Suzanna Hamilton
Encyclopedia
Suzanna Hamilton is an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 actress. She is most famous for her performance as Julia
Julia (1984)
Julia is a fictional character in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Her last name is never given in the novel but she is called Dixon in the 1954 BBC TV production....

 in the modern film adaptation
Nineteen Eighty-Four (film)
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a 1984 British science fiction film, based upon George Orwell's novel of the same name, following the life of Winston Smith in Oceania, a country run by a totalitarian government...

 of George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

's classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

.

Early career

Suzanna Hamilton was a protégée of filmmaker, Claude Whatham
Claude Whatham
Claude Whatham was an English Film and television director mainly known for his work on dramas.-Career:...

, who discovered her in a children's experimental theatre in North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...

 in the early 1970s. She starred in her first feature, Swallows and Amazons
Swallows and Amazons
Swallows and Amazons is the first book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome; it was first published in 1930, with the action taking place in the summer of 1929 in the Lake District...

, which was directed by Whatham and based on the popular children's book of the same name by Arthur Ransome
Arthur Ransome
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...

. Swallows and Amazons was filmed in 1973 and released to the public the following year. Billed as Zanna Hamilton, the young actress was cast in the role of Susan Walker, one of four young siblings collectively known as "the Swallows", who go on a camping and sailing holiday in the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...

 during the summer of 1929. Whatham later directed the teenage Suzanna Hamilton as Princess Alexandra in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 miniseries, Disraeli (1978), which was later broadcast to North American audiences as a featured program on Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running weekly prime time drama series. The series has presented numerous acclaimed British productions...

in 1980.

It was during this time in the mid-1970s that Suzanna Hamilton received her acting training at the Anna Scher Theatre School
Anna Scher Theatre
The Anna Scher Theatre is a community-based theatre school based in Islington, North London. The school turns out some of London's best child and adult actors.-Anna Scher:...

 in Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

 and at the famous Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...

 in Swiss Cottage
Swiss Cottage
Swiss Cottage is a district of the London Borough of Camden in London, England. Thedistrict is located north-west of Charing Cross. It is centred on the junction of Avenue Road and Finchley Road and is the location of Swiss Cottage tube station.-Etymology:...

, Camden
London Borough of Camden
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...

.

For her first appearance in a big-budget motion picture, Hamilton played Izz Huett, the lovesick dairymaid, in Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...

's 1979 film, Tess
Tess (film)
Tess is a 1980 romance film directed by Roman Polanski, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It tells the story of a strong-willed, young peasant girl who finds out she has title connections by way of her old aristocratic surname and who is raped by her wealthy...

(based on Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

's Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, also known as Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Tess of the d'Urbervilles or just Tess, is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British...

), which starred Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films , as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris,...

 in the title role. She also appeared as one of the boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 girls who organize a strike against the Ministry of Education in The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980) .

Her next significant role was in Richard Loncraine's 1982 film, Brimstone & Treacle
Brimstone and Treacle
-Potter on Brimstone and Treacle:In 1978, Potter said:I had written Brimstone and Treacle in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated...

, based on Dennis Potter
Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...

's play of the same name. In this film, Hamilton starred as Patricia Bates, the traumatized, catatonic daughter of a devoutly religious, middle-aged Home Counties
Home Counties
The home counties is a term which refers to the counties of South East England and the East of England which border London, but do not include the capital city itself...

 couple (Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott
Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits...

 and Joan Plowright
Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...

) whose lives are changed by a demonic drifter and con man who calls himself Martin Taylor, played by Sting. The following year, Suzanna Hamilton was featured in BBC-TV's paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...

 mystery, A Pattern of Roses, with a young Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...

.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Hamilton was cast as Julia
Julia (1984)
Julia is a fictional character in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Her last name is never given in the novel but she is called Dixon in the 1954 BBC TV production....

 opposite John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...

 as Winston Smith
Winston Smith
Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a "central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with"...

 in Michael Radford
Michael Radford
Michael Radford is an English film director and screenwriter.-Early life and career:Radford was born on 24 February 1946, in New Delhi, India, to a British father and an Austrian Jewish mother. He was educated at Bedford School before attending Worcester College, Oxford...

's film
Nineteen Eighty-Four (film)
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a 1984 British science fiction film, based upon George Orwell's novel of the same name, following the life of Winston Smith in Oceania, a country run by a totalitarian government...

 of George Orwell's dystopian novel. She had been chosen for the role in 1983 after being referred by the casting agency of the Anna Scher Theatre School. She was one of the school's earliest alumni, and the theatre is acknowledged in the film's closing credits.

Her performance garnered critical praise, particularly from Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...

 in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

. However, her work was largely overshadowed by the death of fellow cast member Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

, who delivered his final screen performance in the role of O'Brien, as well as the much-publicized post-release controversy over the film's musical score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...

.

Television and film appearances

1985 proved to be a very active year for Suzanna Hamilton. She starred in British playwright David Hare
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

's film, Wetherby
Wetherby (film)
Wetherby is a 1985 British drama film written and directed by playwright David Hare.-Plot synopsis:Set in the town of Wetherby in West Yorkshire, the film focuses on Jean Travers, a middle-aged spinster schoolteacher...

, opposite Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...

. In this film, Hamilton's character, Karen Creasy, is the sullen former friend of a young man who committed suicide.

Her next role was as the equestrienne, Felicity, in Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...

's Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

-winning Out of Africa, based on the memoirs of the famed Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 writer, Isak Dinesen, and starring Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

, Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...

 and Klaus Maria Brandauer
Klaus Maria Brandauer
Klaus Maria Brandauer is an Austrian actor, film director, and professor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.-Personal life:...

.

In the 1986 German film, Devil's Paradise, which was shot in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 and loosely based on Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

's 1915 novel, Victory
Victory (novel)
Victory is a psychological novel by Joseph Conrad first published in 1915, through which Conrad achieved "popular success." The New York Times, however, called it "an uneven book" and "more open to criticism than most of Mr...

, Hamilton was cast as a saxophonist in an all-woman band touring seedy hotels and nightclubs in southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

. Her character, Julie, escapes a life of sexual slavery by fleeing with an eccentric German adventurer, played by Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...

, and the two of them take refuge on an island near Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, which is already populated by a savage native warrior tribe.

In 1988 she starred opposite the British classical and horror actor Jon Finch
Jon Finch
Jon Finch is an English actor noted for many Shakespearean roles. Perhaps his most notable role was the title role in Roman Polanski's 1971 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. His other famous role was as a down-and-out ex-RAF pilot wrongly accused of murder in Alfred Hitchcock's...

 in another low-budget German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 film, a short called The Voice, about six individuals who are held captive overnight on a floating discothèque.

By the end of the decade, the majority of her screen roles were in obscure European films made in exotic locations as well as numerous British television dramas.

In 1986, Suzanna Hamilton starred in the well-received television drama Johnny Bull, a movie developed at the National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre
Eugene O'Neill Theatre
The Eugene O'Neill Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, it was built for the Shuberts as part of a theatre-hotel complex named for 19th century tragedian Edwin Forrest...

 Center and filmed in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

. In this film, a period piece set in the mid-1940s just after VE day, she was cast as Iris Kovacs, a lighthearted Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

 bride who travels to rural Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 to live with her new American G.I.
GI (term)
G.I. is a noun used to describe members of the United States armed forces or items of their equipment. The term is now used as an initialism of "Government Issue" , but originally referred to galvanized iron....

 husband (Peter MacNicol
Peter MacNicol
Peter MacNicol is an American actor. He may be best known in films for his roles of Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II, Stingo in Sophie's Choice, Thomas Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It and David Langley in Bean...

) and his working-class Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

-immigrant coal-mining family; Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Rose Dewhurst was a Canadian-American actress known for a while as "the Queen of Off-Broadway." In her autobiography, Dewhurst wrote: "I had moved so quickly from one Off-Broadway production to the next that I was known, at one point, as the 'Queen of Off-Broadway'...

 and Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...

 starred in supporting roles.

That same year, Hamilton appeared as Emily Barkstone in Hold the Dream, the second of the three BBC miniseries based on Barbara Taylor Bradford
Barbara Taylor Bradford
Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE is an English novelist, and one of the world's most beloved storytellers. Her debut novel, A Woman of Substance, was published in 1979 and has sold over 32 million copies worldwide. To date, she has written 27 novels -- all bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic...

's popular "Emma Harte" novels about the fortunes of a retail empire and the machinations of the business élite across three generations. In 1987, she played the spirited but careless Anglo-French Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...

 spy, Matty Firman, in Wish Me Luck
Wish Me Luck
Wish Me Luck is a British television drama about the exploits of British women undercover agents during the Second World War. The series was made by London Weekend Television for the ITV network between 1987 and 1989 and created by Lavinia Warner and Jill Hyem, who had previously produced and...

— an LWT miniseries, this one set in occupied France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

She made a striking appearance as the inscrutable femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...

, Anna Raven, in the 1989 BBC miniseries of Never Come Back, a noirish
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 conspiracy thriller based on the celebrated 1941 novel by John Mair, which takes place on the eve of the London Blitz during the so-called "Phony War
Phony War
The Phoney War was a phase early in World War II – in the months following Britain and France's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939 and preceding the Battle of France in May 1940 – that was marked by a lack of major military operations by the Western Allies against the German Reich...

" of 1939–40. Hamilton also acted in the 1990 British television film, Small Zones, as a strong-willed Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n poetess whose subversive writings have led to her indefinite imprisonment in a Soviet holding cell.

In 1991, she appeared as Amelia, one of the five daughters placed under house arrest by their domineering mother, in the BBC adaptation of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

's play The House of Bernarda Alba; Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...

 starred in the title role. She also had a supporting role in a 1992 TV film of Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland
Dame Barbara Hamilton Cartland, DBE, CStJ , was an English author, one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century...

's Regency
English Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....

-period bodice-ripper, Duel of Hearts
Duel of Hearts
Duel of Hearts is a 1991 romantic television film directed by John Hough. Terence Feely penned the screenplay, based on the Barbara Cartland novel, A Duel of Hearts. The film stars Alison Doody, Michael York, Geraldine Chaplin and Benedict Taylor....

.

Her next commercial film role came with 1992's low-budget Gothic horror romance, Tale of a Vampire. Written and directed by a 27-year-old Japanese-British film student, Shimako Sato, Hamilton made a dual appearance: first as Anne, a librarian in present-day London grieving the untimely death of her boyfriend; then as Anne's nineteenth-century doppelgänger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...

, Virginia Clemm, the real-life wife of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

—who, in the film, also happens to be the long-lost mistress of a lonely, centuries-old vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

 played by Julian Sands
Julian Sands
Julian M. Sands is an English actor, known for his roles in the Best Picture nominee The Killing Fields, the cult film Warlock, A Room with a View, Arachnophobia, Vatel, the television series 24 and as Jor-El in the television series Smallville.-Career:Sands began his film career appearing in...

.

In 1993, she had a recurring role as Dr. Karen Goodliffe on the British TV hospital drama series, Casualty. In 1995, she appeared as John Hannah
John Hannah (actor)
John David Hannah is a Scottish actor of film and television. He has appeared in Stephen Sommers' Mummy Series, Richard Curtis' Four Weddings and a Funeral and Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow...

's love interest, Joanna Sparks, on the BBC-TV crime series, McCallum
McCallum
McCallum is a British television series that was produced by STV Productions .Dr Iain McCallum was the original lead character, played by John Hannah. McCallum was a forensic pathologist who traveled by Triumph Motorcycle, and solved murders...

.

Her last feature film of note was 1997's The Island on Bird Street, a Danish period drama made in the Dogme 95
Dogme 95
Dogme 95 was an avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vow of Chastity". These were rules to create filmmaking based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and...

 style, about an 11-year-old Jewish boy who hides from the Nazis in occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 during World War II before he is reunited with his father. In this film, Hamilton had a brief cameo as the mother of a girl whom the boy befriends. Most recently, she appeared as Vivienne in the 2005 short film, Benjamin's Struggle, described as "a compelling story set in 1930s Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, about a nine-year-old Jewish boy who attempts to steal the original manuscript of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...

, believing that it will topple the Third Reich and end the suffering of his family".

In 2006, she appeared as Helen Gillespie in the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 series, Jane Hall
Jane Hall (TV series)
Jane Hall was a six-part British television comedy drama on ITV, written by Sally Wainwright and starring Sarah Smart and Stephen Mangan, revolving around Jane Hall's job training to be a bus driver and her home life in Hounslow, "the arsehole of London"....

. As of late, she has been cast as Dr. Hillary Slayton in the children's television series, Dinosapien
Dinosapien
Dinosapien is a British/Canadian children's television program produced jointly by BBC Worldwide and Cambium Catalyst International with SEVEN24 Films....

, which is filmed on location in southern Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and was first broadcast in 2007.

Theatre

Suzanna Hamilton is also an accomplished theatre and radio actress. She made her first West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 appearance on the London stage in 1982 as part of the original cast production of Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

's play, The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....

. In 1993, she played the lead as a Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

 maid who gets in over her head in the Bush Theatre
Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...

 production of Lucinda Coxon's Waiting at the Water's Edge; in 2002, she was cast as Creusa
Creusa
In Greek mythology, four people had the name Creusa ; the name simply means "princess".-Naiad:According to Pindar's 9th Pythian Ode, Creusa was a naiad and daughter of Gaia who bore Hypseus, King of the Lapiths to the river god Peneus. Hypseus had one daughter, Cyrene. When a lion attacked her...

 in a Gate Theatre production of Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

' Ion
Ion (play)
Ion is an ancient Greek play by Euripides, thought to be written between 414 and 412 BC. It follows the orphan Ion in the discovery of his origins.-Background:...

; and in early 2005, she appeared as Dora, a woman incarcerated in a 1920s asylum in the Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...

 Playhouse production of Charlotte Jones' chamber drama, Airswimming
Airswimming
Airswimming is the first play written by Charlotte Jones. Its 1997 premiere at the Battersea Arts Centre was directed by Anna Mackmin and featured Rosie Cavaliero and Scarlett Mackmin. It is based on two women being imprisoned in a mental asylum in the 1920s for having children outside of...

. She also lent her voice to a 1991 audiobook recording of Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes
Julian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...

' novel about a love triangle called Talking It Over, playing the role of Gillian.

Personal life

Suzanna Hamilton has since retired from acting in major motion pictures to raise her son, Lowell, who was born 5 October 1993. However, she is still featured in television roles and continues to do theatre and voice work.

Film

  • Benjamin's Struggle (2005) ... Vivienne
  • The Island on Bird Street
    The Island on Bird Street
    The Island on Bird Street is a 1985 semi-autobiographical children's book by Israeli author Uri Orlev, which tells the story of a young boy, Alex, and his struggle to survive alone in a ghetto during World War II...

    (1997) ... Stasya's Mother
  • Tale of a Vampire (1992) ... Anne/Virginia
  • The Voice (Die Stimme) (1988) ... Julia
  • Devil's Paradise (Des Teufels Paradies) (1987) ... Julie
  • Out of Africa (1985) ... Felicity
  • Wetherby
    Wetherby (film)
    Wetherby is a 1985 British drama film written and directed by playwright David Hare.-Plot synopsis:Set in the town of Wetherby in West Yorkshire, the film focuses on Jean Travers, a middle-aged spinster schoolteacher...

    (1985) ... Karen Creasy
  • Nineteen Eighty-four
    Nineteen Eighty-Four (film)
    Nineteen Eighty-Four is a 1984 British science fiction film, based upon George Orwell's novel of the same name, following the life of Winston Smith in Oceania, a country run by a totalitarian government...

    (1984) ... Julia
  • Goodie-Two-Shoes (1984) ... Veronica
  • Brimstone & Treacle
    Brimstone and Treacle
    -Potter on Brimstone and Treacle:In 1978, Potter said:I had written Brimstone and Treacle in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated...

    (1982) ... Patricia Bates
  • The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980) ... Matilda
  • Tess
    Tess (film)
    Tess is a 1980 romance film directed by Roman Polanski, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It tells the story of a strong-willed, young peasant girl who finds out she has title connections by way of her old aristocratic surname and who is raped by her wealthy...

    (1979) ... Izz
  • Swallows and Amazons (1974) ... Susan Walker, Swallow (as Zanna Hamilton)

Television

  • Dinosapien
    Dinosapien
    Dinosapien is a British/Canadian children's television program produced jointly by BBC Worldwide and Cambium Catalyst International with SEVEN24 Films....

    (2007) ... Dr. Hillary Slayton
  • "Jane Hall
    Jane Hall (TV series)
    Jane Hall was a six-part British television comedy drama on ITV, written by Sally Wainwright and starring Sarah Smart and Stephen Mangan, revolving around Jane Hall's job training to be a bus driver and her home life in Hounslow, "the arsehole of London"....

    " (2006) ... Helen Gillsepie
  • New Tricks ... Imogen Hoult, in one episode: #1.3 (2004)
  • The Bill
    The Bill
    The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...

    ... Jo Merton, in one episode: "Follow Through" (1999)
  • Jonathan Creek
    Jonathan Creek
    Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...

    ... Hannah, in one episode "Black Canary" (1998)
  • A Virtual Stranger (1996) ... Jenny Bell
  • McCallum
    McCallum
    McCallum is a British television series that was produced by STV Productions .Dr Iain McCallum was the original lead character, played by John Hannah. McCallum was a forensic pathologist who traveled by Triumph Motorcycle, and solved murders...

    (1995) ... Joanna Sparks
  • A Relative Stranger (1995) ... Jenny Bell
  • Casualty
    Casualty (TV series)
    Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

    (1986) ... Karen Goodliffe (1993–94)
  • Inspector Morse
    Inspector Morse (TV series)
    Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....

    ... Emma Cryer, in one episode: "Absolute Conviction" (1992)
  • Duel of Hearts
    Duel of Hearts
    Duel of Hearts is a 1991 romantic television film directed by John Hough. Terence Feely penned the screenplay, based on the Barbara Cartland novel, A Duel of Hearts. The film stars Alison Doody, Michael York, Geraldine Chaplin and Benedict Taylor....

    (1991) ... Harriet Wantage
  • A Masculine Ending (1992) ... Veronica Puddephat
  • The House of Bernarda Alba (1991) ... Amelia
  • Boon ... Judy Simpson, in one episode: "Cab Rank Cowboys" (1991)
  • A New Lease of Death (1991) ... Elizabeth Crilling
  • TECX ... Ingrid Hauptmann, in one episode: "The Sea Takes It All"
  • Small Zones (1990) ... Irina Ratushinskaya
  • Murder East – Murder West (1990) ... Regine Kleinschmidt
  • Never Come Back (1989) ... Anna Raven
  • Saracen ... one episode: "Starcross" (1989)
  • Streetwise (1989) ...
  • Wish Me Luck
    Wish Me Luck
    Wish Me Luck is a British television drama about the exploits of British women undercover agents during the Second World War. The series was made by London Weekend Television for the ITV network between 1987 and 1989 and created by Lavinia Warner and Jill Hyem, who had previously produced and...

    (1987) ... Matty Firman
  • Hold the Dream (1986) ... Emily Barkstone
  • Johnny Bull (1986) ... Iris
  • A Pattern of Roses (1983) ... Rebecca
  • One Fine Day (1979) ... Linda
  • Disraeli
    Disraeli (film)
    Disraeli is a film that was adapted by Julien Josephson and De Leon Anthony from a play by Louis N. Parker. The film was directed by Alfred E. Green....

    (1978) ... Princess Alexandra
  • The Edwardians
    The Edwardians
    The Edwardians is one of Vita Sackville-West's later novels and a clear critique of the Edwardian aristocratic society as well as a reflection of her own childhood experiences. It belongs to the genre of the Bildungsroman and describes the development of the main character Sebastian within his...

    (1972) ... Child [uncredited]

External links

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