Prunella Ransome

Who was Prunella Ransome?

Prunella Ransome was an English actress, primarily active on television and films.

Born in Croydon, Surrey, Prunella Ransome later lived in Titchfield where her father was a public school headmaster from 1952 to 1958. Ransome studied at Elmhurst School for Dance and began her performing career as a teenager, making her West End debut in a 1959 musical production of Jane Eyre with further West End appearances in Do Re Mi and Oliver!. She later spent five months singing at a cabaret in Athens and upon returning to the UK worked delivering cars for a London automobile dealership prior to being cast in 1965 in the musical stage play The Match Girls. Following that play's 1966 West End transfer, Ransome's performance drew the attention of a producer of the film Far from the Madding Crowd, with a screen test leading to her playing that film's second female lead and her performance earning her a Golden Globe Award nomination.

Ransome progressed in her film career playing the female lead in the 1969 film Alfred the Great: however her subsequent screen career was focused almost exclusively on television, Ransome having debuted in that medium in the 1967 serialization of Kenilworth. In the 1970s she had major multi-episode roles in three well-regarded TV drama series: Warship and A Horseman Riding By for the BBC; as well as Dangerous Knowledge for Southern Television. She also appeared in other TV series of the period.