ANNE STALLYBRASS

ANNE STALLYBRASS

Anne Stallybrass (born 1938) is a British actress who trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

She was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. After three years training at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won the Drama Gold Medal, Anne began her professional acting career by spending several years in repertory, gaining experience in Folkestone Kent, with the Arthur Brough Players, before moving to Nottingham and then Sheffield.

The television roles for which she is best known are: Jane Seymour in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), and Anne Onedin in the long-running Onedin Line. Other major roles include Anna Strauss in The Strauss Family (1972), Susan Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978 adaptation), and Muriel Thomas in The Old Devils (1992). In 1995, she regained popularity playing the good-hearted and warm role of Eileen Reynolds in ITV period police drama Heartbeat, set in the 1960s, a role which she held up until 1998.

She was twice nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress; for her portrayals of Anne Onedin and Anna Strauss.

She has been married twice and has no children. She met her first husband, Roger Rowland, whilst working in Nottingham and married him in 1963. The couple separated after nine years of marriage and later divorced. Peter Gilmore's second marriage broke up not long after and the friendship between the two Onedin Line stars gradually developed; they fell in love and moved in together. In 1987, after ten years together, the couple married. They live in Barnes, west London and have a small cottage in Dartmouth, Devon - which was used as a film location for scenes in The Onedin Line.