15 Facts About Beryl Reid

Beryl Reid won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Killing of Sister George, the 1980 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for Born in the Gardens, and the 1982 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for Smiley's People.

Beryl Elizabeth Reid was born on 17 June 1919 in Hereford, Herefordshire, daughter of Leonard Reid, an estate agent and valuer, and Anne Burton, nee McDonald.

Beryl Reid had no formal training but later worked at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Beryl Reid reprised her Tony Award-winning performance of a lesbian soap opera star in The Killing of Sister George for the 1968 screen version and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Drama.

Beryl Reid was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1976 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the car park of Thames Television's Teddington Studios.

In both Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People, Beryl Reid played Connie Sachs.

Between 1981 and 1983, Beryl Reid co-presented the Children's TV programme Get up and Go for Yorkshire Television, her co-presenter "Mooncat" being a green, talking, puppet cat.

Beryl Reid played the part of an elderly feminist and political subversive in the 1987 television drama, The Beiderbecke Tapes.

Beryl Reid appeared in many situation comedies and variety programmes on TV including BBC TV's long running music hall show, The Good Old Days.

Beryl Reid's second husband, Derek Franklin, was a member of the Hedley Ward Trio.

An authorised biography, Roll Out the Beryl Reid, was published by Fantom Films on 22 August 2016.

Beryl Reid loved cats, had ten of them, most of which were strays she adopted.

From a date in the late 1950s until not long before her death in 1996, Beryl Reid lived in a small African-styled rondavel house, Honey Pot Cottage, built in 1933 as, originally, a holiday home, and overlooking the Thames at Wraysbury, west of London.

Beryl Reid bequeathed the property to a friend, Paul Strike, an actor later regularly featured in the BBC TV series, Casualty and who, as of 2021, still owned it.

Beryl Reid died at the age of 77 from severe osteoarthritis and kidney failure at a hospital in Wexham, Buckinghamshire on 13 October 1996, after complications following knee replacement surgery for arthritis.