DAME DOROTHY TUTINDorothy Tutin, who rose from humble beginnings to become one of Britain ’sleading actresses, died at the age of 71 after succumbing to leukaemia, on 6August, 2001.
So revered was her work that she was awarded a CBE in 1967 and was made adame in 2000.
Always wanting to be a performer, sheoriginally had ambitions as a pianist, and after success in a school drama,joined the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts, making her stage debut in 1949,aged 19, as Princess Margaret in The Thistle and the Rose.
Dorothy Tutin was born in London on 8 April, 1930, yet her mother was still married to her first husband at thetime. John Tutin married her mother a year after she was born, something theyoung Dorothy discovered at 14.
She went to St Catherine’s School in Bramley, Surrey ,but left at 15 to study music, before joining RADA.
After spending time at the Bristol Old Vic and the Old Vic in London her careerblossomed. Dame Dorothy's first film role was in 1952, in The Importance of BeingErnest, after the director saw her on stage in Henry V.
She was cast opposite Laurence Olivier the following year in The Beggar’sOpera, yet only made a further five films in her 50-year career.
Back in the theatre, her role in Graham Greene’s The Living Room in 1953was praised by critic Kenneth Tynan as being “ablaze like a diamond in a mine”.
She performed further stage roles before joining the Royal ShakespeareCompany in 1958, playing major roles in many of the classics, includingDesdemona in Othello, and Portia in The Merchant of Venice.
A spell in America sawher take to the New York stage in The Hollow Crown (1963), laterplaying Polly Peachum in The Beggar'sOpera in the West End . Her QueenVictoria in Portrait of a Queen (1965), was played at home and on Broadway, and her role as Rosalind in As You Like It (1967), was both withthe RSC in London and in Los Angeles.
During this successful career she found time to marry the actor DerekWaring in 1963, and their two children, Amanda and Nick, are both actors. Derekdied in 2007.
Veteran actor SirJohn Mills paid tribute to Dame Dorothy, saying: "She was such a wonderful womanand a brilliant actress. She was one of our great actresses, one of the best weever had and she could play almost anything. It is a very great loss."
Yet Tutin avoided too much self analysis, saying in 1995: “I can’t makesense of myself at all. I don’t even like my name. I never wanted to act. Itwas just that my father wanted a daughter on the stage.”
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