Distinguished stage actress who studied acting at the Royal Academy
of Dramatic Arts, then began her professional career in 1951. From 1953
onwards she made intermittent film appearances; notably some fine roles
during the 1960s, typically cast as troubled middle-aged housewife.
She won a British Film Academy award for her work opposite Albert
Finney in Karel Reisz's Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Later, she appeared in another
new wave kitchen-sink drama, as the tragic widow at the centre of Richard
Harris’ affections in This
Sporting Life (1963), a performance that earned Roberts a Best Actress
Oscar nomination. The rest of her film career remained sporadic, and
in the mid 1970s Roberts moved to Los Angeles, going on to co-star in
the TV sitcom The Tony Randall Show. One of her final roles was portraying
a villain in the Goldie Hawn comedy vehicle Foul Play (1978). From 1955-61
she was married to actor Alan Dobie; then from 1962-71 she was married
to actor Rex Harrison. She died at the age
of 53 from barbiturate poisoning; attributed to suicide.
