Tiddles
10-27-2005, 10:14 PM
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0390205/
Played a female customer in A Bliss Girl The lady whose tights develop a run....
Jan Holden, who has died aged 74, was a stage actress known
for her performances in light comedy, and also appeared in
popular television series of the 1950s and 1960s.
An elegant woman notable for her arresting pale blue eyes,
she made her West End debut in 1958 in Speaking of Murder
(St Martin's), a thriller originally presented on Broadway
but adapted to an English country house setting. Later that
year she took the lead in The Tunnel of Love, a farce at the
Apollo Theatre.
It was the start of a busy career on the London stage,
during which she worked with some of the best-known names in
the business. In 1965, for example, she appeared at Her
Majesty's with Ian Carmichael and Patrick Cargill in Say Who
You Are, by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. In 1971 she
was in Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves (Lyric),
with Robert Morley; and in 1976 she rejoined Morley in the
Ben Travers farce Banana Ridge (Savoy). The next year she
performed with Donald Sinden in Shut Your Eyes and Think of
England (Apollo). Her last appearance in the West End was in
Romantic Comedy in 1983, with Tom Conti and Pauline Collins.
Jan Holden (Holden was her mother's maiden name) was born
Valerie Jeanne Wilkinson on May 9 1931 at Southport, in
Lancashire, and spent her early childhood in India, where
her father was a senior manager at the Swadeshi cotton mills
in Cawnpore. Aged six, she and her twin brother, Geoffrey,
were sent to school in the hills near Simla, two days away
by train. The term lasted nine months, and there were three
months at home during the cool season. The schools were not
co-educational, so she and her brother saw one another only
at church on Sundays.
On the outbreak of war, she and her mother returned to
England, where she boarded at Lowther College in north
Wales. When the war ended, her mother returned to India, and
Valerie spent the holidays with schoolfriends.
When she was 18 she was offered places at Rada, the Old Vic
School and at Bristol Old Vic; but her father refused to
pay, not approving of his daughter's ambition to go on the
stage.
Eventually he was persuaded to allow her to take a
directors' course at the Old Vic. She was one of two pupils
selected to be assistant stage managers at the Old Vic, and
she was in the prompt corner on the book at its grand
re-opening in 1951. During Dame Edith Evans's piece she
feared that the great lady had dried, and endured a
nerve-wracking moment in which to decide whether or not this
was one of the Dame's calculated pauses. In the end, she
prompted her and was rewarded with a hug and a "Thank you,
darling" when Evans came off.
Jan Holden then appeared in repertory, where she met her
first husband, the actor Edwin Richfield, who played was
Armando in the ITV show The Buccaneers. They married in
1952, when they were both appearing at Blackpool in the
stage version of The Blue Lamp.
Her television credits in the 1950s included the television
series Fabian of the Yard and Douglas Fairbanks Presents.
She was also in the successful detective series The Vice,
playing some 10 different characters in the show until 1961.
In that year she played the personnel officer in Harper's
West One, an ATV black and white television series about
life in a large Oxford Street store. There were 32 one-hour
episodes, all broadcast live. She also appeared in episodes
of The Avengers, The Saint and Are You Being Served? and was
the magazine editor to Maureen Lipman's agony aunt in the
sitcom Agony.
Her film appearances included The Best House in London, with
David Hemmings; she played the lead in Hammer Horror's
Stranglers of Bombay; and she had parts in High Flight, with
Ray Milland, and Work is a Four-Letter Word, with David
Warner and Cilla Black.
Jan Holden's life was not without difficulty or tragedy. In
the early 1960s her beloved twin brother drowned, and in
1973 her marriage broke down, leaving her to bring up three
teenage children. In 1999 one of her twin daughters died
from a brain tumour. She herself suffered from serious
illness during the last two decades of her life, but she
bore all these afflictions with cheerfulness and courage.
Jan Holden, who died on October 11, married her second
husband, Louis Hanson, a solicitor and business executive,
in 1988. He survives her, with a son and a daughter of her
first marriage and four stepsons and two stepdaughters.
Played a female customer in A Bliss Girl The lady whose tights develop a run....
Jan Holden, who has died aged 74, was a stage actress known
for her performances in light comedy, and also appeared in
popular television series of the 1950s and 1960s.
An elegant woman notable for her arresting pale blue eyes,
she made her West End debut in 1958 in Speaking of Murder
(St Martin's), a thriller originally presented on Broadway
but adapted to an English country house setting. Later that
year she took the lead in The Tunnel of Love, a farce at the
Apollo Theatre.
It was the start of a busy career on the London stage,
during which she worked with some of the best-known names in
the business. In 1965, for example, she appeared at Her
Majesty's with Ian Carmichael and Patrick Cargill in Say Who
You Are, by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. In 1971 she
was in Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves (Lyric),
with Robert Morley; and in 1976 she rejoined Morley in the
Ben Travers farce Banana Ridge (Savoy). The next year she
performed with Donald Sinden in Shut Your Eyes and Think of
England (Apollo). Her last appearance in the West End was in
Romantic Comedy in 1983, with Tom Conti and Pauline Collins.
Jan Holden (Holden was her mother's maiden name) was born
Valerie Jeanne Wilkinson on May 9 1931 at Southport, in
Lancashire, and spent her early childhood in India, where
her father was a senior manager at the Swadeshi cotton mills
in Cawnpore. Aged six, she and her twin brother, Geoffrey,
were sent to school in the hills near Simla, two days away
by train. The term lasted nine months, and there were three
months at home during the cool season. The schools were not
co-educational, so she and her brother saw one another only
at church on Sundays.
On the outbreak of war, she and her mother returned to
England, where she boarded at Lowther College in north
Wales. When the war ended, her mother returned to India, and
Valerie spent the holidays with schoolfriends.
When she was 18 she was offered places at Rada, the Old Vic
School and at Bristol Old Vic; but her father refused to
pay, not approving of his daughter's ambition to go on the
stage.
Eventually he was persuaded to allow her to take a
directors' course at the Old Vic. She was one of two pupils
selected to be assistant stage managers at the Old Vic, and
she was in the prompt corner on the book at its grand
re-opening in 1951. During Dame Edith Evans's piece she
feared that the great lady had dried, and endured a
nerve-wracking moment in which to decide whether or not this
was one of the Dame's calculated pauses. In the end, she
prompted her and was rewarded with a hug and a "Thank you,
darling" when Evans came off.
Jan Holden then appeared in repertory, where she met her
first husband, the actor Edwin Richfield, who played was
Armando in the ITV show The Buccaneers. They married in
1952, when they were both appearing at Blackpool in the
stage version of The Blue Lamp.
Her television credits in the 1950s included the television
series Fabian of the Yard and Douglas Fairbanks Presents.
She was also in the successful detective series The Vice,
playing some 10 different characters in the show until 1961.
In that year she played the personnel officer in Harper's
West One, an ATV black and white television series about
life in a large Oxford Street store. There were 32 one-hour
episodes, all broadcast live. She also appeared in episodes
of The Avengers, The Saint and Are You Being Served? and was
the magazine editor to Maureen Lipman's agony aunt in the
sitcom Agony.
Her film appearances included The Best House in London, with
David Hemmings; she played the lead in Hammer Horror's
Stranglers of Bombay; and she had parts in High Flight, with
Ray Milland, and Work is a Four-Letter Word, with David
Warner and Cilla Black.
Jan Holden's life was not without difficulty or tragedy. In
the early 1960s her beloved twin brother drowned, and in
1973 her marriage broke down, leaving her to bring up three
teenage children. In 1999 one of her twin daughters died
from a brain tumour. She herself suffered from serious
illness during the last two decades of her life, but she
bore all these afflictions with cheerfulness and courage.
Jan Holden, who died on October 11, married her second
husband, Louis Hanson, a solicitor and business executive,
in 1988. He survives her, with a son and a daughter of her
first marriage and four stepsons and two stepdaughters.