Frances de la Tour facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Frances de la Tour
De la Tour speaking at the British Library in 2019
Born	(1944-07-30) 30 July 1944 (age 81) Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1965–present
Spouse(s)	David Godman ​ ​ (m. 1968, divorced)​ Tom Kempinski ​ ​ (m. 1972; div. 1982)​
Children	2
Relatives	Andy de la Tour (brother)

Frances de la Tour (born July 30, 1944) is a famous British actress. She has won many awards for her acting, including a Tony Award and three Olivier Awards. Many people know her from the TV show Rising Damp and the Harry Potter movies.

Frances de la Tour played Mrs. Lintott in the play The History Boys in London and on Broadway. She won a Tony Award in 2006 for this role. She also played Mrs. Lintott in the movie version of The History Boys in 2006. In the Harry Potter films, she played Madame Olympe Maxime in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Her TV roles include Emma Porlock in Cold Lazarus (1996), Margaret Baron in Big School, and Violet Crosby in Vicious.

Early Life and Family

Frances de la Tour was born on July 30, 1944, in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England. Her parents were Moyra and Charles de la Tour. Her family name was sometimes spelled de Lautour. She has a mix of English, French, Greek, and Irish family roots. She went to school at the Lycée Français in London. She also studied acting at the Drama Centre London.

Career Highlights

Theatre Performances

After finishing drama school, Frances de la Tour joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1965. For six years, she took on many different roles with the RSC. She started with smaller parts and then moved to bigger ones. One of her most famous early roles was Helena in Peter Brook's well-known play A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In the 1970s, she continued to work a lot in theatre and on TV. She played Rosalind in As You Like It in Oxford in 1975. She also played Isabella in The White Devil in 1976. She worked often with the Half Moon Theatre in London. There, she appeared in plays like We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay and even played the main role in Hamlet in 1980.

In 1980, she starred as Stephanie in Duet for One. This play was written just for her. She won an Olivier Award for Best Actress for this role. She also played Sonya in Uncle Vanya in 1982. Her role as Josie in A Moon for the Misbegotten earned her another Olivier Award for Best Actress in 1983. She joined the Royal National Theatre to play the main role in Saint Joan in 1984. She also appeared in Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1986. She won her third Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for the play When She Danced.

In 1994, Frances de la Tour acted with Maggie Smith in Three Tall Women. She also worked with Alan Howard in The Play About the Baby in 1998. In 1999, she went back to the RSC to play Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. In 2004, she played Mrs. Lintott in The History Boys. This play was a big success, and she won a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for her performance. She later appeared in the movie version of The History Boys. In 2007, she was in a play called Boeing-Boeing. She also appeared in two more plays by Alan Bennett at the National Theatre: The Habit of Art (2009) and People (2012).

Film and Television Roles

Frances de la Tour has been in many TV shows and movies. In the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared in the miniseries Flickers (1980) and the TV version of Duet for One. She was nominated for a BAFTA award for Duet for One. She is very well known for playing Ruth Jones in the popular comedy show Rising Damp from 1974 to 1978. She said that playing Ruth Jones was "interesting" and that they "laughed a lot on set." When she played Ruth Jones again in the movie version in 1980, she won Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards.

In 2003, Frances de la Tour had a role in the movie Love Actually. Her scenes were cut from the movie shown in cinemas but can be seen on the DVD.

In 2005, she played Olympe Maxime, the headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She appeared as Madame Maxime again in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in 2010. Other notable TV roles include Agatha Christie's Poirot: Death on the Nile (2004) and Agatha Christie's Marple: The Moving Finger (2006).

She was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2006 for her supporting role in the film The History Boys. She also appeared in several other successful films. These include Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), where she played Aunt Imogene. She also had a role in The Book of Eli (2010) and Hugo (2011).

From 2013 to 2016, Frances de la Tour played Violet Crosby in the ITV comedy show Vicious. She acted alongside Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi in this show. From 2013 to 2014, she played headmistress Ms. Baron in the BBC One comedy Big School. In 2016, she joined the TV series Outlander as Mother Hildegarde. In 2021, she appeared in the ITV show Professor T., playing the main character's mother.

Personal Life

Frances de la Tour's brother is the actor and screenwriter Andy de la Tour.

In 2015, a BBC show called Who Do You Think You Are? showed that Frances de la Tour is a descendant of the old and important Delaval family.

She is also known for her political views. She is a socialist and was part of the Workers' Revolutionary Party in the 1970s.

Filmography

Television Appearances

Stage Performances

Awards and Nominations

See also

In Spanish: Frances de la Tour para niños