Joan Plowright (1929-2025)

[JMcBride]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/obit ... -dead.html

Dame Joan Plowright, Baroness Olivier, played a young actress and Pip
in Orson Welles's 1955 London stage production of his MOBY DICK -- REHEARSED,
based on Herman Melville's novel MOBY-DICK, which he also filmed (the footage has been lost). Plowright plays
an uncredited role in the 1956 John Huston film MOBY DICK, in which
Welles plays Father Mapple. Plowright played Daisy opposite Olivier
in the 1960 London stage production of Eugène Ionesco's play
RHINOCEROS, which Welles directed (though Olivier eventually took
over the reins); Maggie Smith later replaced her in the role. Plowright
married Olivier in 1961; he died in 1989. She had a long and much-honored
theater, film, and television career. She died January 16.

[tonyw]

That production also stimulated others in the cast such as Patick McGoohan and Christopher Lee. Kennth Williams, unfortunately, became stereotyped into the CARRY-ON mold while Peter Sallis later appeared on BBC TV's THE DIARIES OF SAMUEL PEPYS in the late 50s. Before THE LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE AND GROMIT, Sallis was a distinguished charterer actor and appeared with McGoohan in the stage and BBC TV adaptions of Ibsen's BRAND. Gordon Jackson was a perennial and must have enjoyed the chance of working with Welles. Lee later did a radio broadcast of a Ray Bradbury adaptation of MOBY DICK decades later. The influence of this lost production was enormous.