Rachel Gurney (5 March 1920 – 24 November 2001) was an English actress. She began her career in the theatre towards the end of World War II and then expanded into television and film in the 1950s. She remained active, mostly in television and theatre work, into the early 1990s. She is best remembered for playing the elegant Lady Marjorie Bellamy in the ITV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs.
Biography
Early life and education
Rachel Gurney was born in Buckinghamshire, England on 5 March 1920. Her father, Samuel Gurney Lubbock, was a housemaster at Eton[1] and her mother, Irene Scharrer, was a concert pianist. Due to her parents' occupations, Gurney grew up in a large house with 42 boys that was often host to visiting artists and musicians. As a teenager, she attended the Dr Challoner's High School in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire.
In the same year, she married novelist Denys Rhodes, but their marriage ended in 1950 in divorce. They had one daughter together, actress Sharon Gurney (a daughter-in-law of Michael Gough). Her other stage credits during this time include Lady Katherine in A Sleeping Clergyman at the Criterion Theatre in 1947, the fiancée in Peter Watling's Rain on the Just at the Old Vic in 1948, and Thea in Black Chiffon at the Westminster Theatre in 1949.
Gurney remain active in theatre, television and film during the 1960s and also on radio. In 1961 she played Marian in the BBC radio adaptation of LP Hartley’s novel The Go-Between.[2] On the stage she starred opposite John Gielgud as Hermione in the 1965 production of A Winter's Tale and as Lady Chiltern in An Ideal Husband at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1966. She also starred in the 1969 touring production of Shaw'sOn the Rocks opposite David Tomlinson, Robert Flemyng and Jack Hulbert.
In 1980, Gurney made her Broadway debut in Major Barbara. She returned to Broadway twice more in The Dresser (1981–1982) and Breaking the Code (1988). She also appeared in a major role in the Noël Coward play Mr. and Mrs Edgehill in 1985.
