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television series ''The Whitehall Worrier'' and ''The Very Merry Widow'' from 1967 to 1968. (Later series of this programme were titled ''The Very Merry Widow — and How!'') Lister also appeared on various other British TV series such as ''
Moira Lister Gachassin-Lafite, Viscountess of
radio comedy ''Orthez
Orthez (; eu, Ortheze; oc, Ortès, ) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, and region of New Aquitaine, southwestern France.
It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. The town also encompasses the sm ...
(6 August 192327 October 2007) was a South African-British film, stage and television actress and writer.
Early life
Born inCape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
to Major James Lister and Margaret (née Hogan), Lister was educated at the Parktown Convent of the Holy Family, Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...
. She was a theatre student of Anna Romain Hoffman, who with her husband Arthur Hoffman founded The Johannesburg Repertory Theatre.
Career
She began her acting career on stage in South Africa and then went on to act in the London theatre at the age of 18. Lister began working in films in 1943, and appeared in a number of films over several decades. The most notable of these being forEaling Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...
, such as ''Another Shore
''Another Shore'' is a 1948 Ealing Studios comedy film directed by Charles Crichton. It stars Robert Beatty as Gulliver Shields, an Irish customs official who dreams of living on a South Sea island; particularly Rarotonga. It is based on the 1 ...
'' (1948), ' (1949), '' Pool of London'' (1951) and '' The Cruel Sea'' (1953). She starred in Peter Ustinov's long-running 1951 play ''The Love of Four Colonels
''The Love of Four Colonels'' is a play by the British writer Peter Ustinov, first performed in 1951. It is a fantasy set around military officers from the four Allied Occupation Powers (American, British, French and Soviet) of postwar Germany.
...
'' in the West End.
She had a regular role in the first series of the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...Hancock's Half Hour
''Hancock's Half Hour'' was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sidney James; the radio version also co-starred, ...
'' in 1954–55, and was also one of the girlfriends in ''A Life of Bliss'' starring George Cole as David Bliss, a perpetual bachelor. She starred in the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...Danger Man
''Danger Man'' (retitled ''Secret Agent'' in the United States for the revived series, and ''Destination Danger'' and ''John Drake'' in other overseas markets) is a British television series that was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again b ...
'' and '' The Avengers'' ("The See-Through Man", 1967). In 1980, she made a guest appearance as a film star in the sitcom '' Only When I Laugh''.
She was the subject of '' This Is Your Life'' in 1971 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews
Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ ...
.
Lister was still performing until three years before her death, touring with her one-woman show about Noël Coward. She belonged to the British Catholic Stage Guild
The British Catholic Stage Guild, the main organisation for Roman Catholics in British entertainment, was founded in 1911. The aim of the Guild, as laid out in the 1931 Year Book, was ''"to establish and encourage spiritual, artistic and social int ...
.
Personal life
In 1946, Lister went on a date in London with Neville Heath
Neville George Clevely Heath (6 June 1917 – 16 October 1946) was an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946. He was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, in October 1946.
Early life and career
Neville Heath was bor ...
, a former South African Air Force
"Through hardships to the stars"
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captain who murdered two women in London only months later. Heath was convicted after a sensational trial, and he was hanged in October 1946.
In 1951, Moira Lister married Belgo
Belgo was a chain of London restaurants specializing in simple Belgian cooking and Belgian beer. There were five Belgo restaurants: Belgo Centraal (Covent Garden), Belgo Holborn, Belgo Kings Cross, Belgo Nottingham and Belgo Bromley ; followin ...
-French aristocrat Jacques Gachassin-Lafite, Viscount of Orthez
Orthez (; eu, Ortheze; oc, Ortès, ) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, and region of New Aquitaine, southwestern France.
It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. The town also encompasses the sm ...
, son of André Gachassin-Lafite, Viscount of Orthez and of Louise van Dievoet. Jacques was a French officer
An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," f ...
of the Spahi
Spahis () were light-cavalry regiments of the French army recruited primarily from the indigenous populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The modern French Army retains one regiment of Spahis as an armoured unit, with personnel now ...
s, owner of a champagne vineyard and hero of the Rif War
The Rif War () was an armed conflict fought from 1921 to 1926 between Spain (joined by France in 1924) and the Berber tribes of the mountainous Rif region of northern Morocco.
Led by Abd el-Krim, the Riffians at first inflicted several de ...
; they had two daughters, Chantal and Christobel. Lister also had two granddaughters, Christina d'Orthez and Marina d'Orthez.
Moira Lister died at the age of 84 in 2007. Both she and her husband are interred in the churchyard of St Edward's Catholic Church in Sutton Green, Surrey.
Honours
*Naledi Theatre Award
The Naledi Theatre Awards are annual South African national theatre awards held in Gauteng launched in 2004 by Dawn Lindberg
Dawn Lindberg (14 April 1945 – 7 December 2020) was a South African folk singer, actress, theatre producer, dire ...
, a lifetime achievement award for her services to the theatre in South Africa.
* Best Actress of the Year (1971)
* Freedom of the City of London (2000)
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
* ''The Very Merry Moira'' (1971)Bibliography
* « Lister, Moira », in : ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005–2008'', Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 696–69References
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lister, Moira 1923 births 2007 deaths South African people of British descent British film actresses British radio actresses British Roman Catholics British television actresses French vicomtesses Deaths from cancer in South Africa Actresses from London Actresses from Cape Town South African emigrants to the United Kingdom South African Roman Catholics 20th-century British actresses 21st-century British actresses 20th-century English women 20th-century English people 21st-century English women 21st-century English people