![]() ![]() For more information visit website or call 08.Bethany Robertson, the wake of the tragic killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor-combined with the global uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic-the United States is in the midst of a national revolution. No more champagne, flowers or smoked salmon arrived, and I got a night’s sleep at last.”Ī Celebration Of Educating Rita is being held at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre on November 27. “I didn’t sleep for five days, because every time I tried to sleep, the bloody door would go and it would be more champagne and flowers from people who wanted to make associations with me, because I’d been nominated. The amount of smoked salmon and champagne that arrived at my room! It has no parallel with anything I’ve ever done, before or since. ‘‘Everyone from Britain who experiences it for the first time says the same thing. “It was totally nuts, as you can imagine,’’ he recalls. Russell went to the ceremony, and it was an unforgettable experience. Walters and Russell were both nominated for Oscars for Educating Rita. “I remember passing Julie’s table and saying: ‘I’ve written just the play for you. “I walked into the Granada canteen, and Julie was there with Victoria Wood, because they were doing one of their first things together. “Then I was doing a small play for Granada TV, and I’d just finished writing Educating Rita. But she won the crowd over in the end, because she was such a great actress. “I remember watching her once, and she was lucky not to get bottled out the place. ![]() “Julie had been part of this guerilla group of actors who drove in a van down to hardcore, working class Liverpool pubs, and they would do a play in the middle of a bar,’’ he says. Go down that route.’”īut the only person Russell really wanted for the starring role was Walters, who he got to know when she was performing theatre in Liverpool. “A more cynical and a more commercially minded human being than myself might have said, ‘What a great idea. “And Paul Newman at the time hadn’t long finished making Butch Cassidy and The Sting. “So it wasn’t as bizarre as it might have sounded. She’s a terrific actress, and she comes from the only really white American equivalent of working-class Britain. He adds: “Actually that would have been brilliant casting, for a movie set in America. “But if it had gone down that route, then the film would have had to have been relocated to the States.” “When the film was originally in the hands of the Americans, they wanted Paul Newman and Dolly Parton,” he says. But that wasn’t the original idea, admits Russell. ![]() It was a huge success and led to the movie, where she played opposite Michael Caine as her English professor. Walters starred in the production, about a young, working-class, Liverpool hairdresser, who decides to study English Literature at the Open University. The Royal Shakespeare Company commissioned and put on the original stage version in 1980. Russell, from Liverpool, is visiting Stratford-upon-Avon this month to re-live the story of how Educating Rita first made it to the theatre. Since then she hasn’t looked back, taking starring roles in Billy Elliot, Mamma Mia and the Harry Potter series.īut Willy Russell, who wrote Educating Rita, has revealed US movie bigwigs wanted Dolly Parton for the lead. Her performance bagged an Oscar nomination. Walters came to prominence in the 1983 smash hit movie, Educating Rita. Yet to become an international movie star the Smethwick-born actress had to overcome two of the most intimidating obstacles in showbiz. ![]() JULIE Walters is one of the most successful performers to have emerged from the West Midlands. ![]()
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