Rita Tushingham

Tushingham was born on 14 March 1942 in the Garston area of Liverpool, where her father was a grocer who ran three shops.^[1] She grew up in the Hunt's Cross district of the city. She attended the Heatherlea School in Allerton and the La Sagesse School in Grassendale (which later became part of St Julie's Catholic High School) and studied shorthand and typing at a secretarial school. She wanted to be an actress from an early age and trained at the Shelagh Elliott-Clarke School before working as an assistant stage manager at the Liverpool Playhouse.^[2]

Tushingham's screen debut was in A Taste of Honey (1961). In 2020, she said of the film: "We shocked audiences without intending to. I only learned later that Paul and I did the first interracial kiss on screen. ... A lot of the reaction was, 'People like that don’t exist' – by which they meant homosexuals, single mothers and people in mixed-race relationships. But they did." A Taste of Honey was banned in several countries.^[3]

Other performances by Tushingham have included Girl with Green Eyes (1964), The Leather Boys (1964),The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Trap (1966), Smashing Time (1967), The Bed Sitting Room (1969), and The 'Human' Factor starring George Kennedy and John Mills (1975). She also co-starred as Margaret Sheen in the TV film Green Eyes (1977).

In the 1960s, Tushingham performed several plays for the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre: The Changeling (1961), The Kitchen (1961), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Twelfth Night (production without décor, 1962) and The Knack (1962).

Tushingham has won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award, and was a member of the jury at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival in 1972^[4] and at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival in 1990.^[5]

Her later roles include the film Being Julia (2004), starring Annette Bening, and on television in "The Sittaford Mystery" (2006), an episode of Marple. She appeared in Season 2 of the BBC Three zombie drama In The Flesh as Mrs Lamb, broadcast in May 2014. In 2020 she appeared in the BBC One adaptation of The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie.

Clips from Tushingham's performance in The Leather Boys appeared in The Smiths' music video for the single "Girlfriend in a Coma", in 1987.^[6] She is also mentioned in the Franz Ferdinand song "L. Wells", the Cleaners From Venus song "Ilya Kuryakin Looked at Me" and the Television Personalities song "Favourite Films". In 1999, she was featured on This Is Your Life.^[7]

Tushingham married photographer Terry Bicknell in 1962. They had two daughters, Dodonna and Aisha, before divorcing in 1976.^[3] In 1981, she married Iraqi cinematographer Ousama Rawi, spending eight years in Canada with him before they separated. They were not legally divorced until 1996. She later divided her time between Germany and London with German writer Hans-Heinrich Ziemann, her partner since 1994. As of 2020^[update] she lives alone in London, near her daughter Aisha and her grandchildren.^[3]

In April 2005, at the age of 33, Tushingham's daughter Aisha was diagnosed with breast cancer. She recovered and later gave birth to a son. Tushingham subsequently became an activist for breast cancer health and support.^[8] She is a prominent supporter of Cancer Research UK's Relay For Life and has given a number of interviews to raise breast cancer awareness.^[9]

In July 2009, Tushingham received an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University for "outstanding and sustained contributions to the performing arts".^[10] In a 2020 interview, she described herself as a "lifelong football fan" and a Liverpool F.C. supporter.^[3]

In June 2022, Tushingham was the guest for BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Her choices included "You'll Never Walk Alone" by Gerry and the Pacemakers, "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" by Ella Fitzgerald and "Bridge over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel. Her book choice was Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and her requested luxury item was a photograph of her family inside a book of Matt cartoons wrapped in a mosquito net.^[11]

Film edit

Television edit

Tushingham was made Honorary Associate of London Film School.

• Rita Tushingham at IMDb
• Rita Tushingham at the BFI's Screenonline