THE HAT SQUAD: JOYCE REDMAN

From the Los Angeles Times:

Joyce Redman, a two-time Oscar-nominated Irish-born actress whose erotically charged dinner-eating scene opposite Albert Finney was a highlight of the bawdy 1963 British film comedy "Tom Jones," has died. She was 96.

Redman died [May 10] in Kent, England after a short battle with pneumonia, said her son, actor Crispin Redman.

A veteran of the London and Broadway stage, Redman received her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for "Tom Jones," which starred Finney as the incorrigible 18th century English title character who has a series of amorous adventures.

One took place with Redman's bold and brazen Mrs. Waters.

It is because of her passing that Inner Toob is featuring the "ASOTV" version of Jenny Jones today....

Ms. Redman made her mark in Toobworld as well, supplying TV characters like Auntie Hamps in 'Clayhanger', Laura Marchant in 'The Rector's Wife', and Sophie Dupin de Francueil in 'Notorious Woman'. When it comes to literary characters as seen on TV, Joyce Redman's Becky Sharpe is the official portrayal for 'Vanity Fair'. (Someday I hope to find a picture of her in that role.)

But even with another Academy Award nomination for Olivier's adaptation of "Othello", it will be as Jenny Jones/Mrs. Waters in "Tom Jones" for which she will always be remembered. And that is because of this scene:

In the 1997 TV adaptation, the producers wisely chose to merely suggest this scene, letting it occur off-screen. After all, how could they possibly compete with the suggestive exuberance of Albert Finney and Joyce Redman?

BCnU!