Jenny Tomasin - RIP

[hoggers]

Very sorry to hear about Jenny Tomasin passing away...

Wonderful in Upstairs Downstairs, but also superb in Emmerdale.

RIP

[faginsgirl]

Very sad news indeed. I always hoped I would meet her one day.

Peace Jenny.

[Marky B]

Very sad news - a wonderful performance in Emmerdale!
Rest In Peace,Jenny
Mark

[chuffnobbler]

Oh how sad.

I have always thought her Doctor Who appearance had her as one of the most tragic characters the show ever featured. I once met her, at the stagedoor of my local theatre, where she was playing Kate O'Mara's maid.

[smudge]

Sad news indeed - always one of the most watchable characters in Upstairs Downstairs...

RIP Jenny.

Respect,

Smudge

[faginsgirl]

I like to think of the Upstairs Downstairs crowd waiting for her with a wee Sherry.

[Loose_Cannon]

Oh dear, I always thought of her as the "baby" of the cast too.

[Mark O]

R.I.P. Jenny

Always loved poor put upon Ruby, Lord Bellamy loved the Apple dumplings she made!

[batman]

Jenny brought her one woman show to Norfolk a couple of times and I met her backstage. I liked her. RIP Jenny.

[faginsgirl]

Hi.

There isn`t a thread for Jenny`s work so ...

Jenny Tomasin played the role of Tasambeker, an employee of Tranquil Repose, in the 1985 Doctor Who story Revelation of the Daleks.

Tomasin was best known for her portrayal of the long-suffering Ruby in the London Weekend Television production Upstairs Downstairs, appearing in 41 episodes. Her role, as the put-upon kitchen maid who nurtured dreams of running away with Rudolph Valentino, made her one of the most popular characters in the series.

In 1981 she had a small part in Emmerdale Farm as Naomi Tolly. She also had parts in Crossroads and Martin Chuzzlewit. In the nineties she performed in many regional pantomimes. In 2005 she returned to Emmerdale, this time playing Noreen Bell, a cantankerous villager, who was eventually killed off in July 2006.

Jenny Tomasin was born on November 30, 1936 in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

There is a brief clip of her here on Midnight is a Place but not until around 1.30. The video clip is a good watch anyway, I think I will invest in the DVD.



Poor Ruby (who wouldn`t know Christmas fron Easter lol starts at 4.00)

[didi-5]

I loved the character of Ruby. Jenny will be remembered for that role alone with great affection. RIP.

[jch]

Sorry to read this. Always liked her as Ruby, and then years later in Emmerdale. R.I.P.

[jaycad]

I've just read the news in the Downton Abbey thread.R.I.P. Jenny.

[midnight sheep]

Went to see J Edgar yesterday and to my suprise saw Jenny appear briefly on the screen.
She is in an ad for the Irish film board.

[julian_craster]

Obituary: Jenny Tomasin, Actress best known for 'Upstairs, Downstairs'

INDEPENDENT
Friday 27 January 2012
Jenny Tomasin: Actress best known for 'Upstairs, Downstairs' - Obituaries - News - The Independent



The role of Ruby Finch, the dim-witted, put-upon scullery maid in Upstairs, Downstairs forever dreaming of running away with Rudolph Valentino, brought Jenny Tomasin fame worldwide. The familiar cry of "Oh, Ruby!" from the Bellamy household's cook, Mrs Bridges, in response to the accident-prone servant's clumsiness, was perhaps the closest the saga came to having a catchphrase.

Tomasin joined the programme for just one episode in its second series, in 1972, but her portrayal of the downtrodden Ruby was so admired that she was kept on until Upstairs, Downstairs ended three years later. She was seen "downstairs" alongside others including Angela Baddeley as the grumpy but warm-hearted Mrs Bridges, George Jackson as the dour butler Hudson, Jean Marsh as the pivotal housemaid Rose and Pauline Collins as the day-dreaming parlour maid Sarah in the drama set at 165 Eaton Place, London, against a background of events from the Edwardian era and First World War to the General Strike and Wall Street Crash. In typical fashion, Ruby once shocked her fellow servants by announcing that she was leaving for a job in a munitions factory, only for it to be blown up with her inside. She took the long walk back to Belgravia, her face blackened, and was reinstated.

The programme was Britain's most successful period drama of the 1970s, watched by 300 million people in 50 countries, including the US, where it won seven Emmys. When it ended, Tomasin felt a big hole had been left in her life and compared it to bereavement. Plans for Ruby to join Hudson and Mrs Bridges in a sequel, running a seaside boarding-house, were abandoned following Baddeley's death.

However, Ruby was a double-edged sword. The character was popular but frequently described as "TV's ugly duckling" and, Tomasin believed, left her typecast as maids, restricting her future career, while "upstairs" stars such as Simon Williams and Lesley-Anne Down saw their careers soar.

"I had to wear these drab outfits and no make-up," she recalled in the 2002 television documentary After Upstairs, Downstairs. "There was one particular incident when I was out with my boyfriend for a meal. I was feeling sexy and attractive, and suddenly somebody yelled out, 'Oh, look, there's Ruby!' I looked at my boyfriend and said, 'I don't want to stay here.' It just felt awful."

Born in Leeds in 1936, Tomasin had childhood ambitions to act or write. Despite her parents' objections, she broke into acting and appeared on stage until she made her screen début in 1972 as a Young Conservative whose parents try to marry her off to the fraudulent Australian of the title (Barry Crocker) in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, a film written by Barry Humphries (who played Aunt Edna Everage) and the director Bruce Beresford.

Before she finished her run as Ruby, Tomasin took the carbon-copy role of a waitress, Florence Baker, in the motel-set soap opera Crossroads, which she played on and off from 1974-79. There were also one-off appearances in The Dick Emery Show (1976), The Onedin Line (1977) and the sitcom That's My Boy (1985), as well as the small part of Mrs Simmons in the little-seen film Mister Quilp (1975), based on The Old Curiosity Shop. Tomasin also acted one of the child mill workers in later episodes of Midnight is a Place (1977-78).

After she played Naomi Tolly, whose farmer father died in a tractor accident, in Emmerdale Farm (1980-81) and Tasambeker, "ex-ter-min-ated" by the Time Lord's nemeses in the 1985 Doctor Who story "Revelation of the Daleks", Tomasin's appearances became rarer. She took the role of a traffic warden in the 1990 film Just Ask for Diamond and was typecast as a maidservant in a BBC adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit (1994) and the cook in Beeban Kidron's television film of Cinderella (2000).

On stage and back to type, Tomasin played a parlour maid in a West End production of Man and Superman (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 1982), starring Peter O'Toole, with the cast reprising their performances in a television film version the same year. She was also in pantomimes and national tours of Blithe Spirit (1988-89), as Edith, the maid, Lettice and Lovage (1990-91) and The Marquise (2004), in which she acted Kate O'Mara's devoted maid.

Tomasin believed her television career might be experiencing a revival when she returned to Emmerdale (as the serial was retitled in 1989) in the role of Noreen Bell (2005-06), a cantankerous, palm-reading, wig-wearing pensioner whose garden fence was painted by Val Lambert as part of a community service order. Noreen became friends with Val but died in a gas explosion while looking round a show home.

It was Tomasin's last screen role, but the character's legacy lives on. The money bequeathed by Noreen to Val enabled her to buy a half-share in The Woolpack pub, where last orders are called with the Noreen Bell bell. However, Tomasin – who never married – always remained optimistic that more work would come along. As she said in 2002: "I've been through such hard times, but I can always bounce back again. I still believe great things are just ahead."

Anthony Hayward

Jenny Tomasin, actress: born Leeds 30 November 1936; died London c. 12 January 2012.

[midnight sheep]

She sounds like a lovely lady.I remembering feeling sorry for her when she mentioned, (In one of the Upstairs Downstairs docs), that she might be going to lose her home.
Like Faginsgirl I would like to have met her in person.

[Nick Dando]

From the BBC

BBC News - Been and Gone: Farewell to the genius behind Star Wars' lightsaber action

Nick

Most actors fear becoming typecast and Jenny Tomasin certainly believed it had damaged her career. She became famous for playing the accident-prone maid Ruby in the acclaimed ITV drama, Upstairs Downstairs. Hired for just one episode, her character made such an impression that she remained with the series for three years. Her apparent dim-wittedness made her the target for the ire of the redoubtable cook Mrs Bridges, whose cries of "Oh, Ruby" became a fixture in every episode. Despite her success Tomasin struggled to escape from Ruby's shadow. While the series acted as a springboard to further stardom for Simon Williams and Lesley-Anne Down, Tomasin could only manage to get a role as a waitress in the TV soap Crossroads, and a string of bit parts including an appearance as Tasambeker in the 1985 Doctor Who story Revelation of the Daleks and two stints with the ITV soap, Emmerdale.

[Jack Gurney]

She was also brilliant as Barry Crocker's androgynous English lovematch in THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY MCKENZIE, in a surreal sequence during which her Dad, played by Dennis Price, also revealed some strange peccadilloes. How I miss the wonderful illogical dreamlike quality of early 70s Brit cinema.

RIP Jen. Didn't even realise she was that old!! She always looked younger.