treating her exactly as he treats every presentable female from the motorcycle cop to the squeegee girl. She cannot read minds when her eyes are covered, or when minds are thinking in a foreign language, so she misinterprets Sandip's desire for hunger. She also holds Daniel responsible for his subconscious desire for his friend's wife (Caroline).
Pleasure
Madame Desneuves
Alan Bleasdale's modern re-telling of Madame Bovary. A tale of passion, greed, revenge, and of course pleasure, set in France. Starring Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar, Jennifer Ehle and James Larkin. In the French city of Rouen, the beautiful, young but bored Emma seeks to escape her dull married life. Her dreams are answered, and her comfortable, peaceful existence soon tarnished when she answers a lonely-hearts ad. She meets Gustave, a unsuccessful toy salesman, and potential con man. Together they begin a passionate affair, where they indulge in illicit sex and illegal scams. But parallel to their exhilarating affair, the police are on the hunt for a mysterious masked robber known only as Le Terroriste. As the stakes rise, and a betrayal means Emma finding herself alone, her own talents for deception develop into an overwhelming and obsessive desire for her to get her revenge.
Royal Celebration
Mrs. Maynard
A bittersweet drama about a street party held in a suburban London square to mark the 1981 Royal Wedding. After two years of the Thatcher administration there is recession and unrest, but the economic boom is just around the corner. Meanwhile, there's the fairytale wedding of Charles and Diana to celebrate.
Afraid of the Dark
Edith
A little boy, obsessed with blindness and violence, slowly gets trapped in his own delusions.
Claws
Mrs Hargreaves
A tale of cat lovers, the social circle they inhabit and the power struggles between them.
Prick Up Your Ears
RADA Judge
Stephen Frears directs this biographical drama focusing on controversial British playwright Joe Orton, revealed in flashback after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Born in 1933 in Leicester, in the English Midlands, John 'Joe' Orton moves to London in 1951, to study at RADA, and enjoys an openly gay relationship with Halliwell in their famous Islington flat in the 1960s. However, when Orton achieves spectacular success with such plays as 'What the Butler Saw' and 'Loot', Halliwell begins to feel alienated and the pair's future looks increasingly uncertain.
The Disappearance of Harry
Dr Abbeydale
Harry Webster (David Lyon) is an apparently normal husband and father who resides in contemporary Nottingham, England, which was once host to a flourishing textile industry. One day, Harry leaves his house and vanishes. A note he left behind alludes to a double life he no longer wishes to lead. His wife Liz (Annette Crosbie) conducts a search for her husband. Her findings raise a disturbing question: Did Harry have anything to do with a series of recent factory bombings?
The Wildcats of St. Trinian's
Miss Walsh
The girls of St. Trinian's decide they are being asked to do too much work so they go on strike.
The Lady Vanishes
Evelyn Barnes
On the eve of World War II, zany heiress Amanda Kelly travels by train to Switzerland. While passing through Germany, she meets a sweet elderly lady, who suddenly vanishes. Distraught, she questions her fellow passengers who claim that the woman was never there. Unsure if it's all in her mind or if there's a more sinister plot afoot, Amanda teams up with photographer Robert Condon to discover the truth.
It Could Happen to You
Mrs Ramlin
An educational film about the perils associated with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The drama is interspersed with scenes of a medical adviser directly addressing the camera giving advice and information about STDs.
The Old Curiosity Shop
Mrs. George
A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.
Eskimo Nell
Lady Longhorn
Three young men, a scriptwriter, a producer and a director are called in by Benny U Murdoch, an exotic movie producer. He wants to make a new erotic movie starring a big woman - the "Eskimo Nell" of the title. However problems start from the beginning, the scriptwriter is a virgin, a lover of penguins and hasn't a clue on how to write an erotic movie, each of the three main backers want a different type of movie - a western, an erotic and a kung-fu movie with different people in the main part. However problems really start for the three when Benny runs off with all the money and they have to make three different versions of the same film and try not to let the backers and stars know what has happened. And this is made harder when there is a clean-up-filth society breathing down their necks....
Baby Blues
Sister Maidenhead
Lavinia has been yearning and trying for ten years to conceive, and finally gives birth to a live baby. However, she finds that things are not as she dreamed and envisaged, and she suffers from depression after the birth,beginning to have dangerous feelings of love towards her child.
Start the Revolution Without Me
Helene de Sisi
An account of the adventures of two sets of identical twins, badly scrambled at birth, on the eve of the French Revolution. One set is haughty and aristocratic, the other poor and somewhat dim. They find themselves involved in palace intrigues as history happens around them. Based, very loosely, on Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities," Dumas's "The Corsican Brothers," etc.
On the Eve of Publication
Barbara
TV play by David Mercer. First in a trilogy concerning Marxist novelist Robert Kelvin. The occasion is a dinner party, Kelvin is concerned with a summation of his life, addressed in his head to his lover, Emma.
Tom Jones
Mrs. Fitzpatrick
Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?
As You Like It
Celia
One of the earliest hits for the newly established RSC, Michael Elliott’s sparkling version of Shakespeare's comedy is still remembered with joy by a generation of theatre-goers. The design was dominated by a huge oak tree, but the production is most memorable for Vanessa Redgrave’s luminous Rosalind, supported by Max Adrian and Ian Bannen.
The Kitchen
Daphne
In the business end of a kitchen, a polyglot staff strives to cope with a superhuman task. A microcosm of the world, the kitchen looms around and encloses its workers; they include Peter, the German cook, who is in love with waitress Monica, and constantly asks her to leave her husband. The pressure of the day becomes unendurable, and when Peter realises that Monica does not mean to divorce her husband his grief and pain cause him to run berserk!
There Was a Crooked Man
Nurse
When a law-abiding demolition expert is duped by a gang of criminals into helping them he is caught and jailed. When he is released he goes straight and then notices a leading citizen in his town is cheating his neighbours.
Doctor in Love
Doctor (uncredited)
Doctors Burke and Hare leave the confines of St Swithins for the world of general practice, stopping off on the way as patients at the Foulness Anti-cold Unit. Hare then takes up a position as junior in a well-healed G.P.'s surgery while Burke continues to sow his doctorial wild oats.
Carry On Teacher
Felicity Wheeler
Prepare for Six of the Best as the Carry On team cause chaos in the school yard. When a well-loved headmaster decides to retire, his scheming pupils have other ideas. The cunning boys unleash a campaign of practical jokes, armed with gin, itching power and bombs!
Carry On Nurse
Student Nurse Nightingale
Set in Haven Hospital where a certain men's ward is causing more havoc than the whole hospital put together. The formidable Matron's debut gives the patients a chill every time she walks past, with only Reckitt standing up to her. There's a colonel who is a constant nuisance, a bumbling nurse, a romance between Ted York and Nurse Denton, and Bell who wants his bunion removed straight away, so after drinking alcohol, the men decide to remove the bunion themselves!
Blue Murder at St. Trinian's
Annabel
With their headmistress under lock and key in her majesty's prison, the St Trinian's girls find themselves under the protection of the army. However, when the sixth form take a fancy to winning a trip to Italy through means fair or foul, the army discover this is one battle they can't win. Let loose in Europe, it is not long before St Trinian's have succeeded in endangering European relations.
Fortune Is a Woman
(uncredited)
An insurance man discovers his ex-girlfriend and her husband's art-forgery/arson scam.