An enchantingly beautiful, luminous blonde, Mary Ure was born in Glasgow in 1933. Her first film was the Korda's Storm Over the Nile (1955), a misfiring remake of The Four Feathers (1939). Next was Windom's Way (1957) - a tale of rubber plantation strikes and marital strife, but more significant events had been occurring off-screen. In 1956 she starred as Alison in John Osborne's 'Look Back in Ang ...
show all An enchantingly beautiful, luminous blonde, Mary Ure was born in Glasgow in 1933. Her first film was the Korda's Storm Over the Nile (1955), a misfiring remake of The Four Feathers (1939). Next was Windom's Way (1957) - a tale of rubber plantation strikes and marital strife, but more significant events had been occurring off-screen. In 1956 she starred as Alison in John Osborne's 'Look Back in Anger' at the Royal Court theatre in London. She began an affair with the married Osborne and after his divorce they tied the knot in 1957. By 1958, however, the marriage was falling apart. Osborne could be cold and detached and he did not hold his wife in particularly high esteem, as he wrote in the second volume of his memoirs 'Almost a Gentleman'. She began an affair with Robert Shaw around 1959 though she wasn't divorced from Osborne until 1962 and was complicit in the charade that the father of her first child, Colin born 31 August 1961, was Osborne's. In the meantime she transferred her fragile, captivating portrayal of Alison from stage to screen in the 1959 film adaptation of Look Back in Anger, which also starred Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. Her beautiful performance of Clara in 1960's Sons and Lovers won her an Oscar nomination. In this time she also performed a season at Stratford and, while pregnant, The Changeling at the Royal Court with Shaw. At the time she was pregnant, Jennifer Bourke, Shaw's first wife, was also pregnant by him (at his death in 1978 he left 9 children). In 1963 she married Shaw and after an absence of three years, returned to cinema screens with a good performance in The Mind Benders (1963) with Dirk Bogarde, a thought-provoking sci-fi drama. Then it was The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964) and the flawed Custer of the West (1967) both with Shaw. Neither of these productions made a significant impact, though Ure performed admirably. In 1968 she made her one and only bona-fide big-budget blockbuster, Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. It was a huge success but it would be five years before Ure's next, and last, film appearance. In the meantime she had continued to act on stage but her career had been subjugated to her husband's. A fiercely competitive man, Shaw's ego couldn't have withstood a successful wife. His first wife Jennifer Bourke had given up her career as an actress to be a wife and mother. Ure didn't give up her career but the demands of motherhood, she bore Shaw 3 more children, and her growing dependence on alcohol meant it lapsed. Her final film was A Reflection of Fear (1973) with Shaw, an interesting horror psychodrama but Ure was third-billed and looked dissipated. After this she returned to the stage but Shaw's affair with his secretary made her depressed and ill and her alcohol dependency grew. She died on the 3rd April 1975, following a disastrous opening night on the London stage. Her death is variously listed as an accidental overdose of whisky and tranquillisers or suicide. She was a wonderful actress whose lustre lingers in the mind long after the film has ended. Sadly her own life ended aged just 42.
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