Maureen Pryor (23 May 1922–5 May 1977) was an Irish-born English character actress. She appeared on stage, screen and television.

Maureen Pryor was born Maureen Pook in 1922 in Limerick, Ireland to a Cockney father and an Irish mother. She started acting with Manchester Repertory in 1938 and studied with Michel Saint-Denis at the London Theatre Studio 1939-40.

She appeared in the West End in Seán O'Casey's Red Roses for Me, Noël Coward's Peace In Our Time, John Griffith Bowen's After the Rain (also on Broadway)^[1], Doris Lessing’s Play with a Tiger^[2], and plays such as Little Boxes and Where’s Tedd.^[3] She was a member of the Stables Theatre Company. She also appeared on Broadway in the premiere season of Boeing-Boeing (1965).^[1] In Manchester, she appeared in Eugene O'Neill's one-act play Before Breakfast, directed by Bill Gilmour.

She made over 500 television appearances, and was in many films, perhaps most notably in Ken Russell's 1968 film Song of Summer, in which she played Jelka Delius, the long-suffering wife of the composer Frederick Delius. Russell used her again in The Music Lovers (1970) as Tchaikovsky's mother-in-law.

Her other notable film roles included:

• Shoulder to Shoulder (1974, BBC TV; as Dame Ethel Smyth)
• The Black Windmill (1974)
• The National Health (1973; the matron)
• Lady Caroline Lamb (1972; Mrs Butler)
• The Madhouse on Castle Street (1963; Mrs Griggs; this was Bob Dylan's acting debut)
• Life for Ruth (1962)
• No Love for Johnnie (1961)
• Doctor at Large (1957)
• Doctor in the House (1954)
• The Weak and the Wicked (1953)
• The Lady with the Lamp (1951)

Her first marriage ended in divorce, her second in separation. She had one son, Mark, and died in 1977 from a heart ailment.

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• IMDb biography
• IMDb