Vivien Merchant
| Vivien Merchant | |||||||||||||||||||
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 Portrait of Vivian Merchant by Cecil Beaton |
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| Born | Ada Thompson 22 July 1929(1929-07-22) Manchester, England |
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| Died | 3 October 1982 (aged 53) London, England |
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| Spouse(s) | Harold Pinter (1956-1980) | ||||||||||||||||||
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Vivien Merchant (22 July 1929 in Manchester, England – 3 October 1982) was a British actress, who was born Ada Thompson. She performed in many stage productions and films, including Alfie (1966) and Frenzy (1972).
She was the first wife of the playwright Harold Pinter, whom she met as a repertory actor and married in 1956. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1958.[1] Having performed the role of Rose in a production of his first play, The Room (1957) at the Hampstead Theatre in 1960, she also appeared in many of Pinter's subsequent works, including as Ruth in The Homecoming (1964) on stage (1965) and screen (The Homecoming, 1973). The last of his plays in which she performed was Old Times (1971) as Anna.
Their marriage began disintegrating in the mid-1960s. From 1962 to 1969, Harold Pinter had a clandestine affair with Joan Bakewell, which informs Pinter's play Betrayal and his film adaptation, also called Betrayal. [2]
In 1975 Pinter began a serious affair with the historian Lady Antonia Fraser, the wife of Sir Hugh Fraser, which he confessed to his wife that March [3]. At first, Merchant took it very well, saying positive things about Fraser, according to her friend artist Guy Vaesen (as cited by Billington); but, Vaesen recalled, after "a female friend of Vivien's trotted round to her house and poisoned her mind against Antonia ... Life in Hanover Terrace [where the Pinters then lived] gradually became impossible". Pinter left, and Vivien Merchant filed for divorce and gave interviews to the tabloid press, expressing her distress.[4][5] The Frasers' divorce became final in 1977 and the Pinters' in 1980. In 1980 Pinter married Antonia Fraser.
Vivien Merchant never overcame her grief and bitterness at losing husband Pinter, dying at the age of 53 on 3 October 1982, from acute alcoholism.[6][7]
Notes
- ^ Details about the Pinters' marriage and their family life are provided by Michael Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter (London: Faber and Faber, 1996); rev. ed. Harold Pinter (London: Faber and Faber, 2007). (Pinter's official authorized biography.)
- ^ Billington, Harold Pinter 256–67
- ^ Billington, Harold Pinter 253
- ^ E.g., "Actress Tells All", The Daily Mail, as cited in Billington, Harold Pinter 253–54.
- ^ Cf. "People", Time 11 Aug. 1975. Archived in the Time Archive: 1923 to the Present. (Page 1 of 2 pages.)
- ^ "Death of Vivien Merchant Is Ascribed to Alcoholism", The New York Times 7 Oct. 1982, accessed 13 Sept. 2007.
- ^ According to Billington, Pinter "did everything possible to support" Merchant until her death and regrets that he became estranged from their son, Daniel, after their separation and Pinter's marrying Antonia Fraser. A reclusive gifted writer and musician, Daniel does not use the surname Pinter, having adopted as his surname his maternal grandmother's maiden name Brand after his parents separated (Harold Pinter 276; 255).
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