Susannah York in Robert Altman’s Images
Susannah York Dies Part I: TOM JONES, THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE
Susannah York faced complex family situations in Mark Robson’s cult classic Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971), co-starring Don Murray and Rod Steiger, and played opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Caine in Brian G. Hutton’s messy — but fascinating – Zee and Co. / X, Y and Zee, in which jilted wife Taylor does whatever she can to destroy the love affair between husband Caine and York, even if that means seducing hubby’s new girl. [Right: Susannah York and Marlon Brando in Richard Donner’s Superman.]
Also in the ’70s, York could be seen in Christopher Miles‘ filmed play of Jean Genet’s anti-bourgeois The Maids (1974), in which housemaids York and Glenda Jackson vent their anger against their employers; Michael Anderson’s Conduct Unbecoming (1975), a court-martial drama-thriller set in colonial India; Jerzy Skolimowski’s horror-drama The Shout (1978), whose tagline read "A film of intense perversity — the madness of the mind"; and in a minor role in Daryl Duke’s classy Hitchcockian thriller The Silent Partner (1978), written by L.A. Confidential’s Curtis Hanson.
York made fewer films in the 1980s, and almost invariably in minor supporting roles. Of the ones I’ve seen, the one that showcased her to best advantage was Piers Haggard’s romantic drama A Summer Story (1989), written by journalist and novelist Penelope Mortimer from a story by John Galsworthy. At that time, according to York’s Daily Telegraph obit she fell into hard times, having to sell her jewelry and paintings "to pay the mortgage."
In the last two decades, York’s film appearances became less frequent though she resurrected her stage career (including the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1997 Hamlet, as Gertrude). I’m unfamiliar with most of her film work during that period, which included playing Sweden’s Queen Christina in Carlo Vanzina’s Piccolo grande amore / Little Great Love (1993); the title role in Anthony Fabian’s short Jean (2000), involving hallucinations, murder, and castration; and one of London’s society women frolicking with young escorts in Richard Bracewell’s The Gigolos (2006).
York’s last film appearance was as an emotionally unbalanced prioress in Jan Dunn’s 2009 release The Calling, featuring Brenda Blethyn, Emily Beecham, and one of York’s fellow 1960s performers, Rita Tushingham.
York married fellow Royal Academy of Dramatic Art student Michael Wells in 1960. As her acting career far surpassed his, the marriage ended in what the Daily Telegraph describes as a "painful divorce" in 1976.
Politically, York was a supporter of liberal causes such as nuclear disarmament and the preservation of the planet’s environment. While in Tel Aviv presenting her one-woman show The Loves of Shakespeare’s Women, which she herself wrote, without naming any names she dedicated the sold-out performance to Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, a pacifist jailed for 18 years — 11 of each in solitary confinement — for revealing in the mid-’80s that Israel possessed a nuclear weapons program.
As reported in the Jerusalem Post, York’s declaration — quoting The Merchant of Venice’s Portia — was greeted by loud boos and jeers, and "scattered applause." (Much like Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning in the United States, Vanunu was seen by many around the world as a hero whistleblower; by their government and some of his countrypeople, as a traitor.) During the performance, York also prefaced Constance’s soliloquy from King John with the following: "Mothers all over the world are still mourning their children who are the victims of war. In Iraq, in Israel, in Palestine and in Darfur."
York later told the Post that she felt she had not "hijacked" the performance to vent her political views, adding, "A person has to do what they have to do, and I had to do this."
In her 1999 interview with the Sunday Mirror, York had explained her life philosophy on a personal level:
"Now I recognize how lucky I’ve been in my life. I’ve had two or three long periods when I’ve been very unhappy, followed by the grief and emptiness of failed relationships. But more strongly than that I recognize past and present joys, and realize how fortunate I’ve been. And I’ve got a strong sense of hope in the future."