Suzanna Hamilton 1509210 224998519 2008-07-11T11:30:42Z Neddyseagoon 883252 /* Theatre career */ {{unreferenced|date=April 2008}} {{Infobox actor | name = Suzanna Hamilton | image = Replace this image female.svg | imagesize = 250px | caption = | birthname = | birthdate = 1960 | location = [[London]], [[England]] | deathdate = | deathplace = | yearsactive = [[1973 in film|1973]]-[[2008 in film|present]] | othername = Zanna Hamilton | spouse = | notable role = Susan Walker in ''[[Swallows and Amazons#Film, TV or theatrical adaptations|Swallows and Amazons]]'' <br> Izz Huett in ''[[Tess]]'' <br> Patricia Bates in ''[[Brimstone and Treacle|Brimstone & Treacle]]'' <br> [[Julia (1984)|Julia]] in ''[[1984 (1984 film)|Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' <br> Karen Creasy in ''[[Wetherby (film)|Wetherby]]'' <br> Felicity in ''[[Out of Africa (film)|Out of Africa]]'' | academyawards = | emmyawards = | baftaawards = | goldenglobeawards = }} '''Suzanna Hamilton''' (born 1960 in [[London]]) is an [[English people|English]] [[actress]]. She is most famous for her performance as [[Julia (1984)|Julia]] in the [[Nineteen Eighty-Four (film)|modern film adaptation]] of [[George Orwell]]'s classic novel, ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. She is often cast as beguiling, enigmatic characters who tend to combine an appearance of childlike tenderness and vulnerability with a hint of provocative sexuality. In the 1985 film ''[[Wetherby (film)|Wetherby]]'', her character Karen Creasy is described as "the kind of girl people become obsessed with." ==Early career== Suzanna Hamilton was a protégée of filmmaker, [[Claude Whatham]], who discovered her in a children's experimental theater in [[North London]] in 1972. She starred in her first feature, ''[[Swallows and Amazons]]'', which was directed by Whatham and based on the popular children's book of the same name by [[Arthur Ransome]]. ''Swallows and Amazons'' was filmed in 1973 and released to the public the following year. Billed as Zanna Hamilton, the young actress was cast in the role of Susan Walker, one of four young siblings collectively known as "the Swallows", who go on a camping and sailing holiday in the [[Lake District]] during the summer of 1929. Whatham later directed the teenage Suzanna Hamilton as [[Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha|Princess Alexandra]] in the [[BBC]] miniseries, ''[[Disraeli (movie)|Disraeli]]'' (1978), which was later broadcast to North American audiences as a featured program on ''[[Masterpiece Theatre]]'' in 1980. It was during this time in the mid-1970s that Suzanna Hamilton received her acting training at the [[Anna Scher Theatre|Anna Scher Theatre School]] in [[Islington]] and at the famous [[Central School of Speech and Drama]] in [[Swiss Cottage]], [[London Borough of Camden|Camden]]. For her first appearance in a big-budget motion picture, Hamilton played Izz Huett, the lovesick [[Dorset]] dairymaid, in [[Roman Polanski]]'s 1979 film, ''[[Tess]]'' — based on the classic [[Thomas Hardy]] novel, ''[[Tess of the d'Urbervilles]]'' — which starred [[Nastassja Kinski]] in the title role. She also appeared as one of the [[boarding school]] girls who organize a strike against the Ministry of Education in ''The Wildcats of St. Trinian's'' (1980) — an updating of [[Ronald Searle]]'s satirical [[St. Trinian's]] cartoons, which was intended to mirror the actual and widespread [[wildcat strikes]] that had plagued Britain's [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government during the [[Winter of Discontent]] only two years earlier. Her next significant role was in Richard Loncraine's 1982 film, ''[[Brimstone and Treacle|Brimstone & Treacle]]'', based on [[Dennis Potter]]'s play of the same name. In this film, Hamilton starred as Patricia Bates, the traumatized, catatonic daughter of a devoutly religious, middle-aged [[Home Counties]] couple ([[Denholm Elliott]] and [[Joan Plowright]]) whose lives are changed by a demonic drifter and con man who calls himself Martin Taylor, played by [[Sting (musician)|Sting]]. The film caused much consternation in the UK press for its shifting and contradictory overtones of religious [[parable]], suspense [[potboiler]], and domestic [[satire]]. The following year, Suzanna Hamilton was featured in [[BBC-TV]]'s [[paranormal]] mystery, ''A Pattern of Roses'', with a young [[Helena Bonham Carter]]. ==Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)== Suzanna Hamilton's next major screen role stands as her most accomplished and well-known motion picture performance. In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four (film)|Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', she was cast as [[Julia (1984)|Julia]] opposite [[John Hurt]] as [[Winston Smith]] in [[Michael Radford]]'s film of George Orwell's classic [[dystopian]] novel. She had been chosen for the role in 1983 after being referred by the casting agency of the Anna Scher Theatre School. She was one of the school's earliest [[alumni]], and the theatre is acknowledged in the film's closing credits. Her bold and affecting performance garnered critical praise, particularly from [[Vincent Canby]] in ''[[The New York Times]]''. But her excellent work was largely overshadowed by the death of legendary fellow cast member, [[Richard Burton]], who delivered his final screen performance in the role of [[O'Brien (book character)|O'Brien]], as well as the much-publicized post-release controversy over the film's [[film score|musical score]]. Her casual and unself-conscious manner while [[nudity in film|playing scenes in the nude]] for nearly two thirds of her screen time in ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' earned the 24-year-old actress a measure of notoriety as the film's reputation has grown. ==Film appearances in the late 1980s== Nineteen eighty-five proved to be a very active year for Suzanna Hamilton. She starred in British playwright [[David Hare]]'s film, ''[[Wetherby (film)|Wetherby]]'', opposite [[Vanessa Redgrave]]. In this film, Hamilton's character, Karen Creasy, is the sullen former friend of a young man who committed suicide. Karen is meant to personify the emotional disconnect at the heart of contemporary British life — "a central disfiguring blankness" as one character calls it. Her next role was as the equestrienne, Felicity, in [[Sydney Pollack]]'s [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]]-winning ''[[Out of Africa (film)|Out of Africa]]'', based on the memoirs of the famed [[Denmark|Danish]] writer, [[Isak Dinesen]], and starring [[Meryl Streep]], [[Robert Redford]] and [[Klaus Maria Brandauer]]. In the 1986 German film, ''Devil's Paradise'', which was shot in [[Thailand]] and loosely based on [[Joseph Conrad]]'s 1915 novel, ''[[Victory (novel)|Victory]]'', Hamilton was cast as a saxophonist in an all-woman band touring seedy hotels and nightclubs in [[southeast Asia]]. Her character, Julie, escapes a life of sexual slavery by fleeing with an eccentric German adventurer, played by [[Jürgen Prochnow]], and the two of them take refuge on an island near [[Indonesia]], which is already populated by a savage native warrior tribe. In this role, as in several others, Hamilton combines apparent [[gamine]] innocence and naïveté with conspicuous sexuality. As Julie tells the Prochnow character, "I'm not what you call a good girl". In 1988 she starred opposite the British classical and horror actor [[Jon Finch]] in another low-budget [[Germany|German]] film, a short called ''The Voice'', about six individuals who are held captive overnight in a boat-cum-[[discothèque]]. At this point, Suzanna Hamilton's major film career was effectively over. In the October 1988 issue of ''Elle'' magazine, in a piece devoted to the fashion secrets of the current crop of British beauties, it was stated that she felt all of her ambitions had been realized at the age of 28. By the end of the decade, the majority of her screen roles were in obscure European films made in exotic locations as well as numerous British television dramas. ==Television appearances and the 1990s== In 1986, Suzanna Hamilton starred in the well-received television drama, ''Johnny Bull'', a movie developed at the National Playwrights Conference of the [[Eugene O'Neill Theatre]] Center and filmed in [[Tennessee]]. In this film, a period piece set in the mid-1940s just after [[VE day]], she was cast as Iris Kovacs, a lighthearted [[Cockney]] bride who travels to rural [[Pennsylvania]] to live with her new American [[GI (term)|G.I.]] husband ([[Peter MacNicol]]) and his working-class [[Hungary|Hungarian]]-immigrant coal-mining family. There she discovers that the hardscrabble life in America is not at all like the [[Doris Day]] movies she had seen, and encounters hostility from her gruff, overbearing father-in-law ([[Jason Robards]]). The production also featured distinguished supporting performances from [[Colleen Dewhurst]] as well as [[Kathy Bates]] in an early role. That same year, Hamilton appeared as Emily Barkstone in ''Hold the Dream'', the second of the three BBC miniseries based on [[Barbara Taylor Bradford]]'s popular "Emma Harte" novels about the fortunes of a retail empire and the machinations of the business élite across three generations. In 1987, she played the winsome Anglo-French [[Special Operations Executive]] spy, Matty Firman, in ''[[Wish Me Luck]]'' — another BBC miniseries, this one set in occupied [[France]] during [[World War II]]. She made a striking appearance as the inscrutable [[femme fatale]], Anna Raven, in the 1989 BBC miniseries of ''Never Come Back'', a murky, [[film noir|noirish]] conspiracy thriller based on the celebrated 1941 novel by John Mair, which takes place on the eve of the [[London Blitz]] during the so-called "[[Phony War]]" of 1939-40. Hamilton also turned in an admirable performance in the excellent 1990 British television film, ''Small Zones'', as a strong-willed [[Russia]]n [[poetess]] whose subversive writings have led to her indefinite imprisonment in a bleak [[Soviet]] holding cell. In 1991, she appeared as Amelia, one of the five daughters placed under house arrest by their domineering mother, in the BBC adaptation of Spanish poet [[Federico García Lorca]]'s play, ''[[La casa de Bernarda Alba|The House of Bernarda Alba]]''; [[Glenda Jackson]] starred in the title role. She also had a supporting role in a 1992 TV film of [[Barbara Cartland]]'s [[English Regency|Regency]]-period bodice-ripper, ''Duel of Hearts''. Her next commercial film role came with 1992's low-budget [[Gothic horror]] romance, ''Tale of a Vampire''. Written and directed by a 27-year-old Japanese-British film student, Shimako Sato, Hamilton made a dual appearance: first as Anne, a mousy librarian in present-day London grieving the untimely death of her boyfriend; then as Anne's nineteenth-century ''[[Doppelgänger]]'', Virginia Clemm, the real-life wife of [[Edgar Allan Poe]] — who coincidentally also happens to be (at least according to the film's fanciful literary premise) the long-lost mistress of a lonely, melancholic, centuries-old [[vampire]] played by [[Julian Sands]]. In the early 1990s, she had a recurring role as Dr. Karen Goodliffe on the British TV hospital drama series, ''[[Casualty (television)|Casualty]]''. When the actress became pregnant in early 1993, her character had to be written out of the show. In 1995, she appeared as [[John Hannah (actor)|John Hannah]]'s love interest, Joanna Sparks, on the BBC-TV crime series, ''[[McCallum]]''. Her last feature film of note was 1997's ''The Island on Bird Street'', a Danish period drama made in the [[Dogme 95]] style, about an 11-year-old Jewish boy who hides from the Nazis in occupied [[Poland]] during World War II before he is reunited with his father. In this film, Hamilton had a brief cameo as the mother of a girl whom the boy befriends. Most recently, she appeared as Vivienne in the 2005 short film, ''Benjamin's Struggle'', described as "a compelling story set in 1930s [[Nazism|Nazi]] [[Germany]], about a nine-year-old Jewish boy who attempts to steal the original manuscript of [[Adolf Hitler]]'s ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', believing that it will topple the [[Third Reich]] and end the suffering of his family". In 2006, she appeared as Helen Gillespie in the [[ITV]] series, ''[[Jane Hall (TV series)|Jane Hall]]''. As of late, she has been cast as Dr. Hillary Slayton in the children's television series, ''Dinosapien'', which is presently filming on location in southern [[Alberta]], [[Canada]], and is scheduled for broadcast in 2007. ==Theatre career== Suzanna Hamilton is also an accomplished theater and radio actress. She made her first [[West End theatre|West End]] appearance on the London stage in 1982 as part of the original cast production of [[Tom Stoppard]]'s play, ''[[The Real Thing (play)|The Real Thing]]''. In 1993, she played the lead as a [[Welsh people|Welsh]] maid who gets in over her head in the [[Bush Theatre]] production of Lucinda Coxon's ''Waiting at the Water's Edge''; in 2002, she was cast as [[Creusa]] in a Gate Theatre production of [[Euripides]]' ''[[Ion (play)|Ion]]''; and in early 2005, she appeared as Dora, a tough, bereaved, guilt-ridden [[lesbian]] incarcerated in a 1920s asylum in the [[Salisbury]] Playhouse production of Charlotte Jones' chamber drama, ''[[Airswimming]]''. She also lent her voice to a 1991 [[audiobook]] recording of [[Julian Barnes]]' novel about a love triangle called ''Talking It Over'', playing the role of Gillian. ==Current activities== Suzanna Hamilton has since retired from acting in major motion pictures to raise her son, Lowell, who was born [[5 October]] [[1993]]. However, she is still featured in television roles and continues to do theater and voice work. ==Trivia== *She stands 5 feet, 5 inches (1.65 m) tall. *She practices the [[Alexander Technique]] for relaxation and posture. ==Personal quotes== '''About playing a doctor on ''Casualty'':''' ''"I would like to have trained as a doctor, it's a completely different way of life from mine. I found I wasn't squeamish and I watched operations. It was fascinating."'' '''About events on the set of the BBC hospital series, ''Casualty'':''' ''"There's a strange moment that everyone experiences, it comes when you sit in the canteen and see an atrocious head wound opposite you eating curry and chips."'' '''On wearing no make-up for her role in ''Casualty'':''' ''"I thought at first that would be a relief, but starting work at 8:30am, some days looking like death, I could do with make-up—the works."'' ==Film and television credits== *"Dinosapien" (2007) TV Series - Dr. Hillary Slayton *"[[Jane Hall (TV series)|Jane Hall]]" (2006) TV Series - Helen Gillsepie *''Benjamin's Struggle'' (2005) - Vivienne *"New Tricks": Episode #1.3 (2004) TV Episode - Imogen Hoult *"The Bill": 'Follow Through' (1999) TV Episode - Jo Merton *"Jonathan Creek": 'Black Canary' (1998) TV Episode - Hannah *''[[The Island on Bird Street]]'' (1997) - Stasya's Mother *''A Virtual Stranger'' (1996) (TV) - Jenny Bell *"[[McCallum]]" (1995) TV Series - Joanna Sparks *''A Relative Stranger'' (1995) (TV) - Jenny Bell *"[[Casualty (TV series)|Casualty]]" (1986) TV Series - Karen Goodliffe (1993-1994) *"[[Inspector Morse]]": 'Absolute Conviction' (1992) TV Episode - Emma Cryer *''Duel of Hearts'' (1992) (TV) - Harriet Wantage *''Tale of a Vampire'' (1992) - Anne/Virginia *''A Masculine Ending'' (1992) (TV) - Veronica Puddephat *''[[La casa de Bernarda Alba|The House of Bernarda Alba]]'' (1991) (TV) - Amelia *"Boon": 'Cab Rank Cowboys' (1991) TV Episode - Judy Simpson *''A New Lease of Death'' (1991) (TV) - Elizabeth Crilling *"TECX": 'The Sea Takes It All' (TV Episode) - Ingrid Hauptmann *''Small Zones'' (1990) (TV) - Irina Ratushinskaya *''Murder East - Murder West'' (1990) (TV) - Regine Kleinschmidt *''Never Come Back'' (1989) (TV) - Anna Raven *"Saracen": 'Starcross' (1989) TV Episode *"Streetwise" (1989) TV Series *''The Voice (Die Stimme)'' (1988) - Julia *''[[Wish Me Luck]]'' (1987) TV - Matty Firman *''Devil's Paradise (Des Teufels Paradies)'' (1987) - Julie *''Hold the Dream'' (1986) (TV) - Emily Barkstone *''Johnny Bull'' (1986) (TV) - Iris *''[[Out of Africa (film)|Out of Africa]]'' (1985) - Felicity *''[[Wetherby (film)|Wetherby]]'' (1985) - Karen Creasy *''[[1984 (film)|Nineteen Eighty-four]]'' (1984) - Julia *''Goodie-Two-Shoes'' (1984) - Veronica *''A Pattern of Roses'' (1983) (TV) - Rebecca *''[[Brimstone and Treacle|Brimstone & Treacle]]'' (1982) - Patricia Bates *''The Wildcats of St. Trinian's'' (1980) - Matilda *''[[Tess]]'' (1979) - Izz *''One Fine Day'' (1979) (TV) - Linda *''[[Disraeli (film)|Disraeli]]'' (1978) (TV) - Princess Alexandra *''[[Swallows and Amazons#Film, TV or theatrical adaptations|Swallows and Amazons]]'' (1974) (as Zanna Hamilton) - Susan Walker, Swallow ==External links== *{{imdb name|id=0358180|name=Suzanna Hamilton}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Suzanna}} [[Category:1960 births]] [[Category:English film actors]] [[Category:English television actors]] [[Category:English stage actors]] [[Category:English radio actors]] [[Category:English voice actors]] [[Category:Alumni of the Anna Scher Theatre School]] [[Category:Alumni of the Central School of Speech and Drama]] [[Category:People from London]] [[Category:Living people]] [[cs:Suzanna Hamilton]] [[de:Suzanna Hamilton]] [[fr:Suzanna Hamilton]] [[ru:Гамильтон, Сюзанна]] [[sv:Suzanna Hamilton]]