URE, Joan see CLARK, Elizabeth Thomson (Betty)(1918—78)

URE, Mary, born Kelvinside, Glasgow, 18 Feb. 1933, died London 3 April 1975. Actor. Daughter of Edith Swinburne, and Colin McGregor Ure, engineer.

Educated in Glasgow and at the Mount School, York, Mary Ure was an actor of skill, range and beauty, frequently cast in vulnerable roles. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, making her debut at the Manchester Opera House in 1953 in Alan Melville's Simon and Laura. Her potential was swiftly recognised, and she made a dazzling West End debut at the London Arts Theatre in 1954 in Anouilh's Time Remembered. In 1955 she played Ophelia to Paul Scofield's Hamlet, appearing in this production in Moscow on stage and television. Her most memorable roles came at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in the spring of 1956 — Abigail in the first British production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and Alison in John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. She also played Alison in the film version (opposite Richard Burton) and on the New York stage. Mary Ure married John Osborne (1929—94) in 1957; a tempestuous union, it ended in divorce five years later, when their son was one year old. By this time, she had fallen in love with Robert Shaw (1927—78), appearing with him in the Elizabethan comedy The Changeling at the Royal Court in 1961. They married in 1963 and had four children.

Mary Ure played leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. Her films included Storm Over the Nile (1955), Sons and Lovers (for which she received an Academy Award Nomination in i960), Custer of the West (1967) and Where Eagles Dare (1968). She claimed, however, that her preference was for the theatre and that she appeared in films to please her husbands. She returned to the stage in i975, giving a powerful performance in Don Taylor's The Exorcism at the Comedy Theatre, London. On the evening of the first night of this production, a cocktail of whisky and tranquillisers led to her untimely death. DC

• Heilpern. J. (2006) John Osborne: a patriot for us; ODNB (2004); The Scotsman, 6 April 1975 (obit.).