Overview

Patience Collier (1910-1987) was an actress who had an extensive career in theatre, radio, film and TV from the 1930s to the 1980s. Born Irene Marjorie Ritscher in Bayswater, into a Central European Jewish family, she was known in her youth as Rene Ritcher, but renamed herself Patience Collier in 1936 on her marriage to scientist Harry Collier. She attended RADA from 1930 until 1932, studying alongside some of the most celebrated actors and directors of her time, including Vivien Leigh and Joan Littlewood. She became great friends with fellow student Diana Churchill, daughter of Winston and Clementine Churchill.

Patience’s early career on stage included club, repertory and touring theatre, with her first speaking role as Freda in a 1933 tour of Strange Orchestra by Rodney Ackland. She was directed by Theodore Komisarjevsky in a couple of short-lived productions, including Louis Golding’s Magnolia Street in 1934. In Manchester in the late 1930s, she became organising secretary for Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Union in 1937, appearing in TU’s The Good Soldier Schweik in 1939, and in wartime rep. Post-war, Patience began a very successful radio career which continued into the 1950s. She did extensive work with the BBC and had a succession of contracts across many departments, including early television. She was especially known for her work reading serials for Woman’s Hour.

Patience got her big break, aged 43, in a West End production of The Cherry Orchard directed by John Gielgud, having been recruited by John Perry of Tennent Productions. The play opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1954, Patience appearing as the governess, Charlotta, alongside Trevor Howard and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. She featured in a number of other Tennents productions, including a Peter Brook/Paul Scofield season and Noël Coward’s Nude with Violin which opened at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin in 1956. Directed by and starring John Gielgud, alongside Joyce Carey, David Horne and Kathleen Harrison, the production toured extensively and was adapted for TV in 1959. The revue Living for Pleasure, in 1958/59, with Dora Bryan and Daniel Massey, was her last production with Tennents.

In 1960, Patience made her New York stage debut as Miss Gilchrist in Joan Littlewood’s production of Behan’s The Hostage, appearing with Victor Spinetti, Dudley Sutton, Aubrey Morris, Alfred Lynch and Celia Salkeld. The following year she starred in Bernard Miles’ production of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore at the new Mermaid Theatre, London.

In 1961, she joined Peter Hall’s Royal Shakespeare Company. She took leading roles in many RSC productions throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including as Regan in King Lear in 1962-1963, directed by Peter Brook, with Paul Scofield, Alec McCowen, Diana Rigg and Irene Worth. She had key roles in The Beggar’s Opera (1963), also in the 1964 Shakespeare history cycle, and starred with Timothy West in David Mercer’s The Governor’s Lady (directed by David Jones, 1965), part of the RSC’s ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ period. She had leading roles in Peter Hall’s 1966 production of The Government Inspector, in The Revenger’s Tragedy directed by Trevor Nunn (1969) and in Hall’s acclaimed productions of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance (1969) and All Over (1971/2).

Patience’s film and TV career also developed through the 1950s and 60s and really took off in the following decade. She appeared in iconic TV series and films throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including Sapphire and Steel, Who Pays the Ferryman, and in Fiddler on the Roof as Grandma Tzeitel, directed by Norman Jewison and starring Topol (1971). Her last film role was as Mrs Poulteney in Karel Reisz’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1980, starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep.

Identifying with her Jewish cultural past, she starred as Bessie Berger in Vivian Matalon’s revival of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing at the Hampstead Theatre, 1971, and played Sarah in Wesker’s The Old Ones at the Royal Court in 1972, with Max Wall and Susan Engel, directed by John Dexter. She appeared at the National Theatre as Peter Hall took over the reins, most notably as Nurse Guinness opposite Colin Blakeley in Shaw’s Heartbreak House, 1975, directed by John Schlesinger. She briefly rejoined the RSC in 1976, now under Trevor Nunn, as Mrs Dudgeon in Jack Gold’s production of The Devil’s Disciple with Tom Conti and Zoë Wanamaker, and as Avdotya in Checkhov’s Ivanov (directed David Jones), with Norman Rodway, Mia Farrow and Zoe Wanamaker.

Patience Collier’s final stage role was as Mrs Blake in Michael Wilcox’s Lent directed by Christopher Fettes at the Lyric Theatre in 1983. Her last television roles - in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Granada), the BBC’s The House on Kirov Street and Pickwick Papers - were recorded during 1984.

What the collection holds

This collection holds material relating to the personal life and career of Patience Collier. Early material from her childhood and youth including her debutante presentation in 1929, includes family photographs, correspondence and press cuttings. This early material also includes press cutting albums from before her birth relating to her parents, the Spitzel and Ritscher families. There is also early material including photographs and correspondence from her time at RADA (1930-1932).

Extensive material from Patience Collier’s career in radio, TV, film and theatre including West End productions, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company - correspondence, photographs, stills, diaries and scrapbooks for every stage production - is all found in the archive. There are also more personal papers such as those relating to the death of her friends Diana Churchill and the poetry publisher Erica Marx, as well as personal correspondence connected to her relationships with actors, Jeremy Spenser and Barry Justice. The collection contains an almost complete run of her diaries from the 1930s to the 1980s and includes material relating to Patience Collier’s funeral, obituaries and condolence messages.

The online catalogue for this collection can be found here

BTC311 – Patience Collier Archive

This collection is currently uncatalogued so please contact us for further information regarding its contents and access conditions.

Further information

Patience Collier was an eccentric, difficult and funny woman as well as an acclaimed actress. Vanessa Morton has written a comprehensive biography based on research from Patience Collier’s archive and interviews with those who worked with her.

‘A vivid and compelling biography of Patience Collier - an actress whose career spanned a golden age of performance from the 1930s to the 1980s - and an overview of theatre, film, TV and radio in Britain over half a century.’

Front cover: Photograph by Walter Bird. Design by Alastair Campbell.

Morton, Vanessa, The Performer’s Tale: Nine Lives of Patience Collier. (London: An Apollo Book, Head of Zeus Ltd, 2021).

A copy of the biography is available in the Theatre Collection reference library.