Elizabeth Spriggs

Elizabeth Spriggs

British Actor

Elizabeth Spriggs. Born in England, September 18, 1929. Educated at the Royal School of Music. Mar­ried: 1) Marshall Jones; 2) Murray Manson. Stage ac­tor with the Bristol Old Vic and the Birmingham Repertory, 1958; joined the Royal Shakespeare Com­pany, 1962; joined the National Theatre Company, 1976; numerous appearances on television and in mo­tion pictures. Recipient: SWETM Best Supporting Ac­ tress Award, 1978.

Bio

     Elizabeth Spriggs is among Britain's most established and well-loved character actors. An associate artiste with the Royal Shakespeare Company, her illustrious work in the theater has run parallel with her lengthy and successful career in television. Work in the two media converged with her characterization of Sonia in Wesker's Love Letters on Blue Paper, a role she originally created for television and then transferred to the stage, winning her the West End Managers Award for 1978.

     Her versatility is revealed by both her skill at adapting her style for television, resisting the tendency of many actors with a theatrical background to "play to the gallery," and her work in a diverse set of television genres. Listed among her credits are the particularly noteworthy roles of the long-suffering and self­ sacrificing wife and mother, Connie Fox, in the drama series Fox; Harvey Moon's no-nonsense and strong­ willed mother in the situation comedy series Shine on Harvey Moon; the God-fearing gossip, May, in the critically acclaimed and highly popular drama Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit; and the wayward and wonderfully funny nurse, Sairey Gamp, in the much­ praised British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit.

     While to a great extent subject to the standard type­ casting of older actresses, Spriggs takes the crones, gossips, and suffering matriarchs and transforms them with her engagingly strong and rooted presence. In doing so, she imbues the usual fare with additional weight and dimension.

     Although there has been interest, particularly within feminist television criticism, in analyzing the representations of older female characters and the contributions of actresses to these characterizations, most of the attention has been paid to the soap opera genre. The wider terrain remains largely unexplored and evaluated within television studies.


See Also

Works

  • 1982 Shine On Harvey Moon

    1992-93 The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

    1998- Playing the Field

    2001-02 Nice Guy Eddie

    2003 Swiss Toni

  • 1978 Love Letters on Blue Paper

  • 1976 The Glittering Prizes

    1980 Fox

    1990 Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

    1994 Middlemarch

    1994 Takin'Over the Asylum

    1995 Martin Chuzzlewit

    1999 Wives and Daughters

    2001 Victoria and Albert

    2002 Shackleton

  • Work Is a Four-Letter Word, 1967; Three into Two Won't Go, 1969; An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, 1981; Richard's Things, 1981; Lady Chatterly's Lover, 1981; Going Undercover, 1988; Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, 1989; Impromptu,  1991; Hour of the Pig, 1993; Sense and Sensibility, 1995; The Secret Agent, 1996; For My Baby; Paradise Road, 1997; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 200 I; The Queen of Sheba's Pearls, 2004.

  • Cleopatra, 1958; The Cherry Orchard, 1958; The Beggar's Opera, 1963; The Representative, 1963; Victor. 1964; Marat/Sade, 1965; The Comedy of Er­rors, I 965; Timon of Athens , 1965; Hamlet, 1965; The Governor's  Lady, 1965-66; The Government Inspector, 1965-66; Henry IV. 1966; Henry V. 1966; All's Well That Ends Well, 1966;  Romeo and Juliet, 1966; Julius Caesar, 1968; The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1968; A Delicate Balance, 1969; Women Beware Women, 1969; Twelfth Night, 1970; London Assurance, 1970; The Winter's Tale, 1970; Twelfth Night, 1970; Major Barbara, 1970; Much Ado About Nothing, 1972; Blithe Spirit, 1976; The Country Wife, 1977; Volpone, 1977; Love Letters on Blue Paper, 1978 .

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