Irene Handl

Infobox Person
name=Irene Handl


image_size = 230px
caption= Irene Handl in the 1966 BBC TV comedy "Mums Boys"
birth_date=birth date|1901|12|27|df=y
birth_place=Maida Vale, London, England, UK
death_date= death date and age|1987|11|29|1901|12|27|df=y
death_place= Kensington, London, England, UK

Irene Handl (27 December, 1901 – 29 November, 1987) was an English film actress noted for her comic and character parts.

Life

Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the daughter of an Austrian banker father and French mother. She took to acting at the relatively advanced age of 36, and studied at the acting school run by the sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike. She made her London stage debut in February 1937. She went on to appear in over a hundred British films in supporting roles, mostly comedy character parts such as slightly eccentric mothers, grannies, landladies and servants. In the early 1980s, she played Nan in the ITV children's comedy show Metal Mickey. She died in Kensington in 1987 and is buried at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Films

Handl had very minor roles in such landmark films as "Night Train to Munich (1940 film)" "Spellbound" and "Brief Encounter". Her notable appearances included "I'm All Right Jack" as the wife of Peter Sellers' union leader Fred Kite, Tony Hancock's landlady in "The Rebel" and Sherlock Holmes' housekeeper Mrs. Hudson in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes". She had small roles in two of the Carry On series ("Nurse" and "Constable").

Television

On television she appeared as a guest in a number of comedy series, notably as a regular in the 1958 series "Educating Archie" and later in "Maggie and Her" (1978) opposite Julia McKenzie. She appeared in a rare aristocratic role in "Mapp and Lucia" and as another aristocratic character in Eric Sykes' 1979 re-make of The Plank where her chauffer was played by Brian Murphy.

Her last appearance was in the BBC sitcom "In Sickness and in Health" in 1987. She died in Kensington, London later that year. She never married. It is noted in the published diaries of Kenneth Williams that Handl appeared and/or was in the audience of an episode of the magazine programme "Wogan" in 1987 (being hosted by Williams, as happened periodically) and that Handl was in a wheelchair. He recalls just a few days later that Handl had passed away. The fact that her appearance in "In Sickness and in Health" is credited as her final role is no doubt due to it being screened after her death.

In addition to her acting career, she wrote two successful novels: "The Sioux" (1965) and "The Gold Tip Pfizer" (1966).

Intriguingly, as the writer Tony Barrell has pointed out (London "Sunday Times", January 1, 2006), Handl was born on exactly the same day as another famous actress, Marlene Dietrich. Though they played very different parts, both were educated at all-girls schools and had connections with Noël Coward.

elected filmography

*"Believed Married" (1937)
*"George and Margaret" (1940)
*"Gasbags" (1941)
*"Millions Like Us" (1943)
*"Great Day" (1946)
*"Code of Scotland Yard" (1946)
*"Temptation Harbour" (1947)
*"Adam and Evelyne" (1949)
*"The History of Mr Polly" (1949)
*"The Perfect Woman" (1949)
*"Meet Mr. Lucifer" (1953)
*"The Belles of St Trinian's" (1954)
*"A Kid for Two Farthings" (1954)
*"Brothers in Law" (1957)
*"The Key" (1958)
*"Law and Disorder" (1958)
*"I'm All Right Jack" (1959)
*"Left, Right and Centre" (1959)
*"Next to No Time" (1960)
*"A French Mistress" (1960)
*"The Pure Hell of St Trinian's" (1960)
*"Two-Way Stretch" (1960)
*"The Rebel" (1961)
*"Double Bunk" (1961)
*"Heavens Above!" (1963)
*"Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment" (1966)
*"The Wrong Box" (1966)
*"Smashing Time" (1967)
*"Wonderwall" (1968)
*"The Italian Job" (1969)
*"The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970)
*"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (1970)
*"Confessions of a Driving Instructor" (1976)
*"Adventures of a Private Eye" (1977)
*"Come Play with Me" (1977)
*"The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1977)
*"Stand Up Virgin Soldiers" (1977)
*"The Great Rock & Roll Swindle" (1979)
*"Riding High" (1981)
*"Absolute Beginners" (1986)

External links

*
* [http://www.britmovie.co.uk/actors/h/010.html Short bio with photo]
* [http://www.leninimports.com/irene_handl.html Longer Biography]