Dilys Hamlett on AllMovie

Dilys Hamlett is a versatile actress of considerable dramatic range whose formidable comic skills found her equally adept at comedy, despite a career that frequently leaned toward drama. Born in Hampshire, England, in March of 1928, the young actress received her first stage role, in a 1952 production of The Innocents, before moving on as an understudy for Vivien Leigh in Laurence Olivier's production of Macbeth. Hamlett would later essay roles in Danton's Death, A Passage to India, and The Miracle Worker at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, and it was also at the Hammersmith that the actress would meet her future husband, Caspar Wrede. Following her film debut in 1957's Twelfth Night, Hamlett would go on to appear in such movies as The Bananas Boat (1974), Diagnosis: Murder (1975), The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1988), and Hollow Reed (1996). Her television work included such made-for-TV features as 1987's Gaudy Night and the 1999 miniseries Wives and Daughters. On November 7, 2002, Dilys Hamlett died of a brain hemorrhage in Scotland. She was 78 years old.