Renee Asherson

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Dorothy Renée Ascherson (19 May 1915-October 30, 2014), also known as Renée Asherson, was an English actress.

The majority of her teatru experience was spent in Shakespearean plays, including appearances at the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse, and the Westminster Theatre.

Her first stage appearance, aged 20, took place on October 17, 1935, her first major film appearance was in The Way Ahead (1944).

In The Others (2001), she made her last film appearance.

Early life

Dorothy Renée Ascherson was born in Kensington, London, and the younger daughter of shipowner Charles Stephen Ascherson (1877–1945) and Dorothy Lilian (née Wiseman; 1881–1975). Her father was of German-Jewish descent. She was born in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, as well as Switzerland and Anjou. She later trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in New York.

Personal life

On her marriage to fellow actor Robert Donat, she and his wife moved to 8 The Grove, Highgate in 1953, separating five years later. She never remarried and died in Primrose Hill, London, on October 30, 2014. She was 99 years old at the time. Neal Ascherson, the journalist, is one of her surviving relatives.

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Career

Asherson appeared onstage in John Gield's production of Romeo and Juliet on October 17, 1935, but she was also the second understudy for Juliet. It was the performance in which Gield and Laurence Olivier alternated the roles of Romeo and Mercutio. Asherson was a member of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre company for eighteen months from 1937 to 1938. Iris in The Tempest appeared in The Old Vic in May 1940. Asherson appeared in the roles of Kate Hardcastle in Twelfth Night, Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, and Blanche in King John. Before resuming her tour with the Old Vic company, Asherson appeared at the New Theatre as Blanche in July 1941.

Asherson appeared in other contexts. She received particularly strong praise for her appearance in Robert Donat's The Cure for Love in 1945 at the Westminster Theatre. Laurence Olivier had hoped to join his company at The Old Vic, but she decided to continue working with Donat instead. In Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice to Donat's Benedict in 1947 and Stella in London's first London production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949, she appeared at the Aldwych Theatre. Olivier produced the new film, with Vivien Leigh playing Blanche.

She appeared at the Apollo Theatre in 1956, the Criterion Theatre in 1956, St Martin's Theatre in 1962, the Savoy Theatre in 1963 and 1977, and the York Theatre Royal in 1976 and 1976.

In Laurence Olivier's film Henry V., a lead role for Asherson was as King Henry V's love interest, Princess Katherine.

Donat and Asherson reprised their stage roles in The Cure for Love (1949), Donat's first film as director. The couple fell in love during its production. They appeared in later films, such as The Magic Box (1951), and they often appeared together. Iris Winterton, Peter Penrose's love interest, appeared on The Way to the Stars in 1945. (John Mills)

In the frightened house thriller The Others, the unidentified old woman appeared in her last film role.

In 1976, she appeared in Miss Gailey's epic dramatization of Arnold Bennett's "Clayhanger" opposite Janet Suzman and Denis Quilley. In 1978, she portrayed Mother Ancilla in the Armchair Thriller version of Antonia Fraser's Quiet as a Nun, and she appeared as Mrs Wainwright in the 1979 TV miniseries A Man Called Intrepid. In 1981, Asherson appeared in the first season and in eight episodes of Tenko. Emily Simpson, the character, was the first victim to die in the TV series Midsomer Murders ('The Killings at Badger's Drift,'; S1/01,1997).

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