Vivien Merchant

"Vivien" in reference to actress Vivien Leigh (1913-1967), and "Merchant" reportedly in reference to her brother who was a seaman.

Vivien Merchant was an English actress, primarily known for dramatic roles on stage and on film. She was born in Manchester, Lancashire in 1929 as Ada Brand Thomson. Her stage name 'Vivien Merchant' was chosen by Ada herself.

She had a romantic relationship with fellow actor Harold Pinter (1930-2008), and they were married in 1956.

She appeared regularly on repertory theatre in the 1940s, and had progressed to appearing in leading roles by the early 1950s.

She started her acting career in 1942, as an adolescent.

In 1958, she gave birth to their only child, Daniel Pinter. As Pinter became a celebrated playwright, Merchant was regularly cast in productions of his plays.

From 1962 to 1969, Pinter maintained a long-term relationship with fellow writer and journalist Joan Bakewell (1933-).

She made her film debut in the comedy-drama "Alfie" (1966), an adaptation of a play by Bill Naughton. For her role as "Lily Clamacraft", she received a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress but lost to Sandy Dennis. While continuing her successful theatrical career, Merchant appeared in few subsequent films.

Was nominated for Broadway's 1967 Tony Award as Best Actress (Dramatic) for "The Homecoming."

She has a prominent role in Alfred the Great (1969), but utters not one single word throughout. The critic Pauline Kael, panning the film savagely, suggested sarcastically that she had probably refused to say her lines as the dialogue in the film was so unspeakable. It turned out that this was, in fact, the truth.

Among the best remembered of them is the thriller "Frenzy" (1972), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She essentially appeared in a comic relief role, as the wife of Chief Inspector Oxford.

Married to and divorced from playwright Harold Pinter, in many of whose works she appeared, most unforgettably as Ruth in The Homecoming (1973)

Her final film role was as the Madame in "The Maids" (1975). In the film, two housemaids constantly fantasize about killing their employer (the Madame), but are reluctant to perform the actual murder. While Merchant's career was relatively successful, her marriage was not. Pinter was an unfaithful husband.

In 1975, Pinter started a new affair with historian and novelist Antonia Fraser (1932-). He told his wife about the affair, and Merchant started verbally attacking Fraser both in private and in public.

Pinter divorced Merchant in 1977, and married Fraser in 1980. Merchant was left depressed by her divorce, and started heavily drinking in an attempt to drown her sorrows.