English actress Susan Hampshire was THE It Girl of frock flicks in the 1970s, and she’s still going strong! Possibly best known for her turn in 1967’s The Forsyte Saga, she’ll play a role (Lady Carteret) in the remake currently in production and coming later this year to PBS (along with Stephen Moyer, Francesca Annis, Eleanor Tomlinson, Tuppence Middleton, and Jack Davenport). So this seems like a perfect opportunity to look back at her many roles in historical films and TV shows!
As always, there’s several productions for which I can’t find images of Hampshire:
- Celia in Sir Francis Drake (1962)
- Katy Carr in Katy (1962)
- Michal in The Story of David (1976)
- Elizabeth Middleditch in The Royal (2009)
- Lady Whittall in Smyrna (2021)
Althea Hall in The Time Tunnel (1966)
A TV show in which government agents time travel. The first episode involves them going to the Titanic, and Hampshire plays a passenger.
Kathleen McSweeney in The Fighting Prince of Donegal (1966)
An adventure film about a real-life 16th-century Irish prince.
Fleur Mont née Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga (1967)
A BBC TV adaptation of a series of novels about a late 19th/early 20th century English family. Hampshire plays the ingenue in the 1920s episodes.
Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair (1967)
A BBC TV adaptation of the Regency-set Thackeray novel. Sharp is, of course, the anti-heroine.
Mabel Chiltern in BBC Play of the Month: “An Ideal Husband” (1969)
An adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play.
Betty in Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)
A 1920s-set (yes, really) film about a car race set in Monte Carlo.
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough in The First Churchills (1969)
The relationship between the late 17th/early 18th-century duke and duchess of Marlborough; he was a prominent English general, she was Queen Anne‘s favorite.
Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield (1970)
A British feature film adaptation of the Dickens novel. Wickfield is David’s true love and second wife.
Isabel in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973)
A TV movie that’s a musical version of the horror tale.
Lady Glencora M’Cluskie in The Pallisers (1974-75)
A BBC TV adaptation of a series of novels published between 1864 and 1879, which focus on the fictional Palliser family, whose central figure is heir to a dukedom and involved in various parliamentary positions. Pretty sure Hampshire plays the ingenue.
Lady Melford in Dick Turpin (1979-82)
A British TV series about a fictional 18th-century highwayman/freedom fighter. Hampshire guests in one episode.
La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni in The Barchester Chronicles (1982)
A BBC TV adaptation of an Anthony Trollope novel.
Esme Harkness in The Grand (1997-98)
A TV series about a “grand” Manchester hotel in the 1920s.
Miss Catto in Coming Home (1998) & Nancherrow (1999)
Adaptations of a romance novel set in the World War II era.
Elena in Another Mother’s Son (2017)
A World War II film in which a Channel Islands mother takes in an escaped Russian war prisoner.
Lady Markby in An Ideal Husband (2018)
A London West End staging of the Oscar Wilde play that was broadcast on TV.
Which is your favorite of Susan Hampshire’s many frock flick roles?
Finally!
In The Pallisers her character develops from romantically confused ingenue to politically aware and successful hostess. The costumes are beautiful and there are so many great performances. Derek Jacobi in several episodes!
Barchester chronicles is worth watching…her role in this small but she is great in it. The Pallisers is a series and she goes from the dirty rich debutante to an aging duchess over the course of the show. She is in almost every episode of this long Trollope-based series. I think these are my favorite roles of hers though she was good as Fleur in Forsyte Saga too.
See above…ditzy not dirty lol
Ditzy…not dirty…
Wow she did so many – but where is The 3 lives of Thomasina? (Takes place in 1912 Scotland)
Thank you! I’d completely forgotten about that one. :)
The First Churchills was the first Masterpiece Theatre series I saw–My older sister watched, so I hung around and watched too. I was hooked on MT from that moment. The last photo (with the caption “Satin with interesting trim!”) shows Sarah in costume as a mythological figure. She was in a court tableau.
The Pallisers is also wonderful. And Thomasina was a huge favorite in our household!
What Mary R said about First Churchills and Pallisers…
Oh, as Lady Glencora! She ages through the series, and she did really well. The costumes were so good, too! As a duchess, and a political society hostess, she got to wear the most amazing gowns, all through the High Victorian era.
The Pallisers, that is!
I love her in so many of these shows! But The First Churchills was life changing for me. I was a high school freshman and it began my interest in English history. I’ve read everything I can find on this era (and loads of other eras as well, but this was the start!) Susan Hampshire is an excellent actress and in The First Churchills as in The Pallisers we get to see her grow and age through the years from a teenager to a matriarch. There are times when you can find her Sarah Churchill to be infuriating, but she is always human and not a caricature. It’s definitely not The Favourite.
I feel the same way about The First Churchills (which was the first Masterpiece Theater ever shown in the US). Once the DVDs became available my dad ordered them and by the time he and I had finished them, I was a complete Anglophile. Think of how this series would look with modern production values?!
I didn’t know there was going to be a remake of The Forsyte Saga – great news!
She has such a merry twinkle; I love her in Barchester Chronicles (which has fanabulous costumes!!), getting the better of Alan Rickman’s smarmy Obadiah Slope.
The Barchester Chronicles was the first time I ever saw Alan Rickman. He was so amazing and I can’t think about his loss without being sad.
Have both ‘The First Churchills’, The Forsyth Saga’ and ‘Barchester Chronicles’ on DVD, bought because I loved the shows first time around and they are worth repeat watching. Have been wishing someone would remake the former using the original script, because it is so good. The latter is too good as it is to remake; Alan Rickman is wonderful as Mr. Slope. Cannot imagine another actor in the role.
I’ve waited years for this WCW! Still waiting for Margaret Tyzack.
She was superb in everything, wasn’t she? Forsytes and Ancient Rome!
She was absolutely delightful in “An Ideal Husband”!
For me she still is and will be in “The First Churchills”. Charming.
Another vote for Barchester Chronicles, because what’s not to love about Susan Hampshire hanging the wonderfully obnoxious Alan Rickman’s Mr Slope out to dry? It’s a wonderful series packed with top British actors – Nigel Hawthorne, Donald Pleasance, Angela Pleasance, Geraldine McEwan, Barbara Flynn, Clive Swift – real strength in depth and it looked beautiful too.
I adored Fleur in The Forsyte Saga of course – another show packed full of British acting royalty. And I loved The First Churchills. She was pretty ubiquitous on the BBC when I was very young, and I adored her work. Wish they’d repeat more of it.
I just adore all of her show. and What everyone else said. Plus, I read all of Trollope’s Barsetshire and Palliser novels because of her shows.
Side note: The first actor crush I remember was Peter McEnery in the Moonspinners (The Fighting Prince of Donegal). He was quite the hunk back then. Maybe deserves a MCM.
Side note 2: The Royal is a British small hospital tv series set in the early 60’s. She has a recurring role at the end. The costumes and music are accurate. Just discovered it’s on Prime (I watched it on Hulu).
Side note 3: She’s Molly in Monarch of the Glen. It’s contemporary (hilarious), and there’s one show in the series where she’s loaning her early 60’s couture to a friend and drags out a bunch of dresses and hangs them around her bedroom– glorious. It also has Julian Fellowes and Richard Briers.
From what I’ve heard Mr William Makepeace Thackeray would be deeply delighted by any VANITY FAIR adaptation that completely ignores the actual fashions of the Regency Era – I believe he actually went on record at one point and noted that he had tried to illustrate characters in the fashions of the era, but simply couldn’t bring himself to inflict such sartorial cringe on his creations.
(The novel, of course, having been written after George IV became King, rather than during the Regency, if one remembers correctly).
Thackeray actually provided a sample period-appropriate illustration in his introduction to the novel to show how ugly Regency fashion was and to provide an excuse for modernizing the clothing in his pictures.
Not much to say about the costumes, but I will say that she matured beautifully!