Susan Littler
Encyclopedia
Susan Littler was an English
actress who appeared in many television and stage productions in the 1970s and early 1980s, before her career was cut short by her premature death. A versatile and respected actress, Littler is perhaps best remembered for her BAFTA-nominated role in the 1977 BBC
Play for Today
production Spend, Spend, Spend
(1977), directed by John Goldschmidt
.
, Littler trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
in London and started her career working in repertory
in provincial theatres around England, including Bolton
, Darlington
, Plymouth
and Nottingham
. She made her first television appearance in a 1970 ITV Playhouse
production Don't Touch Him, He Might Resent It, followed by Another Sunday and Sweet F.A. (1972), a Jack Rosenthal
football-based drama also for ITV. During the early 1970s, Littler played roles of varying sizes in several of the most popular British TV shows of the time, including the soap operas Coronation Street
and Emmerdale Farm
, police dramas Z-Cars
, Softly, Softly: Taskforce
and New Scotland Yard
, comedies The Liver Birds
and Porridge
, and prison drama Within These Walls
. More substantial roles came in Trinity Tales (1975), Alan Plater
's contemporary reworking of The Canterbury Tales
, and marriage guidance
serial Couples (1975–76).
Between 1974 and 1981, Littler starred in four productions for the BBC
's Play for Today
anthology series, the best remembered being the Jack Rosenthal
adaptation of the memoirs of pools winner Viv Nicholson
, Spend, Spend, Spend
(1977). Ncholson, a Yorkshire
housewife and mother, who had faced a constant struggle to keep her family's heads above water financially, won £152,316 on the football pools
in 1961. Littler's performance, bringing out Nicholson's vulnerabilities as well as her excesses, was highly praised by critics and earned her a 1977 BAFTA Best Television Actress nomination. Littler's other Play for Today roles were Taking Leave (1974), A Story to Frighten the Children (1976) and Baby Talk (1981).
Littler's last TV appearances were The Quiet Days of Mrs. Stafford (an August 1981 ITV Playhouse feature), A Voyage Round My Father
(1982) and Whale Music, broadcast posthumously in 1983.
on 11 July 1982, aged 34. Obituaries noted the loss of a talent of great promise before she had been able to realise her full potential; the Daily Telegraph described Littler's early death as "the greatest premature loss (of a British actress) since Kay Kendall
".
On 24 October 1982, Albert Finney
hosted a special programme in Littler's memory at London's National Theatre, with proceeds donated to cancer research.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actress who appeared in many television and stage productions in the 1970s and early 1980s, before her career was cut short by her premature death. A versatile and respected actress, Littler is perhaps best remembered for her BAFTA-nominated role in the 1977 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
production Spend, Spend, Spend
Spend, Spend, Spend (play)
Spend, Spend, Spend is an episode of the BBC's Play for Today anthology series first transmitted 15 March 1977Michael Brooke , BFI screenonline page on BBC1, recounting the life of football pools winner Viv Nicholson....
(1977), directed by John Goldschmidt
John Goldschmidt
John Goldschmidt is a film director and producer. Goldschmidt was born in London, but grew up in Vienna leaving at the age of 16 to return to London. Goldschmidt has both Austrian and British nationality...
.
Television
Born in SheffieldSheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, Littler trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
The Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, formerly the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, was a drama school, and originally a singing school, in London. It was one of the leading drama schools in Britain, and offered comprehensive training for those intending to pursue a...
in London and started her career working in repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
in provincial theatres around England, including Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, Darlington
Darlington
Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, part of the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It lies on the small River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees, not far from the main river. It is the main population centre in the borough, with a population of 97,838 as of 2001...
, Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
and Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. She made her first television appearance in a 1970 ITV Playhouse
ITV Playhouse
ITV Playhouse was a UK comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a...
production Don't Touch Him, He Might Resent It, followed by Another Sunday and Sweet F.A. (1972), a Jack Rosenthal
Jack Rosenthal
Jack Morris Rosenthal CBE was an English playwright, who wrote 129 early episodes of the ITV soap opera Coronation Street and over 150 screenplays, including original TV plays, feature films, and adaptations.-Biography:...
football-based drama also for ITV. During the early 1970s, Littler played roles of varying sizes in several of the most popular British TV shows of the time, including the soap operas Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
and Emmerdale Farm
Emmerdale
Emmerdale, is a long-running British soap opera set in Emmerdale , a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale was first broadcast on 16 October 1972...
, police dramas Z-Cars
Z-Cars
Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...
, Softly, Softly: Taskforce
Softly, Softly: Taskforce
Softly, Softly the popular BBC television police drama series, was revamped in 1969, partly to coincide with the coming of colour broadcasting to BBC 1...
and New Scotland Yard
New Scotland Yard (TV series)
New Scotland Yard was a police drama series produced by London Weekend Television of the ITV network between 1972 and 1974. It featured the activities of two officers from the Criminal Investigations Department in the Metropolitan Police force headquarters at New Scotland Yard, as they dealt with...
, comedies The Liver Birds
The Liver Birds
The Liver Birds is a British situation comedy, set in Liverpool, Merseyside, North-West of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpool housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents...
and Porridge
Porridge (TV series)
Porridge is a British situation comedy broadcast on BBC1 from 1974 to 1977, running for three series, two Christmas specials and a feature film. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, it stars Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale as two inmates at the fictional HMP Slade in Cumberland...
, and prison drama Within These Walls
Within These Walls
Within These Walls is a British television drama programme made by London Weekend Television for ITV and shown between 1974 and 1978. It portrayed life in HMP Stone Park, a fictional women's prison...
. More substantial roles came in Trinity Tales (1975), Alan Plater
Alan Plater
Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...
's contemporary reworking of The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
, and marriage guidance
Relationship counseling
Relationship counseling is the process of counseling the parties of a relationship in an effort to recognize and to better manage or reconcile troublesome differences and repeating patterns of distress...
serial Couples (1975–76).
Between 1974 and 1981, Littler starred in four productions for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
anthology series, the best remembered being the Jack Rosenthal
Jack Rosenthal
Jack Morris Rosenthal CBE was an English playwright, who wrote 129 early episodes of the ITV soap opera Coronation Street and over 150 screenplays, including original TV plays, feature films, and adaptations.-Biography:...
adaptation of the memoirs of pools winner Viv Nicholson
Viv Nicholson
Vivian Nicholson became publicly known overnight within Great Britain in 1961 when she received £152,319 in a football-pools win and announced to the press that she was going to "spend, spend, spend"...
, Spend, Spend, Spend
Spend, Spend, Spend (play)
Spend, Spend, Spend is an episode of the BBC's Play for Today anthology series first transmitted 15 March 1977Michael Brooke , BFI screenonline page on BBC1, recounting the life of football pools winner Viv Nicholson....
(1977). Ncholson, a Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
housewife and mother, who had faced a constant struggle to keep her family's heads above water financially, won £152,316 on the football pools
Football pools
A football pool, often collectively referred to as "the pools", is a betting pool based on predicting the outcome of top-level association football matches set to take place in the coming week. The pools are typically cheap to enter, with the potential to win huge money. Entries were traditionally...
in 1961. Littler's performance, bringing out Nicholson's vulnerabilities as well as her excesses, was highly praised by critics and earned her a 1977 BAFTA Best Television Actress nomination. Littler's other Play for Today roles were Taking Leave (1974), A Story to Frighten the Children (1976) and Baby Talk (1981).
Littler's last TV appearances were The Quiet Days of Mrs. Stafford (an August 1981 ITV Playhouse feature), A Voyage Round My Father
A Voyage Round My Father
A Voyage Round My Father is an autobiographical play by John Mortimer, later adapted for television.The first version of the play appeared as a series of three half-hour sketches for BBC radio in 1963. It then became a television play with Ian Richardson playing Mortimer, Tim Good as the young...
(1982) and Whale Music, broadcast posthumously in 1983.
Stage
Towards the end of her career, Littler appeared in a number of critically acclaimed and/or high profile London theatre productions. These included:- The Country WifeThe Country WifeThe Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun...
by William WycherleyWilliam WycherleyWilliam Wycherley was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.-Biography:...
(National TheatreRoyal National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, 1977) - Bedroom FarceBedroom Farce (play)Bedroom Farce is a 1975 comedic play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It had a London production at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1978.-Overview:...
by Alan AyckbournAlan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
(Prince of Wales TheatrePrince of Wales TheatreThe Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...
, 1978) – Littler also played this role in New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where she was nominated for the 1979 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a PlayTony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a PlayThis is a list of winners and nomination of the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress. The award was first presented in 1947.-1940s:* 1947: Patricia Neal – Another Part of the Forest* 1949: Shirley Booth – Goodbye, My Fancy-1950s:...
and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a PlayDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a PlayThe Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play was first awarded at the 1974-1975 Drama Desk Awards and has been awarded every year since... - Uncle VanyaUncle VanyaUncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
by Anton ChekhovAnton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
(Hampstead TheatreHampstead TheatreHampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
, 1979) - The Life and Adventures of Nicholas NicklebyThe Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (play)The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is an eight-hour stage play, presented over two performances, adapted from the Charles Dickens novel of the same name by David Edgar. Directed by John Caird and Trevor Nunn, it opened on 5 June 1980 at the Aldwych Theatre in London. The music and lyrics...
adapted by David EdgarDavid Edgar (playwright)David Edgar is a British playwright and author who has had more than sixty of his plays published and performed on stage, radio and television around the world, making him one of the most prolific dramatists of the post-1960s generation in Great Britain.He was resident playwright at the Birmingham...
(Aldwych TheatreAldwych TheatreThe Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
, 1980) - EnjoyEnjoy (play)Enjoy is a comedy play written in 1980 by Alan Bennett. An idiosyncratic view of working-class family life in Leeds, a city in the north of England, it was one of the rare theatrical flops in Bennett's career....
by Alan BennettAlan BennettAlan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
(Vaudeville TheatreVaudeville TheatreThe Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on The Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous...
, 1980)
Death
Littler died of cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
on 11 July 1982, aged 34. Obituaries noted the loss of a talent of great promise before she had been able to realise her full potential; the Daily Telegraph described Littler's early death as "the greatest premature loss (of a British actress) since Kay Kendall
Kay Kendall
Kay Kendall was an English actress.Kendall began her film career in the 1946 musical London Town. Though the film was a financial failure, Kendall continued to work regularly until her appearance in the comedy Genevieve brought her widespread recognition...
".
On 24 October 1982, Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
hosted a special programme in Littler's memory at London's National Theatre, with proceeds donated to cancer research.