RITA TUSHINGHAM

'Rita Tushingham' (b. 14 March 1942, Liverpool, England) is an English actress.

Contents

Career

Personal life

Awards

External links

Career

She started her career as a stage actress at the Liverpool Playhouse. Her screen debut was in ''A Taste of Honey'' (1961), the groundbreaking movie of the British realist tradition. She had memorable performances in ''The Leather Boys'' (1962), ''Girl with Green Eyes'' (1963), ''The Knack...and How to Get It'' (1965), ''Doctor Zhivago'' (1965) and ''Smashing Time'' (1967).
One of her most memorable performances was in ''The Trap'' (1966) in which she played the role of a mute woman. She carried the entire film without a single word of dialogue, relying instead upon her hyper-expressive eyes and face.
She was an icon of 1960s Britain, and was popularised again in the 1980s by her appearance in Carla Lane's ''Bread''.
Clips from her performance in ''The Leather Boys'' appear in The Smiths' video for the single, "Girlfriend in a Coma", in 1987. She is also mentioned in the Franz Ferdinand song "L. Wells".
She was last seen in the film ''Being Julia'' (2005) as Julia (Annette Bening)'s aunt and in the episode The Sittaford Mystery of the ''Agatha Christie's Marple'' tv series in 2006, playing Elizabeth Percehouse.

Personal life

Tushingham married the photographer Terry Bicknell in 1962. They had two daughters, Dodonna and Aisha Bicknell, together. In 1981 she married Iraqi cinematographer Ousama Rawi, spending 8 years in Canada with him. She now divides her time between Germany and London, with her partner since the mid-1990s, writer Hans-Heinrich Ziemann.
In April, 2005, at the age of 33, her daughter, Aisha Bicknell, was diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer. Tushingham has became an activist for breast cancer health and support ([1]). She and her daughter support Cancer Research UK's Relay for Life and have given a number of interviews for raising breast cancer awareness ([2]).

Awards

★ 1966 nominated Best Actress (BAFTA) ''The Knack .... and How to Get It''

★ 1966 nominated Best Actress (Golden Globe) ''The Knack .... and How to Get It''

★ 1965 nominated Best Actress (BAFTA) ''Girl With Green Eyes''

★ 1963 Most promising newcomer (Golden Globe) ''A Taste of Honey''

★ 1962 Most promising newcomer (BAFTA) ''A Taste of Honey''

★ 1962 Best Actress (Cannes Film Festival) ''A Taste of Honey''

External links

★ Rita Tushingham Fansite

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