Veronica Hurst is an English motion picture, stage
and television actress who was born in Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. She was raised in Tooting

Tooting

Tooting is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...

, South London, England. Her hair was honey blond.

Early career

Hurst was awarded the Leverhulme Scholarship to RADA and made her film debut as Joan Webb in Laughter in Paradise

Laughter in Paradise

Laughter in Paradise is the title of a British comedy film released in 1951. The film stars Alastair Sim, Fay Compton, George Cole, and Guy Middleton...

 (1951) with director Mario Zampi describing her as "one of the greatest potential screen stars I have ever seen". The film featured Alistair Sim, Fay Compton

Fay Compton

Fay Compton was an English actress from a notable acting lineage; her father was actor/manager Edward Compton; her mother, Virginia Bateman, was a distinguished member of the profession, as were her sister, the actress Viola Compton, and her uncles and aunts. Her grandfather was the 19th-century...

, and Guy Middleton

Guy Middleton

Guy Middleton Powell, usually credited as Guy Middleton, was an English film character actor.Middleton was born in Hove, England and originally worked in the London Stock Exchange, before turning to acting in the 1930s...

. She was then contracted to the Associated British Picture Corporation

Associated British Picture Corporation

Associated British Picture Corporation , originally British International Pictures , was a British film production, distribution and exhibition company active from 1927 until 1970...

 for seven years. In 1952 she appeared in the critically acclaimed Battle of Britain film 'Angels One Five', directed by George More O'Farrell and starring alongside Jack Hawkins and John Gregson. In one of her most popular roles, as Kitty Murray in The Maze

The Maze (1953 film)

The Maze is a 1953, atmospheric science fiction, horror film in 3-D starring Richard Carlson and actress Hillary Brooke. Directed by William Cameron Menzies, it was distributed by Allied Artists Pictures. This was to be the second 3-D film designed and directed by William Cameron Menzies. Menzies,...

 (1953), she was loaned out to Allied Artists. The Maze was based on a novel by Maurice Sandoz and directed by William Cameron Menzies

William Cameron Menzies

William Cameron Menzies was an Academy Award-winning American film production designer and art director who also worked as a director, producer, and screenwriter during a career spanning five decades...

. Miss Hurst, then 21, co-starred with actor Richard Carlson

Richard Carlson

Richard Carlson was an American actor, television and film director, and screenwriter.-Career:Born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, Carlson graduated from the University of Minnesota with an M.A. degree, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He later appeared on the Broadway stage in the 1930s after studying...

. They were supported by cast members Hillary Brooke

Hillary Brooke

Hillary Brooke was an American film actress best known for her work in Abbott and Costello and Sherlock Holmes films...

, Lillian Bond, John Dodsworth and others. The film was released in 1953. Like It Came From Outer Space

It Came from Outer Space

It Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...

, it is a cult film and helped introduce the 3D Film to movie audiences.

Motion pictures

Allied Artists retained Veronica for a second film, titled The Royal African Rifles (1953). Her second American feature was directed by Lesley Selander

Lesley Selander

Lesley Selander was a prolific American film director of Westerns and science fiction movies. His career as director, spanning 127 feature films and 15 TV episodes, lasted from 1936 to 1968...

 and had a screenplay by Daniel Ullman. Hurst played the daughter of a traitor who assists in smuggling German arms to British East Africa during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Some of her other film credits include The Yellow Balloon

The Yellow Balloon (film)

The Yellow Balloon is a 1953 British drama film starring Kenneth More, Bernard Lee, Andrew Ray, Kathleen Ryan and Sid James.-Plot:Playing around the ruins of a devastated bombed-out neighbourhood of London, 12 year old Frankie accidentally leads a boy into his death when he falls from a second...

 (1953), Will Any Gentleman...?

Will Any Gentleman...?

Will Any Gentleman...? is a 1953 British comedy film directed by Michael Anderson and starring George Cole, Veronica Hurst, Jon Pertwee and William Hartnell. A young man is hypnotised into leading a more fulfilling life. It was based on a play by Vernon Sylvaine.-Cast:* George Cole as Henry...

 (1953), Bang! You're Dead

Bang! You're Dead

Bang! You're Dead is a 1954 British psychological film drama, directed by Lance Comfort and starring Jack Warner, Anthony Richmond and Sean Barrett. The film takes as its subject the accidental killing of a man by a child, and the struggles of the child and his companion to comprehend the gravity...

 (1954), "Don't Blame The Stork" (1954), The Gilded Cage (1955), Peeping Tom

Peeping Tom (film)

Peeping Tom is a 1960 British psychological thriller directed by Michael Powell and written by the World War II cryptographer and polymath Leo Marks. The title derives from the slang expression 'peeping Tom' describing a voyeur...

 (1960), "Dead Man's Evidence" (1962), "Live It Up" (1963), Licensed to Kill (1965 film)

Licensed to Kill (1965 film)

Licensed to Kill is a 1965 superspy imitation James Bond film starring Tom Adams as British secret agent Charles Vine. It was directed and co-written by Lindsay Shonteff. Producer Joseph E...

 and "'The Boy Cried Murder" (1965).

Television

Hurst appeared in fifteen motion pictures in the 1950s and 1960s. By the early 1960s she began to act frequently in both British and American tv
series. She had roles in The Pursuers (1961), Public Eye (1966), The Baron

The Baron

The Baron is a British television series, made in 1965/66 based on the book series by John Creasey, written under the pseudonym Anthony Morton, and produced by ITC Entertainment. It was the first ITC show without marionettes to be produced entirely in colour...

 (1967), Man in a Suitcase

Man in a Suitcase

Man in a Suitcase is a 1967 television series produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.-Origins and overview:Man in a Suitcase was effectively a replacement for Danger Man, whose production had been curtailed when its star Patrick McGoohan had decided to create his own series, The Prisoner...

 (1968), Detective

Detective

A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

 (1968), Market In Honey Lane (1967), The Troubleshooters (1969), Fraud Squad (1970), The Persuaders!

The Persuaders!

The Persuaders! is a 1971 action/adventure series, produced by ITC Entertainment for initial broadcast on ITV and ABC. It has been called "the last major entry in the cycle of adventure series that had begun eleven years earlier with Danger Man in 1960", as well as "the most ambitious and most...

 (1971), Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series that ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.-Overview:...

 (1968–1971), The Flaxton Boys

The Flaxton Boys

The Flaxton Boys is a British historical children's television series set in the West Riding of Yorkshire and covering a timespan of almost a century. The series was made by Yorkshire Television and was broadcast on ITV between 1969 and 1973, running for 4 series and 52 episodes, each of 30...

 (1971), and General Hospital

General Hospital

General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....

 (1972–1975).

External links