Cornerstone No. 191, page 19
(1960) and
(1961 – possibly autobiographical??). On
stage she incarnated Titania in
(Edinburgh Festival
1954) a production that was to tour the USA and Canada and she toured for six
months as Sally Bowles in Isherwood’s
. Moira was a star at the
Bristol Old Vic, notably in
by GB Shaw (1956). After a maternity
break Moira Shearer returned to ‘the Boards’ (and here we have the mark of all
great performers – those who can step out of the limelight and who can so
readily and successfully step back in)
appearing in
and
(both in Edinburgh,
respectively 1977 and 1978) then in
Glasgow as Juliana Bordereau in
(1994).
Lady Kennedy (as she now was) went on
to show her mettle as writer,
broadcaster and lecturer – reading on
BBC Radio 4’s
, lecturing
on the history of ballet and reciting
poetry and prose, accompanied by Sir
Ludovic. From 1971 to 1973 she served
on the Scottish Arts Council and later
was a director of Border Television. A
biography of Ellen Terry flowed from her
fruitful pen in 1998 and regular book
reviews for the Daily Telegraph and for
the Sunday edition kept her views in the
public eye until encephalitis, in 2000, slowed her down. Moira Shearer was, to
many of her rivals, her colleagues, her fans – not least her family – a
fascinating, illuminating personage but to her self-effacing self… well, she tried
to write her memoirs but after a couple of weeks gave the idea up (as she put
it “out of boredom”). Our subject died, in Oxford, on January 31st, 2006.
Deadline for the next edition of Cornerstone
14 th May 2018