A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Hilary Dwyer

 

Hilary Dwyer was born on the the 6th of May 1945 in Liverpool, the daughter of Frederick Dwyer, a South African-born orthopaedic surgeon noted for his pioneering calcaneal osteotomy who had married Norah Eileen Milroy in 1940. They had two daughters, Hilary and Patricia, the latter of whom would later marry the philosopher Bernard Williams. As a youth, Hilary studied ballet and the piano, becoming a talented pianist, winning a music scholarship to Lowther College in North Wales. At age 16 she attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, now part of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and trained in repertory theatres, appearing on stage at the Bristol Old Vic. After working on 'The Avengers' (1967) and other TV series, she made her big-screen debt as the terrified niece Sara Lowes in the gruesome 'Witchfinder General' (1968), directed and co-written by Michael Reeves and starring Vincent Price. (The filmmaker died soon after the movie’s release at age 25 of an alcohol and barbiturate overdose). In his book Hammer and Beyond, Peter Hutchings said, "As Sarah Lowes, Hilary have given a sensitive, intelligent and articulate performance, even though she has said "I don't think that I realised I was the star'." Though controversial at the time because of its excessive onscreen elements of torture and sadism, over the years it became a cult classic. Following a turn in 'The Body Stealers' (1969), she also appeared in Ted Kotcheff’s 'Two Gentlemen Sharing' (1969), and she portrayed Isabella in a adaptation of  'Wuthering Heights' (1970), featuring Timothy Dalton, She had reunited with Price in Edgar Allan Poe’s 'The Oblong Box' (1969) and in 'Cry of the Banshee' (1970) which was her final feature film appearance. Hilary said, " I adored Vincent. I played his mistress, his daughter and his wife. He said, "If you ever play my mother, I’ll marry you."

opposite Ian Ogilvy in The Witchfinder General

On the small screen, she had many minor roles from 1968 in programmes such, 'Z-Cars' (1968), 'Callan' (1969) and 'Van de Valk' (1972). She was also seen as an ill-fated fellow resident of 'the village' in an episode of 'The Prisoner' (1967); portrayed a thief purloining secret documents in 'Special Branch' (1969) and expired at the hands of a murderous spectre in 'Space:1999 (1975) (her screen acting swansong). She also had a leading role in the TV series 'Hadleigh' (1969) as the independently wealthy middle-class wife of a suave Yorkshire country squire. Hilary also had a successful career on the stage and acted in 'Arms and the Man' at the Theatre Royal in Bath and in 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at the Bristol Old Vic. In 1978 she performed in the play 'Whose Life Is It Anyway?' alongside Tom Conte at the Mermaid Theatre in London and later at the Savoy.

In 1973, she married the talent agent Duncan Heath and the following year they set up Duncan Heath Associates Agency, eventually selling to ICM Partners in 1984. Abandoning her acting career in 1976, she became an executive producer, primarily of episodic TV as well as adaptations of literary classics by Daphne Du Maurier's; 'Rebecca' (1997), 'Frenchman's Creek' (1998), 'Jamaica Inn' (2014)) and 'Tennessee Williams', 'The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone' (2003)). In 1988 she had won a Cable Ace Award for the TV movie 'The Worst Witch' (1986). She is also credited as either producer or executive producer for a number of feature films, including 'Criminal Law' (1988) and 'An Awful Big Adventure' (1995), starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman as well as  co-producing Gary Oldman's 1997 film 'Nil by Mouth'.

Unfortunately her marriage did not prosper and she and her husband Duncan separated, and were divorced in 1989. Despite her divorce, she retained a relationship with her ex-husband, which continued to be the most important in her life, and the two continued to speak and meet regularly. She also embraced sobriety, giving up alcohol. Fast forward to 2004 and Hilary attracted unhappier news headlines after being confronted by a knife-wielding assailant at her Barbados home and forced to jump from a second storey bedroom window onto rocks, sustaining injuries hospitalising her for nine days.

Her last credited on-screen work was as a producer on TV mini-series 'Jamaica Inn' in 2014. As a producer, she was skilled at managing talent. Jonathan Powell the former controller of BBC 1 said of her, "Everybody knew Hilary. And if they didn’t, they couldn’t stop her from getting to know them. She had a complete incapacity to understand what the word 'no' meant." Her most remarkable re-invention came in her mid-60s, when she won a master's degree from Oxford in psychology and became an addiction counsellor, specialising in CBT. She worked at clinics all over the world, often for free, often with very deprived and distressed individuals, and she regarded this as her most valuable work by far.
Hilary died on the 30th of March 2020 aged 74 of complications from COVID-19, her godson, Alex Williams, wrote on Facebook, 'We lost my wonderful Godmother Hilary Heath to Covid-19 last week...She was a force of nature, and I can't bear it that she is no longer with us.' She was survived amongst others by her son, Daniel Heath, a film composer and her daughter, Laura.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/11/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-terry.html