| Jenny Agutter | |
| Birthname: | Jennifer Ann Agutter |
| Birth Date: | 20 December 1952 |
| Birth Place: | Taunton, Somerset, England |
| Years Active: | 1964–present |
| Children: | 1 |
Jennifer Ann Agutter (born 20 December 1952) is an English actress. She began her career as a child actress in 1964, appearing in East of Sudan, Star!, and two adaptations of The Railway Children; the BBC's 1968 television serial and the 1970 film version. In 1971 she also starred in the critically acclaimed film Walkabout and the TV film The Snow Goose, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama.
She relocated to the United States in 1974 to pursue a Hollywood career and subsequently appeared in Logan's Run (1976), Amy (1981), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Child's Play 2 (1990). During the same period, Agutter continued appearing in high-profile British films, such as The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Equus (1977)—for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role—and The Riddle of the Sands (1979). In 1981, she co-starred in The Survivor, an Australian adaptation of the James Herbert novel by that name, and was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
After returning to Britain in the early 1990s to pursue family life, Agutter shifted her focus to television, appearing in the 2000 version of television adaptation of The Railway Children, this time as the mother, and since 2012 she has had an ongoing role in the BBC's Call the Midwife. Her film work in recent years includes The Avengers (2012) and (2014), and in 2022, Agutter returned to the world of The Railway Children once more by reprising her role from the 1970 film 52 years later in a sequel, The Railway Children Return.
Agutter is married, and has one adult son. She supports several charitable causes, mostly ones related to cystic fibrosis, a condition from which her niece suffers, and for her service to those causes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours.
Agutter was born on 20 December 1952[1] in Taunton, Somerset, England.[2] She is the daughter of Derek Agutter (an entertainments manager in the British Army) and Catherine, and was raised Roman Catholic.[3] She has Irish ancestry on her mother's side.[4] As a child, she lived in Singapore,[5] Dhekelia (Cyprus) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaya). She attended Elmhurst Ballet School,[6] a boarding school, from ages eight to sixteen.[5]
Agutter became known to television audiences for her role in the twice-weekly BBC series The Newcomers. (She played Kirsty, the daughter of the new managing director of Eden Brothers, the fictional firm that is at the centre of the series.) Agutter could appear only during school holidays. At this stage of her career, she was listed in credits as “Jennifer”. In 1966, she portrayed a ballet pupil in Disney's film Ballerina. In 1968, she was featured in the lavish big-budget 20th Century Fox film musical Star! which featured Julie Andrews as Gertrude Lawrence; Agutter played Lawrence's neglected daughter Pamela. Later, she played Roberta in a BBC adaptation of The Railway Children (1968) and in Lionel Jeffries's 1970 film of the book. She followed this with a more serious role in the thriller I Start Counting (1969). She also won an Emmy as supporting actress for her television role as Fritha in a British television adaptation of The Snow Goose (1971).
Agutter then moved into adult roles, beginning with Walkabout (1971), in which she played a teenage schoolgirl who is lost with her younger brother in the Australian outback. She auditioned for the role in 1967, but funding problems delayed filming until 1969. The delay meant Agutter was sixteen at the time of filming, which allowed the director to include nude scenes.[7] Among them was a five-minute skinny-dipping scene, which was cut from the original US release.[8] She said at the 2005 Bradford Film Festival at the National Media Museum that she was shocked by the film's explicitness, but remained on good terms with director Nicolas Roeg.[9]
Agutter moved to Hollywood at twenty-one and appeared in a number of films over the next decade, including The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Logan's Run (1976), Equus (1977) (for which she won a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and an adaptation of the James Herbert novel The Survivor (1981). Agutter has commented that the innocence of the characters she played in her early films, combined with the costumes and nudity in later adult roles such as Logan's Run, Equus, and An American Werewolf in London, are "perfect fantasy fodder".[10] [11]
In 1990, Agutter returned to the UK to concentrate on family life and her focus shifted towards British television. During the 1990s, she was cast in an adaptation of Jeffrey Archer's novel Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and as the scandalous Idina Hatton in the BBC miniseries The Buccaneers, inspired by Edith Wharton's unfinished 1938 book, and made guest appearances in television series such as Red Dwarf and Heartbeat. In 2000, she starred in a third adaptation of The Railway Children, produced by Carlton TV, this time playing the mother.[12] [13] Since then Agutter has had recurring roles in several television series including Spooks, The Invisibles, Monday Monday and The Alan Clark Diaries. In 2012 Agutter resumed her Hollywood career, appearing as a member of the World Security Council in the blockbuster film The Avengers; she reprised her role in (2014). Since 2012, Agutter has played Sister Julienne in the BBC television drama series Call the Midwife.
Agutter has appeared in numerous theatre productions since her stage debut in 1970, including stints at the National Theatre in 1972–73, the title role in a derivation of Hedda Gabler at the Roundhouse in 1980 and with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982–83, playing Alice in Arden of Faversham, Regan in King Lear and Fontanelle in Lear. In 1987–88, Agutter played the role of Pat Green in the Broadway production of the Hugh Whitemore play Breaking the Code, about computer pioneer Alan Turing.[14] In 1995 she was in an RSC production of Love's Labour's Lost staged in Tokyo. She is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children in the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.[15]
In 2008, she also guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio drama The Bride of Peladon[16] and played an outlawed scientist in The Minister of Chance.[17] She has appeared as a guest star character ("Fiona Templeton") in the Radio 4 comedy Ed Reardon's Week.[18]
Agutter appears on the 1990 Prefab Sprout song "Wild Horses", speaking the words "I want to have you".[19]
At a 1989 arts festival in Bath, Somerset, Agutter met Johan Tham, a Swedish hotelier[20] who was a director of Cliveden Hotel in Buckinghamshire.[21] They married in August 1990,[22] and their son Jonathan was born on 25 December 1990. Agutter lives in London, but has a keen interest in Cornwall[23] and once owned a second home there on the Trelowarren Estate, in one of the parishes on the Lizard peninsula.[24]
She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours, for her charitable services.
Agutter has been attached to several causes throughout her career. She has been involved in raising awareness of the illness cystic fibrosis, which she believes was responsible for the deaths of two of her siblings. Her niece has the disease. At Agutter's suggestion, an episode of Call the Midwife focused on cystic fibrosis. She has also worked in support of charities, in particular the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, of which she is a patron (she is also a carrier of the genetic mutation).[25] [26]
In August 2014, Agutter was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September 2014's referendum on that issue.[27]
| Year | Title | Roles | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | East of Sudan | Asua | ||
| 1966 | Linda Frazier | |||
| 1968 | Gates to Paradise | Maud | ||
| Star! | Pamela Roper | |||
| 1969 | I Start Counting | Wynne | ||
| 1970 | Roberta "Bobbie" Waterbury | |||
| 1971 | Walkabout | Girl | ||
| 1976 | Logan's Run | Jessica 6 | ||
| Molly Prior | ||||
| 1977 | Equus | Jill Mason | BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role | |
| The Man in the Iron Mask | Louise de la Vallière | |||
| 1978 | China 9, Liberty 37 | Catherine Sebanek | ||
| Dominique | Ann Ballard | a.k.a. "Dominique Is Dead" | ||
| 1979 | Clara | |||
| 1979 | Priscilla Mullins | |||
| 1980 | Sweet William | Ann Walton | ||
| 1981 | Amy | Amy Medford | ||
| Hobbs | Nominated – Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role | |||
| Nurse Alex Price | Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Actress | |||
| 1984 | Secret Places | Miss Lowrie | ||
| 1989 | Dark Tower | Carolyn Page | ||
| 1990 | King of the Wind | Hannah Coke | ||
| Child's Play 2 | Joanne Simpson | |||
| Darkman | Burn Doctor | Uncredited Cameo | ||
| 1992 | Freddie as F.R.O.7 | Daffers | ||
| 1995 | Blue Juice | Mary Fenton | ||
| 2001 | Victor's Wife | |||
| 2002 | At Dawning | Escaping woman | Short film | |
| 2004 | Number One Longing, Number Two Regret | Kenosha | ||
| 2006 | Heroes and Villains | June | ||
| 2007 | Irina Palm | Jane | ||
| 2007 | The Magic Door | Black Witch | ||
| 2009 | Glorious 39 | Maud Keyes | ||
| 2010 | Burke and Hare | Lucy | ||
| 2011 | Outside Bet | Shirley Baxter | ||
| Golden Brown | Sarah | |||
| 2012 | The Avengers | Councilwoman Hawley | ||
| 2014 | ||||
| 2015 | Queen of the Desert[28] | Florence Bell | ||
| Tin | Marjorie Dawson | |||
| 2018 | Sometimes Always Never | Margaret | ||
| 2022 | The Railway Children Return | Roberta "Bobbie" Waterbury |
| Year | Title | Roles | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Kirsty Kerr | BBC TV series | |
| Alexander Graham Bell | Grace Hubbard | BBC TV series | |
| 1966 | Ballerina | Ingrid Jensen | Two-part episode of Disneyland; credited as Jennifer Agutter |
| 1967 | Boy Meets Girl | Joanna | BBC TV; Series 1, Episode 10: "Long After Summer" |
| 1968 | Roberta Faraday | BBC TV series | |
| 1970 | Young Maria Beadnall / Mary Hogarth / Ellen Ternan | TV film | |
| 1971 | Fritha | Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama | |
| 1972 | Hedvig | BBC TV "Play of the Month" broadcast on BBC 1 on 19 March | |
| Maureen Tomelty | American (CBS) TV film set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles | ||
| Shelley | Mary Shelley | BBC TV series | |
| 1974 | Thriller | Dominie Lanceford | Series 2, Episode 3: "Kiss Me and Die" |
| 1975 | Shadows | Sue | Season One, Episode Four: "The Waiting Room" |
| 1977 | Dr. Leah Russell | "Deadly Countdown" Parts 1 & 2 | |
| 1980 | Beulah Land | Lizzie Corlay | TV mini-series |
| 1985 | Love's Labour's Lost | Rosaline | BBC TV film |
| Magnum, P.I. | Krista Villeroch | Season 5, Episode 96: "Little Games" | |
| Silas Marner | Nancy Lammeter | BBC TV film | |
| 1986 | The Twilight Zone | Morgan le Fay | Season 1, Episode 24: "The Last Defender of Camelot" |
| Murder, She Wrote | Margo Claymore | Season 3, Episode 4: "One White Rose for Death" | |
| 1987 | The Grand Knockout Tournament | Herself | TV special |
| The Twilight Zone | Jacinda | Season 2, Episode 13: "Voices in the Earth"[29] | |
| 1990 | Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less | Jill Albery | BBC TV mini-series |
| 1992 | Dream On | Ellen | Season 3, Episode 22: "No Deposit, No Return" |
| 1993 | Red Dwarf | Professor Mamet | "Psirens" |
| 1994 | Heartbeat | Susannah Temple-Richards | Series 4, Episode 8 "Fair Game" |
| 1994 | Love Hurts | Jeanette Summers | |
| 1995 | Idina Hatton | BBC TV mini-series | |
| 2000 | Mother | ITV | |
| 2002 | Spooks | Tessa Phillips | BBC TV series |
| 2003 | Britain's Finest | Presenter | Channel 5 Series 1, Episode 2: "Gardens" |
| 2004 | Jane Clark | BBC TV series | |
| Jemma Sanderson | BBC TV Series 3, Episode 3 | ||
| Agatha Christie's Marple | Agnes Crackenthorpe | Series 1, Episode 3: "4.50 from Paddington" | |
| 2005 | New Tricks | Yvonne Barrie | BBC TV Series 2, Episode 1 |
| 2006 | Agatha Christie's Poirot | Adela Marchmont | Season 10, Episode 4: "Taken at the Flood" |
| 2007 | Diamond Geezer | Vanessa | ITV series |
| 2008 | Barbara Riley | BBC TV series | |
| 2009 | Monday Monday | Jenny Mountfield | ITV1 TV series |
| 2010 | Midsomer Murders | Isobel Chettham | ITV1 TV series, Episode 72: "The Creeper" |
| 2012–present | Call the Midwife | Sister Julienne | BBC TV series |