 A graceful beauty who might have had a bigger star career in an earlier decade: the '60s generally favoured a rougher breed, but Nanette Newman made the most of her opportunities, notably in the films directed by her husband, Bryan Forbes. She is a charming period heroine in The Wrong Box (1966) and touchingly unsentimental in his The Raging Moon (1970), her best role, as the girl in a wheelchair. A gift to the Technicolor cameras, she looks wonderful in the dramatically flawed The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) and International Velvet (1978), but is also affecting as the distraught wife in the black-and-white Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964). From a variety background, in films as a teenager, she returned in the mid '50s in 'B' movies, including Vernon Sewell's unsettling House of Mystery (1961), and became well known for TV ads for 'Fairy Liquid' - and for a well-regarded TV drama, Jessie (BBC, tx. 23/12/1980). She is also the author of cookery books and books for children. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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FILM & TV CREDITS
