- published: 04 Dec 2012
- views: 49971
Lynne Maria Frederick (25 July 1954 – 27 April 1994) was an English film actress. In a career spanning ten years she made about thirty films or television drama appearances, but she is best remembered as the last wife of Peter Sellers. She was married twice after his death.
Frederick was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex, England, the daughter of Andrew and Iris Frederick. Iris became a casting director for Thames Television. Lynne's parents split up when she was two, and she was brought up by her mother and her grandmother, Cecilia, at Market Harborough in Leicestershire.
Having originally aspired to becoming a teacher of mathematics and physics, she abandoned her academic pursuits for the stage, and made her film debut as Mary Custance in No Blade of Grass (1970) when she was just 16 years old. She then appeared a year later in the 1971 biographical film Nicholas and Alexandra, in which she played Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia, second eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. However her best-known appearance came shortly afterwards when she played another historical character, Catherine Howard in Henry VIII and His Six Wives in 1972. Frederick would go on to pursue a successful career in films throughout the 1970s. Her next role was in the 1972 children's film The Amazing Mr. Blunden and in 1973 she won an award for the "Most Promising Newcomer – Actress of 1973".
Actors: Miriam Margolyes (actress), Alison Steadman (actress), Heidi Klum (actress), Geoffrey Rush (actor), Emilia Fox (actress), Peter Vaughan (actor), Steve Pemberton (actor), Ray Donn (actor), John Lithgow (actor), Nigel Havers (actor), Stephen Fry (actor), Stanley Tucci (actor), Mackenzie Crook (actor), Emily Watson (actress), Charlize Theron (actress),
Plot: The professional and personal life of actor and comedian 'Peter Sellers (I)' (qv) was a turbulent one. His early movie fame was based primarily on his comic characterizations, often of bumbling and foreign-accented persons, characters which he embodied. As his movie fame rose, he began to lose his own personal identity to his movie characters, leading to self-doubt of himself as a person and a constant need for reassurance and acceptance of his work. This self-doubt manifested itself in fits of anger and what was deemed as arrogance by many. In turn, his personal relationships began to deteriorate as his characterizations were continually used to mask his problems. His first wife, Anne Howe, left/divorced him and his relationships with his parents and children became increasingly distant. His relationship with his second wife, Swedish actress 'Britt Ekland' (qv), was based on this mask. In his later life, he tried to rediscover himself and his career with what would become his penultimate film role, that of Chance in _Being There (1979)_ (qv).
Keywords: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, acting, actor, actress, adultery, airplane-trip, animated-credits, animated-sequence