DAVID RAYNER

After watching my video of the 1962 Hammer version of The Phantom of The Opera tonight (coincidentally, the 42nd anniversary of my going to see it at my local Essoldo in Stoke), I looked up Heather Sears on the IMDb in an attempt to find out what had become of her. I was surprised to find that she passed away in January, 1994. Does anyone know what she died of and where she died?

David Brent

Hi David,

Like you i have tried numerous sites & books to find out more on Heather Sears but i'm still basically in the dark about her passing.
I do know that in her latter years she concentrated more on theatre work & was involved with many productions at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester.
Maybe someone connected to that theatre may have more details.

I've often thought that someone could make a great book retelling the true life stories of actresses like Heather,Mary Ure,Carol White,Imogen Hassall,Janet Munro,Susan Shaw,June Thorburn ect..who died before their time either by their own hand or accident.
Maybe there is some vague connection between them all,their frailties & how the film industry didn't turn out to be all 'glamour'for them.
It would make a morbid but fascinating read.

Dave.

DAVID RAYNER

Hi, Dave,
I too have found that the information on the net about British actors and actresses is only comprehensive if they made it big in America…the likes of Cary Grant; David Niven; James Mason; Stewart Granger; Deborah Kerr; Richard Burton (and, in more recent years, Daniel Radcliffe).

But information on many other actors and actresses more famous on this side of the Atlantic is difficult to come by…especially on the likes of Heather Sears and June Thorburn. On the IMDb, you’re lucky if you get a date of birth and a date of death for them, no matter how many films they made.

However, I’m sure that recently, I came across a website set up by someone in Ireland dedicated to Janet Munro…but I’ve lost the URL. I’m sure though that you’ll find it on Google.

smudge

You could try the name in the search engine + 'obituary'. IIRC there were some full obits of Heather Sears at the time she died, though I cannot recall cause of death I'm afraid.

As for those who died too young, there is already an excellent book :

"Tuesday's Child - The life and death of Imogen Hassall" by Dan Leissner.

As Mr. Rayner says, Liam runs a very good site to Janet Munro - the URL is in the ACTORS & ACTRESSES thread here, in the TONY WRIGHT item - you started that one Mr. Brent :)

Of all the unfortunates you mentioned in the entry, I'd most like to hear about Susan Shaw ; I can only assume that the death of Bonar Colleano had a terrible effect on her. Highly understandable if it did.

SMUDGE

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David Brent

David Rayner mentioned trying to obtain more info on June Thorburn.
Details of the fatal air crash that took June Thorburn & all aboard the Iberia Airlines crash on November 4th 1967 can be found at-
www.planecrashinfo.com
Look under the "Famous Deaths" listing.

It is true that June was due to have a baby in four months time before the accident happened.
She was only 36 when she died.

Dave.

DAVID RAYNER

Thanks, Smudge and an interesting link, David. I remember watching the BBC Television news on the night of the plane crash. As far as I can recall (and it is 37 years ago), the plane narrowly missed a house when it was coming down and a BBC reporter was interviewing the occupants. "Well", said the man, "we were sat watching a film with Ray Milland called The Uninvited, when the plane came over our house before crashing". I always remembered that for some reason.

smudge

I see your point David....

After extensive searching this afternoon, no joy whatsoever on the Heather Sears obit....

I can only suggest now something like THE TIMES subscription archive issue for two or three days after 3/1/94.

SMUDGE

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David Brent

David,

Your recollection of the BBC News reporting of the air crash that killed June Thorburn ,amongst others , makes the lack of information regarding her even more surprising.

I typed in the crash date into the BBC archive website & also June's name yet NOTHING showed up.
Same story with Heather Sears & her date of death.
The lack of information on both these actressses is quite amazing.

By the way Smudge,i had heard of the Imogen Hassall book (cant find it over here but i believe it's available through the U.S.)but i was commenting that one book dedicated to the stories of all those stars & starlets of British screen that fell by the wayside would be a good read.

Dave.

Jim

Regarding Heather Sears, a heart throb of mine (years ago)! I always took note of anything in the papers when her name was mentioned. I think that I remember reading that she had died of a heart attack.

I do know one of the back-stage workers at the newly opened Haymarket theatre in Leicester.
I shall try to locate him and find out more.

Good morning boys.

smudge

Leicester Haymarket ? Is that wher she last appeared then Jim ?

Dave B - Yes, I appreciate your quest for one volume ; have you also heard of FADE TO BLACK by Paul Donnelly ? Somewhat Hollywood orientated and dwelling on some of the more lascivious facts on certain deaths, but has some items of Britfan interest.

There was also (I recall) some years ago a large format book - THEY DIED TOO YOUNG. Again more Hollywood slanted but of some interest.

Reckon you'll have to just keep 'em peeled in the obituaries Dave ; who knows - you may just end up writing it yourself...

SMUDGE

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David Brent

Thanks Smudge,
As mentioned earlier i had read that Heather Sears was a well known repertory actress & in latter years concentrated on theatre productions particularly at the Haymarket Theatre,Leicester.

Cheers Jim, having a contact at the theatre in question may bring more info.

Dave.

smudge

Ofcourseyou mentioned that before Dave....

DOH ! duh

SMUDGE

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Clare

Heather Sears, stage and screen actress, died on January 3 aged 58. She wasborn in Whitechapel on September 28, 1935. SOME actors, however excellent, seem fated never to be quite where the
spotlight decisively hits. Heather Sears was one of them. Lee Patterson, used to tell of escorting his co-stars, Heather Sears and Joan Crawford, to the premiere of The Story of Esther Costello, the film which was expected to make Heather Sears a star. Once past the battery of cameras at the door, they relaxed as they went up the stairs, Crawford in the centre. Then suddenly a camera flashed out of nowhere. When Patterson saw the pictures he was amazed, because in that split second Crawford had arranged herself to be looking up romantically at him, while her other hand, in a dramatic gesture, had managed to place her handbag right in front of Heather Sears's face. Of course, that takes an old-time star's technique but Heather Sears unfortunately all-too-often ended up with the handbag in front of her face.

She was, in fact, very good in Esther Costello, where she played a blind deaf mute, who is nearly raped. Yet everyone remembers it as a Joan Crawford movie. She was also fine in Room at the Top, where she plays the naive girl whom Laurence Harvey gets into trouble and has to marry. But it was the mature continental charms of Simone Signoret which carried the day on that occasion. And how many remember that she was even in Sons and Lovers, though on television her quiet, understated performance as D.H.Lawrence's Miriam still rings true.

Heather Sears was of a similar type and eneration to the young Mary Ure and Claire Bloom. She was trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Her elder sister Ann was also an actress (her moment of glory in films was playing the only noticeable female role in The Bridge on the River Kwai), and Heather began promisingly in a traditional manner with rep at Windsor in 1955 and an ingenue role in the knockabout comedy film Dry Rot in 1956. Before she turned 22 she had played the key title role in The Story of Esther Costello and taken over Mary Ure's part in the first non-repertory run of Look Back in Anger at
the Royal Court; shortly afterwards she played Claire Bloom's role in the television production of Ring Round the Moon.

Playing the kind of dewy-innocent Anouilh s pecialised in is obviously the prerogative of very young actresses, but her Alison in the Osborne play seemed to promise more fibre than was immediately apparent. This quality also underlay her playing of the victim in Room at the Top (1958) the character is vulnerable
but in her own way determined and of Miriam in Sons and Lovers (1960). But subsequently she was not very lucky with film casting: the heroine of The Phantom of the Opera (the Hammer version of 1962 with Herbert Lom in the title role) does not have much to do but suffer and scream prettily, and the same goes for young women involved in films like The Black Torment (1964), after
which her film career rather petered out.

However, she had the stage to fall back on during the later 1960s and 1970s.
She had a considerable success as Grusha in The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Chichester Festival in 1969, a role she later reprised in the course of a season starring at the Haymarket, Leicester, in 1973-74, which also included a revival of her other big stage success, Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves, in which she had originally played at the Lyric in 1970.

Subsequently she acted less frequently and retired more into private life, in which she was married to the author Tony Masters. It was less than a decade centre stage, but strongly suggested the existence of qualities in her which
never fully came into play.

From The Times
THU 27 JAN 1994

DAVID RAYNER

Many thanks for that, Clare. At least we now know that The Times obituary didn't mention what she died of.

Jim

Don't know Smudge, but I know she did quite a bit of work there many years ago. She reminded me of an old girl friend, but this is not the place to discuss that! Down boy! wink

Good morning boys.