Early life and career

Born in Buxton

Buxton

Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...

, Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

 as Elizabeth Jean Williams, Spriggs had an unhappy childhood and grew up entirely without affection, particularly from her distant, domineering father, a master builder and farmer. She studied at the Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

 and taught speech and drama in Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

, Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

. Her first marriage at 21 was a disaster and, in what she called "the most painful decision of my life", left her husband and young daughter to pursue her acting dream. "The desire to act was like a weight within me", she later said, "and I knew if I didn't do anything about it it would destroy me". She wrote to a rep in Stockport

Stockport

Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...

, Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

 asking for a job and was taken on. She worked with many companies, including Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 and Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, before joining the RSC

Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

 in 1962.

Stage career

Spriggs was an regular performer with the RSC under Peter Hall until 1976, playing many important Shakespearean roles, including Nurse in Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

, an acclaimed Gertrude in Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

opposite David Warner

David Warner (actor)

David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...

, Calpurnia in Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

, Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life...

and a witty Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....

. She also featured in RSC productions of Edward Albee

Edward Albee

Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...

's A Delicate Balance, Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's Major Barbara and Dion Boucicault

Dion Boucicault

Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...

's comedy London Assurance

London Assurance

London Assurance is a five-act comedy by Dion Boucicault. It was the second play that he wrote, but his first to be produced. Its first production, from March 4, 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden was Boucicault's first major success...

, playing the splendidly bombastic Lady Gay Spanker alongside Donald Sinden

Donald Sinden

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE is an English actor of theatre, film and television.-Personal life:Sinden was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, on 9 October 1923. The son of Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes , he grew up in the Sussex village of Ditchling, where their home doubled as the...

.

In 1976, she moved with Hall from the RSC to the National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 when the company's own theatre opened. In the first season she played the eccentric medium Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit

Blithe Spirit (play)

Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...

, a part many claimed was made for her. Among her many other plays for the National were Volpone

Volpone

Volpone is a comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy, black comedy and beast fable...

with Paul Scofield

Paul Scofield

David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...

, The Country Wife

The Country Wife

The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun...

and Macbeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

with Albert Finney

Albert Finney

Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....

. In 1978, Spriggs won the Society of West End Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress for Arnold Wesker

Arnold Wesker

Sir Arnold Wesker is a prolific British dramatist known for his contributions to kitchen sink drama. He is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings...

's Love Letters on Blue Paper, playing the wife of a dying trade union leader who recalls their early life together (a part she first played on BBC television in 1976).

Her later stage work included a West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 revival of JB Priestley's When We Are Married

When We Are Married

When We Are Married is a 1938 play by English dramatist, J. B. Priestley. It is the first play ever to be televised unedited from a theatre.-Productions:* 1938 World premiere, London, England* 16 November 1938 BBC live telecast...

in 1986, and Arsenic and Old Lace

Arsenic and Old Lace (play)

Arsenic and Old Lace is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film adaptation starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust, and opened on January 10, 1941. On September 25, 1943, the...

at the Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....

 in 1991.

Television and film

Spriggs did not work regularly on television until the mid-1970s, but she soon made up for such a late start. She was in Frederic Raphael

Frederic Raphael

Frederic Michael Raphael is an American-born, British-educated screenwriter, and also a prolific novelist and journalist.-Life and career:...

's The Glittering Prizes

The Glittering Prizes

The Glittering Prizes is a British television drama about the changing lives of a group of Cambridge students, starting in 1953 and following them through to middle age in the 1970s. It was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1976.-Cast:...

(1976), played Connie, the head of a battling South London family in the thirteen-part drama Fox

Fox (TV series)

Fox is a British television drama series produced by Euston Films and Thames Television for the ITV network in 1980.The thirteen-part series was based around the lives of the titular Fox family, who lived in London and had gangland connections....

(1980) and was the formidable Nan in the ITV comedy series Shine On Harvey Moon

Shine on Harvey Moon

Shine on Harvey Moon is a British television series made by Central Television for ITV from 8 January 1982 to 23 August 1985 and briefly revived in 1995 by Meridian....

(1982–85). She appeared in three plays by Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...

: Afternoon Off (1979), Intensive Care (1982) and Our Winnie (1982). She played Calpurnia and Mistress Quickly for the BBC's Shakespeare series, appeared in Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

in the serial 'Paradise Towers

Paradise Towers

Paradise Towers is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 5 October to 26 October 1987.-Plot:...

' in 1987 (as well as a being cast in 'The Two Doctors

The Two Doctors

The Two Doctors is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from 16 February to 2 March 1985. It starred Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant as the Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri, respectively...

' 3 years earlier before parting company with the production and her part being played by Jacqueline Pearce

Jacqueline Pearce

Jacqueline Pearce is a British actress.-Career:Jacqueline Pearce trained at the British stage school RADA and at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in Los Angeles....

.), and was the title witch in a children's series called Simon and the Witch

Simon and the Witch

Simon and the Witch is the name of a children's book by Margaret Stuart Barry, published by Collins, illustrated by Linda Birch. It is also generally used as the name of the series which follows on. Simon is a very sensible young schoolboy who has a friend who is a real witch...

(1987).

In 1990, she gave a memorable performance as one of the God-fearing gossips in the BBC adaptation of Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson OBE is a British novelist.-Early years:Winterson was born in Manchester and adopted on 21 January 1960. She was raised in Accrington, Lancashire, by Constance and John William Winterson...

's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (TV serial)

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was a critically acclaimed 1990 BBC television drama, directed by Beeban Kidron. Jeanette Winterson wrote the screenplay, adapting her semi-autobiographical first novel of the same name . The BBC produced and screened three episodes, running to a total of 2 hours and...

and in 1992, was in television versions of Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

's The Old Devils

The Old Devils

The Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1986. The novel won the Booker Prize. It was adapted for television by Andrew Davies for the BBC in 1992, starring John Stride, Bernard Hepton, James Grout and Ray Smith...

and Angus Wilson

Angus Wilson

Sir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson, CBE was an English novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot and later received a knighthood for his services to literature.-Biography:Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to...

's Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes is a satirical novel by Angus Wilson, published in 1956. It was Wilson's most popular book, and many consider it his best work.-Plot summary:...

. In 1994, she played the midwife Mrs Gamp in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

's Martin Chuzzlewit

Martin Chuzzlewit (TV series)

Martin Chuzzlewit was a 1994 TV mini series produced by the BBC. It is based on the novel by Charles Dickens, with a screenplay by David Lodge. The music was composed by Geoffrey Burgon...

and was Mrs Cadwallader in Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1994 TV serial)

George Eliot's novel Middlemarch has been adapted for television twice. The most recent version in 1994 was directed by Anthony Page from a screenplay by Andrew Davies...

by George Eliot

George Eliot

Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...

.

She continued to work on television, in series like Heartbeat, Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...

(playing a murder victim in the pilot episode of the series in 1997 and returning in 2006 as the character's identical twin sister) and Poirot

Agatha Christie's Poirot

Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...

.

Her early film appearances included Work is a Four-Letter Word (1968) and Three Into Two Won't Go (1969), both directed by Peter Hall. Her later character roles included Mrs Jennings in Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...

's Oscar-winning adaptation of Sense and Sensibility (1995) and the Fat Lady in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in the United States and India as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is a 2001 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The film is the first instalment in the Harry Potter film series,...

(2001). Her final film was Is Anybody There? (2008) with Michael Caine

Michael Caine

Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....

, released shortly after her death.

Personal life

Spriggs's first two marriages, to Kenneth Spriggs and a fellow RSC actor, Marshall Jones, were dissolved. In 1977, she married her third husband, Murray Manson, a mini-cab driver and musician whom she had met while performing in London Assurance

London Assurance

London Assurance is a five-act comedy by Dion Boucicault. It was the second play that he wrote, but his first to be produced. Its first production, from March 4, 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden was Boucicault's first major success...

. She also had a daughter, Wendy, from her first marriage.

Selected filmography

• Richard's Things
  Richard's Things
  Richard's Things is a 1980 British drama film directed by Anthony Harvey and starring Liv Ullmann, Amanda Redman and Peter Burton. After her husband dies his wife discovers he has a secret long-term mistress...
  
  (1980)
• Impromptu
  Impromptu (1991 film)
  Impromptu is a 1991 movie, based on a screenplay written by Sarah Kernochan, directed by James Lapine, produced by Daniel A. Sherkow and Stuart Oken, and starring Hugh Grant as Chopin and Judy Davis as George Sand. This movie was rated PG-13 by the MPAA...
  
   (1991)
• Sense and Sensibility
  Sense and Sensibility (1995 film)
  Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 British drama film directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by Emma Thompson is based on the 1811 novel of the same name by English author Jane Austen...
  
   (1995)
• Paradise Road (1997)

External links