Susan Penhaligon

Penhaligon was the eldest child of Bill, an engineer for the Shell Oil Company, and Jean Penhaligon who ran a bed and breakfast. Born in Manila where her father was working, Penhaligon returned with her family to the UK aged six and spent her formative years living in St Ives and Falmouth in Cornwall. Aged 11 she was sent to boarding school in Bristol where her acting ambitions were encouraged. She has two brothers and a sister in the USA. After her parents divorced, her father went to live in San Francisco. She was a cousin of the late David Penhaligon, a former Liberal member of parliament in Cornwall.{{cite web|url=http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Cornish-actress-Susan-Penhaligon-quits-Lib-Dems/story-18628243-detail/story.html|title=Cornish actress Susan Penhaligon quits Lib Dems over reforms|work=Western Morning News|access-date=1 February 2016}}

While training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art,{{cite web|url=http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/education/university_and_college_news/2011/05/06/actress-susan-penhaligon-on-her-role-in-agatha-christie-s-verdict-100252-28643106/|title=Actress Susan Penhaligon on her role in Agatha Christie's Verdict|author=Catherine Jones|date=6 May 2011|work=liverpoolecho|access-date=1 February 2016}} Penhaligon shared a flat with Peter Hammill; she is mentioned in the lyrics of the Van der Graaf Generator song "Refugees" and the Hammill song "Easy to Slip Away".{{cite web|url=http://www.theargus.co.uk/magazine/myfavouritethings/8374375.Susan_Penhaligon/|title=Susan Penhaligon|work=The Argus|date=6 September 2010 |access-date=1 February 2016}}

Penhaligon's first appearance in the theatre was playing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing in a two weekly repertory company.{{cite news|newspaper=Liverpool Echo|date=6 May 2011|title=Actress Susan Penhaligon on her role in Agatha Christie's Verdict|url=http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/actress-susan-penhaligon-role-agatha-3374137|first=Catherine|last=Jones|access-date=2 October 2014}}

In the West End she appeared in a 1987 production of Three Sisters at the Albery Theatre.{{cite web|url=http://www.kent.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/theatre/r.php/33303/show.html|title=Theatre collections: record view|access-date=2 October 2014|website=University of Kent}} In 1982, she played a leading part in The Real Thing at the Strand Theatre, Aldwych (now called the Novello). She appeared in The Maintenance Man at the Comedy Theatre in 1987, and played Curley’s Wife in a 1984 production of Of Mice and Men at the Mermaid Theatre.{{cite web|url=http://theatricalia.com/play/3x2/of-mice-and-men/production/s0g|title=Production of Of Mice and Men|access-date=2 October 2014|website=Theatricalia}} She has toured the UK extensively, appearing in productions of The Constant Wife (Richmond Theatre, 2004),{{cite web|access-date=3 October 2014|url=http://www.indielondon.co.uk/theatre/t_constant_wife_richrev.html|title=Enjoyable, but not the play that Maugham intended|first=David|last=Munro|date=2004}} Mrs. Warren's Profession (Richmond Theatre, 2009),{{cite web|access-date=3 October 2014|url=http://www.londontown.com/LondonEvents/Mrs-Warrens-Profession/ea9daimagesPage/26532/|title=Mrs Warren's Profession|date=2009}} Death Trap (Theatre Royal, Norwich, 2002),{{cite web|access-date=3 October 2014|url=http://www.whatsonstage.com/west-end-theatre/news/01-2002/soul-and-penhaligon-take-levins-deathtrap-on-tour_28170.html|title=Soul & Penhaligon Take Levin's Deathtrap on Tour|date=2 January 2002|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020100156/http://www.whatsonstage.com/west-end-theatre/news/01-2002/soul-and-penhaligon-take-levins-deathtrap-on-tour_28170.html|archive-date=20 October 2014}} Agatha Christie's Verdict (Floral Pavilion Theatre, 2011), Dangerous Obsession with Simon Ward (Theatre Royal, Bath, 1989),{{cite news|access-date=3 October 2014|url=http://theatricalia.com/play/5qb/dangerous-obsession/production/cge|title=Production of Dangerous Obsession}} and Lord Arthur Saville's Crime by Oscar Wilde (Richmond Theatre, 2005).{{cite web|url=http://www.indielondon.co.uk/theatre/t_lord_arthur_savilles_crime_richrev.htm|access-date=3 October 2014|title=Lord Saville's Crime is to have siphoned Wildw's wit and sparkle|first=David|last=Munro|date=2005}}

She was in Time and the Conways, Lower Depths and The Cherry Orchard, and played a leading part in Arthur Miller's Broken Glass at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

In the Edinburgh Festival Fringe she appeared in the premiere of Dario Fo's Abduction Diana and she appeared in a critically acclaimed production of Misery at the King's Head Theatre and Keeping Up With the Joans with her friend Katy Manning.

Her television credits include Public Eye (1975, as Tuesday Simpson, a lesbian, would-be seductress of Julian Bradley, played by Ronald Lewis), Count Dracula (1977) with Louis Jourdan, Bouquet of Barbed Wire, Upstairs Downstairs, Tales of the Unexpected, Bergerac, Remington Steele, Wycliffe, Doctor Who, The Taming of the Shrew by the BBC Shakespeare series, Heart of the Country and A Kind of Loving. In A Fine Romance, she played Helen Barker. She has been in three episodes of Doctors and three episodes of Casualty. She also played Jean Hope in UK soap Emmerdale, for a year.{{cite web|url=http://www.gethampshire.co.uk/whats-on/find-things-to-do/charming-cast-for-camberley-panto-5358250|title=Charming cast for Camberley panto|author=gethampshire Administrator|date=1 August 2007|work=gethampshire|access-date=20 April 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514042958/http://www.gethampshire.co.uk/whats-on/find-things-to-do/charming-cast-for-camberley-panto-5358250|archive-date=14 May 2016}}

Being a proud Cornish woman, there was one role Penhaligon badly wanted and auditioned for, that of Demelza in Poldark. She lost out to Welsh actress, Angharad Rees for the part of the miner's daughter and servant girl Demelza, who marries her master Ross Poldark.{{Cite web |date=2008-03-07 |title=Susan looks on the Poldark side |url=https://www.express.co.uk/dayandnight/37294/Susan-looks-on-the-Poldark-side |access-date=2023-12-20 |website=Express.co.uk |language=en}}

Penhaligon had roles in films such as Say Hello to Yesterday (1970); Private Road (1971); Under Milk Wood (1972) as Mae Rose Cottage; No Sex Please, We're British (1973); The Land That Time Forgot (1974); House of Mortal Sin (1976); Nasty Habits (1977); Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange (1977) as a British military officer; The Uncanny (1977); Leopard in the Snow (1978); Patrick (1978); The Masks of Death (1984) and Top Dog (2014). She also played the role of the sole survivor of LANSA Flight 508, Juliane Koepcke in the film Miracles Still Happen (1974), directed by Giuseppe Maria Scotese.

Her novel For the Love of Angel, published in 2008 by Truran Books, is set in Cornwall in the 1880s.{{cite web|url=http://www.truranbooks.co.uk/aqshop/catalogue.php?s=For+the+Love+of+Angel&x=0&y=0|title=Truran – The Cornish Publisher|access-date=19 September 2014}} {{ISBN|1850222223}}

{{Portal|Cornwall}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{IMDb name|id=0671854|name=Susan Penhaligon}}
• [http://www.aveleyman.com/ActorCredit.aspx?ActorID=13623 Aveleyman: Susan Penhaligon]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Penhaligon, Susan}}

Category:1949 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art

Category:English film actresses

Category:English soap opera actresses

Category:English stage actresses

Category:British television actresses

Category:British people of Cornish descent

Category:People from St Ives, Cornwall

Category:Actresses from Cornwall

Category:Actresses from Manila

Category:Actors from Falmouth, Cornwall