Maria Aitken

Maria Aitken

Born: September 12, 1945
in Dublin, Ireland
Aitken was born in Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and Penelope Aitken, whose father was John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. Her grandfather was the UK Representative to Ireland (1939–49). She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and war-time minister Lord Beaverbrook, and sister to former Conservative cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken. She attended Riddlesworth Hall Preparatory School in Norfolk, Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset and St Anne's College, Oxford, where she graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature.

She has directed several plays in the West End and on Broadway. Her production of The 39 Steps, which ran in London for nine years, also played three years on Broadway and won Olivier and Tony Awards. In 2011, she directed Frank Langella in Man and Boy on Broadway. She is a Visiting Lecturer at Yale, NYU and Juilliard drama schools. Her extensive acting career includes leading roles at the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and in the West End. She has played more Noël Coward leads than any other actress. Her film career includes appearances in Doctor Faustus (1967), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Half Moon Street (1986), A Fish Called Wanda (1988) (for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award), The Fool (1990), The Grotesque (1995), Fierce Creatures (1997), Jinnah (1998) and Asylum (2005).

She is the author of A Girdle Round the Earth, a story of some of the more remarkable women travellers of the last 200 years, and Style: Acting in High Comedy, published in 1996, which contends that "High comedies are not bloodless, refined, wordy plays — their themes are sex, money and social advancement. They contain a splendid contradiction: wit and elegance at the service of man's basest drives."

From Wikipedia

Movies for Maria Aitken...

Asylum
Title: Asylum
Character: Claudia Greene
Released: September 9, 2005
Type: Movie
A woman becomes very curious about one of her psychiatrist husband's inmates, a man who was found guilty in the murder and disfigurement of his former wife.
bee
Title: Poor Little Rich Girls
Released: May 25, 2004
Type: TV
Poor Little Rich Girls is a United Kingdom reality television program that allowed women from very different professions and classes to switch places to see how the other half lives. The six-part series, directed by Iain Thompson and produced by Simon Kerfoot and Helen Royle, first aired in 2004 on ITV. The premiere episode, in which model Natalie Denning trades places with trainee hairdresser Katie Wakefield, was "pick of the day" by The Sun for "Best Reality".
bee
Jinnah
Title: Jinnah
Character: Edwina
Released: November 7, 1998
Type: Movie
Biography of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan is told through flashbacks as his soul tries to find eternal rest. The flashbacks start in 1947 as Jinnah pleads for a separate nation for the Muslim minority, infuriating Lord Mountbatten. Mountbatten then tries to enlist Gandhi & Nehru to persuade Jinnah to stop his efforts. Gandhi sides with Jinnah, which upsets Nehru. However, Jinnah turns down the offer to become prime minister and the film takes another slide back to 1916, which reveals all of the political implications that have occurred.
bee
Fierce Creatures
Title: Fierce Creatures
Character: Di Admin
Released: January 23, 1997
Type: Movie
Ex-policeman Rollo Lee is sent to run Marwood Zoo, the newly acquired business of a New Zealand tycoon. In order to meet high profit targets and keep the zoo open, Rollo enforces a new 'fierce creatures' policy, whereby only the most impressive and dangerous animals are allowed to remain in the zoo. However, the keepers are less enthusiastic about complying with these demands.
bee
The Grotesque
Title: The Grotesque
Character: Lavinia Freebody
Released: September 9, 1995
Type: Movie
Sir Hugo is more interested in reconstructing dinosaur bones than in paying attention to his wife, Lady Harriet. He's not thrilled when daughter Cleo brings home her betrothed, Sidney, who aspires to be a poet. The new butler, Fledge, provides Lady Harriet with the attention she's been missing and then seduces Sidney. Did he have a role in Sidney's disappearance as well?
bee
Title: Love on a Branch Line
Character: Lady Flamborough
Released: June 12, 1994
Type: TV
Love on a Branch Line is a British television adaptation of the 1959 novel Love on a Branch Line by John Hadfield. It was broadcast in 1994 airing on the BBC in four 50 minute episodes.
bee
The Fool
Title: The Fool
Character: Lady Amelia
Released: December 7, 1990
Type: Movie
A costume drama / satire about financial skull-duggery, and confidence tricksters in both the upper and lower classes in Victorian London. A working class man impersonates a lord who is supposedly very rich and a financial wizard. As such he is invited to all the best peoples' parties.
bee
A Fish Called Wanda
Title: A Fish Called Wanda
Character: Wendy
Released: July 15, 1988
Type: Movie
While a diamond advocate attempts to steal a collection of diamonds, troubles arise when he realises he’s not the only one after the collection.
bee
Half Moon Street
Title: Half Moon Street
Character: The Hon. Maura Hardcastle
Released: August 13, 1986
Type: Movie
Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London is utterly frustrated by her job. To supplement her income, she starts moonlighting at the Jasmine Escort Service, where she has more control over men and money than she does at the office. On one of her 'dates', Lauren meets the politician Lord Bulbeck who is trying to mediate a peace accord between the Arabs and Israelis. Bulbeck falls in love with his escort, and unwittingly, Lauren becomes a pawn in some very dirty politics.
bee
Title: Wogan
Character: Self
Released: May 4, 1982
Type: TV
Wogan is a British television chat show
bee
Bedroom Farce
Title: Bedroom Farce
Character: Susannah
Released: September 28, 1980
Type: Movie
Trevor and Susannah, whose marraige is on the rocks, inflict their miseries on their nearest and dearest: three couples whose own relationships are tenuous at best. Taking place sequentially in the three beleaguered couples' bedrooms during one endless Saturday night of co-dependence and dysfunction, beds, tempers, and domestic order are ruffled, leading all the players to a hilariously touching epiphany.
bee
Don't Be Silly
Title: Don't Be Silly
Character: Ellie Bloom
Released: July 24, 1979
Type: Movie
Play about middle class domestic abuse.
bee
Title: Jemima Shore Investigates
Released: April 11, 1978
Type: TV
Patricia Hodge stars as the investigative journalist, TV presenter, writer and amateur sleuth Jemima Shore . This enormously popular series based on the novels by Antonia Fraser - also features appearances by Tom Baker, Don Henderson, Bill Nighy, Brian Cox and Lysette Anthony. Poised, determined, and possessed of a sharp intellect and a keen eye, Jemima presents Megalith Television s Jemima Shore Investigates . But in her spare time, she uses her connections to pursue her own investigations and her relentlessly inquiring mind uncovers crime and intrigue of every variety, particularly within the world of the wealthy and the privileged...
bee
Title: Romance (UK)
Released: March 2, 1977
Type: TV
bee
Out of the Trees
Title: Out of the Trees
Released: January 10, 1976
Type: Movie
Sketch comedy pilot from Douglas Adams and Graham Chapman.
bee
Title: The Edwardians
Released: November 21, 1972
Type: TV
It was a time when England was a nation on the cusp of change, an evolving landscape tht lay between Victorian England and the First World War. 'The Edwardians' explores the lives of and events in the lives of many who helped define the era, the "Belle Epoque".
bee
Title: Crown Court
Character: Jocelyn Bennington
Released: October 11, 1972
Type: TV
Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
bee
Title: Crown Court
Released: October 11, 1972
Type: TV
Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
bee
Mary, Queen of Scots
Title: Mary, Queen of Scots
Character: Lady Bothwell
Released: December 22, 1971
Type: Movie
Mary Stuart, who was named Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old, is the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. She is imprisoned at the age of 23 by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, the English Queen and her arch adversary. Nineteen years later the life of Mary is to be ended on the scaffold and with her execution the last threat to Elizabeth's throne has been removed. The two Queens with their contrasting personalities make a dramatic counterpoint to history.
bee
Title: Justice
Character: Lady Beste
Released: October 8, 1971
Type: TV
Justice is a British drama television series which originally aired on ITV in 39 hour-long episodes between 8 August 1971 and 16 October 1974. Margaret Lockwood stars as Harriet Peterson a female barrister in the North of England. It was made by Yorkshire Television and was based loosely on Justice Is a Woman, an episode of ITV Playhouse broadcast in 1969 in which Lockwood had previously also played a barrister. The theme music was Crown Imperial by William Walton.
bee
Title: Codename
Character: Mrs. Petrie
Released: April 7, 1970
Type: TV
Codename, which premiered in April 1970, was about the secretive MI17 Spy Organisation of the same name based in the residential hall of a Cambridge College. Eventually the series attained a more international flavour, although its base was always in Great Britain. Primarily Codename dealt with the themes of espionage and counter-espionage at the time of the Cold War of the sixties. Its cast contained many of Great Britain's most versatile and talented actors.
bee
Title: Manhunt
Character: Madame Leonard
Released: January 2, 1970
Type: TV
Manhunt is a World War II drama series consisting of 26 episodes, produced by London Weekend Television in 1969 and broadcast nationwide.
bee
Some Girls Do
Title: Some Girls Do
Character: Robot Flight Attendant (uncredited)
Released: January 23, 1969
Type: Movie
A series of unexplainable accidents befall the people and companies responsible for developing the world's first supersonic airliner. A British agent is sent to investigate and with the help of another agent uncovers a plot masterminded by Carl Petersen who stands to gain eight million pounds if the aircraft is not ready by a certain date.