Thora Hird - Wonderful Woman No. 85

Thora Hird - 1911-2003
British Actress, Writer and Television Personality

Added to the album by Howie, A Wonderful Man

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Lee, A Wonderful Man

There are some actresses who you forget are actresses at all, whose very being is imprinted on the public consciousness. Thora Hird is one such woman and one who genuinely earned the status of National Treasure in the United Kingdom.

Perhaps best remembered as Edie in Last of the Summer Wine, Thora seemed best in the roles she aged into. In the blog entry on Maggie Smith (Wonderful Woman No. 62), I wrote of Alan Bennett's fantastic Talking Heads series, Thora was another actress to perform one of the seminal monologues. Her performance in Cream Cracker Under The Settee is filled with pathos, I remember watching it with both laughter and tears, again forgetting that this was an actress but in true belief that the woman I saw really was alone after a fall.

She made you believe. She got inside the skin of the character and made it real. A wonderful talent.

[Thora's] Warmth, humanity and remarkable professional longevity made her a true candidate for that overworked epithet "much-loved".
The Daily Telegraph

From a theatrical family, Thora first appeared on stage in her Lancastrian home-town Morecambe aged just two months old. She performed on stage and in feature films such as Once A Sinner, The Entertainer and Some Will, Some Won't. Her true platform though was British television, where she appeared regularly from the 1960s to the last years of her life, in programmes such as Meet the Wife, Dinner Ladies and, of course, Last of the Summer Wine. She was a winner of both BAFTA and Emmy awards and was a subject of the cultural television programme The South Bank Show.

Thora also presented television programmes and was the author of several books.

She was a supporter and spokesperson for the charity Help The Aged and dedicated time to many other charitable causes too. She also always loved to meet and talk to fans, saying she enjoyed that they felt they knew her because she was so often in their living rooms on the television.

This droll-faced Northern girl, who in the course of a long and happy life took her place among the best we have.
Alan Bennett

A great representation of northern women, a superb actress and a genuine, funny and humble wonderful woman.

There's nothing I like better than having a good laugh, apart from making other people laugh with me.
Thora Hird