Siân Phillips triumphed in the West End last year with her performance in
Marlene
. It was a tour de force of her acting career which has spanned over 40 years.
In this exceptional autobiography covering her early life she writes of her unlikely beginnings growing up as an only child in the remote Welsh countryside, a life which hadn't changed for centuries. But Siân determ
Siân Phillips triumphed in the West End last year with her performance in
Marlene
. It was a tour de force of her acting career which has spanned over 40 years.
In this exceptional autobiography covering her early life she writes of her unlikely beginnings growing up as an only child in the remote Welsh countryside, a life which hadn't changed for centuries. But Siân determined to be an actress at an early age and was working in BBC Radio from the age of 11 alongside such greats as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton. Her real ambitions were not realised, however, until she won a scholarship to RADA. Leaving her first, short lived marriage, the country bumpkin arrived in London to learn her trade and fall in love with Peter O'Toole...
...more
Hardcover
,
294 pages
Published
January 28th 1999
by Hodder & Stoughton
(first published 1999)
Lent to me by a friend, I should have know that this book would bore me rigid like so many autobiographies written by actors. My feeling is that the lives of most actors, unless utterly outrageous, or were once married to Liz Taylor (same thing probably) are of interest only to other actors or people "in the theatre". Vaguely interesting was her early childhood in deepest, darkest Wales where she spoke only Welsh until she was twelve years old. The rest - YAWN!