My Favorite Actress: Susan Hampshire

As you can see, I do not often go for the main stream or the current. They rather bore me at times.

About 3 years ago I decided to write to one of my long time favorite actresses expressing my love for her work and asking for an autographed photo. She is not as well known as some of the other grand older British ladies of drama like Dames Helen Mirren and Judi Dench, but she is just as great. I recently discovered that she has the title of Lady. She is Lady Kulukundis, better known as Susan Hampshire.

Unlike the few Hollywood entertainers I have written to, Susan Hampshire sent me an autographed photo of herself in less than two months. I happened to be teaching in Istanbul when I phoned my mother one evening and she told me, “That lady you like sent you her picture. She signed it. Want me to read it to you?”

“What did she write?” I questioned her excitedly.

“She wrote, ‘To Sincerae, With Love, Susan Hampshire. Do you want me to send it when I send you some things?'

“No! It might get lost coming over here. Just keep until I get home.”

So Lady Kulukundis, Susan Hampshire had written to me or at least I hope some personal assistant of hers hadn’t. In some of her interviews, she seems like such an approachable and warm person. I want to believe she personally signed her photo and wrote my name on it.

Susan Hampshire was born in England in 1937. I first saw her in a mini-series called the Pallisers when I was a teenager and just adored her performance. The Pallisers is an Emmy Award winning British miniseries based on novels by the Victorian era writer Anthony Trollope. The novels are called “The Palliser” or “Parliamentary” Novels. The subject of the series is mainly about the lives of the Palliser family, but there is a host of other fascinating characters as well.

Susan Hampshire played Lady Glencora Palliser. The series begins when Glencora is about 15. She is an orphaned heiress in Victorian England. Lady Glencora has fallen head over heels in love with a handsome Adonis and ne’er-do-well named Burgo Fitzgerald. But before she can get a chance to run off with him, two old aunts who are her guardians arrange to have her married off to an overly serious; up and coming politician named Plantagenet Palliser, who is the orphaned nephew of the elderly, witty, and lecherous Duke of Omnium. Though called by some the most boring man in England, Plantagenet has fallen in love with a plain, but with a rich young married woman with whom he loves to discourse with on how once he is a full-fledged politico he will simplify the British shilling. The old Duke and Glencora’s aunts end all the Romance and force Glencora and Planty to marry. Their wedding is one of the saddest perhaps ever seen, at least on television. Eventually after some rough spots, Glencora’s cutting remarks, Planty’s iciness, and temptations to vacant the marriage especially on Glencora’s part, the union of Glencora and Plantagenet is success. They compliment each other and mature to realize that in the end, their elder’s decision to put them together was the right move.

All 26 episodes of The Pallisers came out on VHS and DVD in 2004. The series itself was produced in Britain in 1974. Originally Hayley Mills was intended for the role of Lady Glencora, but she bowed out leaving us Susan Hampshire’s spirited performance. Mills just doesn’t have Hampshire’s knack at being dramatic on a wonderfully hyperactive level. Susan Hampshire is Lady Glencora.

Philip Latham and Susan Hampshire as Plantagenet and Lady Glencora Palliser.

I made sure I got the series when it came out on DVD. It gave me my first taste of the wonders of dramas from Britain when I was a teenager. Everything is authentically Victorian about the Pallisers, down to the lady’s corsets according to Hampshire.

Susan Hampshire has suffered from dyslexia all of her life. This was hard for her because her mother was a teacher. Having difficulty reading made her feel dumb and inadequate, but she overcame her problems and become an acclaimed actress who has worked in film, but who is better known for her television roles. I also love her in the miniseries The First Churchills where she played the feisty and beautiful Sarah Churchill, an ancestor of Winston Churchill. I hope to eventually see her other old works like The Forsyte Saga, Vanity Fair, and her more recent work Monarch of the Glen.

Susan Hampshire and John Neville as Sarah and John Churchill.
Susan Hampshire is also an author. Her autobiography is entitled Susan’s Story. In Susan’s Story she chronicles her struggles with dyslexia and how she was not diagnosed with this learning disability until adulthood. She is the top spokesperson for the disability in England, and another book of hers on dyslexia, Every Letter Counts received immense acclaim. Hampshire has also written a book on women and fertility issues, books for children and on gardening, which is her favorite hobby. Hip, hip hooray, Lady Kulukundis and thanks for the autographed photo!