Frances de la Tour
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Frances de la Tour (born July 30 1944) is an English actress best remembered for playing Ruth Jones in the hit Yorkshire Television comedy Rising Damp; an eternal spinster, she was perpetually known as 'Miss Jones', despite only being in her early thirties. She is renowned for her appearances on television, movies, and on the stage.
De La Tour did not get on well with her Rising Damp co-star, Leonard Rossiter, and subsequently she has sadly declined to be interviewed on this period of her life. The character of Ruth Jones is considered to be one of the finest in British comedy history, mainly due to De La Tour's performance.
Tennessee Williams described her performance in his play Small Craft Warnings in London's West End in 1973 as one of the best he had seen by any actress in any play. [[Citing sources citation needed]]
She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Revival Role in 1984 for The Moon for the Misbegotten, and again almost a decade later in 1992 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for When She Danced.
In 2005, she played the part of Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire based on the J. K. Rowling book of the same name.
She won a Drama Desk Award and a Tony in 2006 for her work in The History Boys in New York.
Background
De la Tour was born in Bovingdon in Hertfordshire. She is the sister of Andy de la Tour.In the 1970s, she was a member of the Trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party alongside Vanessa Redgrave. She continued to work frequently with Redgrave, and later joined her political grouping, the Marxist Party.
Selected filmography
- Rising Damp (1974-1978) - Miss Ruth Jones
- Rising Damp (1980) - Miss Ruth Jones
- Flickers (1980) - Maud Cole
- Cold Lazarus (1996) - Emma Porlock
- The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1997) - Aunt Western
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) - Madame Olympe Maxime
- The Moving Finger (2006) - Mrs. Maud Dane Calthrop
External links
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