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Dame Eileen June Atkins (born 15 June 1934) is an English actress. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford. She is also a three-time Olivier Award winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 (for Multiple roles) and Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001.
Atkins joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1957 and made her Broadway debut in the 1966 production of The Killing of Sister George, for which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Play in 1967. She received subsequent nominations for, Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1972), Indiscretions (1995) and The Retreat from Moscow (2004). Other stage credits include The Tempest (Old Vic 1962), Exit the King (Edinburgh Festival and Royal Court 1963), The Promise (New York 1967), The Night of the Tribades (New York 1977), Medea (Young Vic 1985), A Delicate Balance (Haymarket, West End 1997) and Doubt (New York 2006).
Atkins co-created the television dramas Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1975) and The House of Elliot (1991–1994) with Jean Marsh. She also wrote the screenplay for the 1997 film Mrs Dalloway. Her film appearances include I Don't Want to Be Born (1975), Equus (1977), The Dresser (1983), Let Him Have It (1991), Wolf (1994), Jack and Sarah (1995), Gosford Park (2001), Cold Mountain (2003), Vanity Fair (2004), Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006), Evening (2007), Last Chance Harvey (2008), Robin Hood (2010) and Magic in the Moonlight (2014).
Once, when she was given a line to recite, someone told her mother that she had a Cockney accent. Her mother was appalled but speech lessons were too expensive for the family. Fortunately, a woman took interest in her and paid for her to be educated at Parkside Preparatory School in Tottenham. Eileen Atkins has since publicly credited the Principal, Miss Dorothy Margaret Hall, for the wise and firm guidance under which her character developed. From Parkside she went on to The Latymer School, a grammar school in Edmonton, London. By 12, she was a professional in pantomime in Clapham and Kilburn. One of her grammar school teachers who used to give them religious instruction, an Ernest J. Burton, spotted her potential and, without charge, rigorously drilled away her Cockney accent. He also introduced her to the works of William Shakespeare. She studied under him for two years.Atkins (2021) p.85
When she was 14 or 15 and still at Latymer, Atkins also attended "drama demonstration" sessions twice a year with this same teacher. At around this time (though some sources say she was 12), her first encounter with Robert Atkins took place. She was taken to see Atkins' production of King John at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. She wrote to him saying that the boy who played Prince Arthur was not good enough and that she could do better. Atkins wrote back and asked that she come to see him. On the day they met, Atkins thought she was a shop girl and not a school girl. She gave a little prince speech and he told her to go to drama school and come back when she was older.Atkins (2021) p.97
Burton came to an agreement with Eileen's parents that he would try to get her a scholarship for one drama school and that if she did not get the scholarship he would arrange for her to do a teaching course in some other drama school. Her parents were not at all keen on the fact that she would stay in school until 16 as her sister had left at 14 and her brother at 15 but somehow they were persuaded. Eileen was in Latymer's until 16. Out of 300 applicants for a RADA scholarship, she got down to the last three but was not selected, so she did a three-year course on teaching at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. But, although she was taking the teaching course, she also attended drama classes and in fact performed in three plays in her last year. This was in the early 1950s. In her third and last year she had to teach once a week, an experience she later said she hated. She graduated from Guildhall in 1953.Principal's General Report to the Board of Governors, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 13 May 2013, p. 4.
As soon as she left Guildhall, Atkins got her first job with Robert Atkins in 1953: as Jaquenetta in Love's Labour's Lost at the same Regent's Park Open Air Theatre where she was brought to see Atkins' King John production years before. She was also, very briefly, an assistant stage manager at the Oxford Playhouse until Peter Hall fired her for impudence. She was also part of repertory companies performing in Billy Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire. It was there when she met Julian Glover.
It took nine years (1953–62) before she was working steadily.
Atkins has regularly returned to the life and work of Virginia Woolf for professional inspiration. She has played the writer on stage in Patrick Garland's adaptation of A Room of One's Own and also in Vita and Virginia, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and an Obie Award for A Room of One's Own in which she also played in the 1990 television version; she also provided the screenplay for the 1997 film adaptation of Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, and made a cameo appearance in the 2002 film version of Michael Cunningham's Woolf-themed novel, The Hours.
Atkins joined the Stratford Memorial Theatre Company in 1957 and stayed for two seasons. She was with the Old Vic in its 1961–62 season (she appeared in the Old Vic's Repertoire Leaflets of February–April 1962 and April–May 1962).
Atkins helped create two television series. Along with fellow actress Jean Marsh, she created the concept for an original television series, Behind the Green Baize Door, which became the award-winning ITV series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–75). Marsh played maid Rose for the duration of the series but Atkins was unable to accept a part because of stage commitments. The same team was also responsible for the BBC series The House of Eliott (1991–93).
Atkins' film and television work includes appearing as Dornford Yates' villainess Vanity Fair in the BBC adaptation of She Fell Among Thieves (1978), Sons and Lovers (1981), Smiley's People (1982), Oliver Twist (1982), Titus Andronicus (1985), A Better Class of Person (1985), Roman Holiday (1987), The Lost Language of Cranes (1991), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Talking Heads (1998), Madame Bovary (2000), David Copperfield (2000), Wit (2001) and Bertie and Elizabeth (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Vanity Fair (2004), Ballet Shoes (2005) and Ask the Dust (2006).
In the autumn of 2007, Atkins co-starred with Dame Judi Dench and Sir Michael Gambon in the BBC One drama Cranford playing the central role of Miss Deborah Jenkyns. This performance earned her the 2008 BAFTA Award for best actress, as well as the Emmy Award. In September 2007 she played Abigail Dusniak in Waking the Dead Yahrzeit (S6:E11-12).
In 2009 Atkins played the evil Nurse Edwina Kenchington in the BBC Two black comedy Psychoville. Atkins replaced Vanessa Redgrave as Eleanor of Aquitaine in the blockbuster movie Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, which was released in the UK in May 2010. The same year, she played Louisa in the dark comedy film Wild Target.
Atkins and Jean Marsh, creators of the original 1970s series of Upstairs, Downstairs, were among the cast of a new BBC adaptation, shown over the winter of 2010–11. The new series is set in 1936. Marsh again played Rose while Atkins was cast as the redoubtable Maud, Lady Holland. In August 2011, it was revealed that Atkins had decided not to continue to take part as she was unhappy with the scripts. "Dame Eileen Atkins leaves Upstairs Downstairs", BBC News Online, 21 August 2011. In September 2011, Atkins joined the cast of ITV comedy-drama series Doc Martin playing the title character's aunt, Ruth Ellingham. She remained with the series until the show ended in 2022.
Atkins starred as Lady Spence with Matthew Rhys in an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat, shown in September 2012.
Atkins has portrayed Queen Mary on two occasions, in the 2002 television film Bertie and Elizabeth and in the 2016 Netflix-produced television series The Crown.
In 2018 Atkins starred in a British documentary titled Nothing Like a Dame, directed by Roger Michell, which documents conversations between actresses Smith, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Joan Plowright, which were interspersed with scenes from their careers on film and stage. The film was released in the United States as Tea with the Dames. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film a five out of five star rating, declaring it an "outrageously funny film". Guy Lodge of Variety called the film a "richly enjoyable gabfest" but that the film was "hardly vital cinema".
Atkins portrayed graduate school professor Evelyn Ashford to Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson) in Wit, a 2001 American television movie directed by Mike Nichols. The teleplay by Nichols and Emma Thompson is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same title by Margaret Edson. The film was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival on 9 February 2001 before being broadcast by HBO on 24 March. It was shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Warsaw Film Festival later in the year.
In 1997, she wrote the screenplay for Mrs Dalloway, starring Vanessa Redgrave. The film received positive reviews but was a box-office failure. It was a financial disaster for Atkins and her husband, who had invested in it. She said of this incident: "I have to work. I was nearly bankrupted over Mrs Dalloway, and if you are nearly bankrupted, you are in trouble for the rest of your life. I don't have a pension. In any case, it doesn't hurt me to work. I think it's quite good, actually."Chris Hastings, "Eileen Atkins: I don't see why ageing can't be attractive" The Telegraph (5 July 2008); retrieved 8 December 2011.
"All through my career, I have tried to do new work, but there is a problem in the West End as far as new work is concerned. As a theatregoer, I get bored with seeing the same old plays again and again. I felt terrible the other night because I bumped into Greta Scacchi and she asked me if I was coming to see her in The Deep Blue Sea. I said, 'Greta, I'm so old, I've seen it so many times. I've seen it with Peggy Ashcroft, with Vivien Leigh, with Googie Withers, with Penelope Wilton and I played it myself when I was 19. I can't bring myself to see it again.' She was very sweet about it."
In 1995, Atkins was diagnosed with breast cancer and treated for the condition. She has recovered. Living alone in widowhood during the COVID lockdown, Atkins (at age 87) completed her autobiography Will She Do?.
, reviewed in The Guardian
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| Episode: "The Square" |
| Episode: "A Stroll Along the Sands" |
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| Episode: "Close Season" |
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| Episode: "Party Games" |
| Episode: "Nothing's Ever Over" |
| Episode: "Women Can Be Monsters" |
| 4 episodes |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "Eileen Atkins as Mary Kingsley" |
| Episode: "The Duchess of Malfi" |
| 4 episodes |
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| Episode: "Kate" |
| BBC2 Play of The Week |
| Mini-series; 7 episode |
| Episode: "Eden's End" |
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| Nelly |
| See Burston Strike School |
| 4 episodes |
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| BBC Screen Two |
| Episode: "The Stuff of Madness" |
| Episode: "The Maitlands" |
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| Episode: "Post War" |
| Episode: "The Hand of God" |
| Episode: "The Mourner" |
| Television film |
| Violet Moon |
| Evelyn Ashford |
| Queen Mary |
| Eva Larkin |
| Episode: "Towards Zero" |
| Episode: Yahrzeit |
| 2 episodes |
| Television film |
| 8 episodes |
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| Episode: "Murder on the Orient Express" |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "Penny's Pendant" |
| Main role (Season 1); 5 episodes |
| Mockumentary |
| 46 episodes |
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| 1968 | "Child of the Moon" | The Rolling Stones (1997). 9781856851312, Smith Gryphon. ISBN 9781856851312 |
| Shakespeare Memorial Theatre |
| Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Theatre Royal, Drury Lane |
| Shakespeare Memorial Theatre |
| William Shakespeare |
| Lady |
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| Bristol Old VicUniversity of Bristol Theatre Collection, A–Z of Bristol Old Vic (A photographic exhibition featuring on-stage and backstage images from the theatre in King Street, 9 June – 30 September 2003). Retrieved from www.bris.ac.uk/theatrecollection/atoz_booklet.pdf on 20 December 2011 |
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| Henry Miller's Theatre, Broadway"Ian McKellen Writings: For Curt Dawson" in www.mckellen.com. Retrieved 7 December 2011 |
| Chichester Festival Theatre Wyndham's Theatre Theatre Royal Haymarket |
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| Lyttelton Theatre |
| Minerva Theatre, Chichester Ambassadors Theatre Union Square Theatre (Off-Broadway) |
| Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Broadway |
| Lyttelton Theatre |
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| Theatre Royal Haymarket |
| The Pit, London Duchess Theatre |
| Promenade Theatre, Off-Broadway |
| Cottesloe Theatre |
| Booth Theatre, Broadway |
| Duchess Theatre, London |
| Walter Kerr Theatre, Broadway |
| Almeida Theatre, London |
| Theatre Royal, Haymarket |
| Vaudeville Theatre |
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| Jermyn Street Theatre Arts Theatre |
| 59E59 Theatre, New York CityBen Brantley, Theater Review: Funny, How Gravity Pulls Us, and the Safety Net is an Illusion, The New York Times, 12 November 2013 in www.nytimes.com, retrieved 1 December 2013 |
| Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon |
| Sam Wanamaker Playhouse |
| Wyndham's Theatre |
| Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Broadway |
| Minerva Theatre, Chichester |
Drama Desk Awards
Olivier Awards
| 1970 | BAFTA TV Award | Best Actress | BBC Play of the Month W. Somerset Maugham The Wednesday Play | |
| 1983 | BAFTA Film Award | Best Supporting Actress | The Dresser | |
| 2011 | Upstairs Downstairs | |||
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