# Frances de la Tour

Frances J. de Lautour (born 30 July 1944), better known as Frances de la Tour, is an English actress. She is known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the television sitcom Rising Damp from 1974 until 1978. She is a Tony Award winner and three-time Olivier Award winner.
She performed as Mrs. Lintott in the play The History Boys in London and on Broadway, winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She reprised the role in the 2006 film. Her other film roles include Madame Olympe Maxime in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Television roles include Emma Porlock in the Dennis Potter serial Cold Lazarus (1996), Maude in Flickers, headmistress Margaret Baron in BBC sitcom Big School and Violet Crosby in the sitcom Vicious.

## Early life and family

De la Tour was born on 30 July 1944 in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, to Moyra (née Fessas) and Charles de la Tour (1909–1982). The name was also spelled de Lautour, and it was in this form that her birth was registered in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the third quarter of 1944. She has English, French, Greek, and Irish ancestry. She was educated at London's Lycée Français and the Drama Centre London.

## Career
### Theatre

After leaving drama school, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1965. Over the next six years, she played many small roles with the RSC in a variety of plays, gradually building up to larger parts such as Hoyden in The Relapse and culminating in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which she played Helena as a comic "tour de force".
In the 1970s, she worked steadily both on the stage and on television. Some of her notable appearances were Rosalind in As You Like It at the Playhouse, Oxford in 1975 and Isabella in The White Devil at the Old Vic in 1976. She enjoyed a collaboration with Stepney's Half Moon Theatre, appearing in the London première of Dario Fo's We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay (1978), Eleanor Marx's Landscape of Exile (1979), and in the title role of Hamlet (1980).
In 1980, she played Stephanie, the violinist with MS in Duet for One, a play written for her by Kempinski, for which she won the Olivier for Best Actress. She played Sonya in Uncle Vanya opposite Donald Sinden at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1982. Her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten won her another Olivier for Best Actress in 1983. She joined the Royal National Theatre for the title role in Saint Joan in 1984 and appeared there in Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1986. She again won the Olivier, this time for Best Supporting Actress for Martin Sherman's play about Isadora Duncan, When She Danced, with Vanessa Redgrave at the Globe Theatre in 1991 and played Leo in Les Parents terribles at the Royal National Theatre in 1994, earning another Olivier nomination.
In 1994, de la Tour co-starred with Maggie Smith in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women at the Wyndham's and with Alan Howard in Albee's The Play About the Baby at the Almeida in 1998. In 1999, she returned to the RSC to play Cleopatra opposite Alan Bates in Antony and Cleopatra, in which she did a nude walk across the stage. In 2004, she played Mrs. Lintott in Alan Bennett's The History Boys at the National and later on Broadway, winning both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She would also later appear in the film version. In December 2005, she appeared in the London production of the highly acclaimed anti-Iraq War one-woman play Peace Mom by Dario Fo, based on the writings of Cindy Sheehan. In 2007, she appeared in a West End revival of the farce Boeing-Boeing. In 2009, she appeared in Alan Bennett's new play The Habit of Art at the National. In 2012, she returned to the National in her third Bennett premiere, People.

### Film and television

Her many television appearances during the 1980s and 1990s include the 1980 miniseries Flickers opposite Bob Hoskins, the TV version of Duet for One, for which she received a BAFTA nomination, the series A Kind of Living (1988–89), Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus (1996), and Tom Jones (1997). Of all her TV roles, however, she is best known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire Television comedy Rising Damp, from 1974 to 1978. De la Tour told Richard Webber, who wrote a 2001 book about the series, that Ruth Jones "was an interesting character to play. We laughed a lot on set, but comedy is a serious business, and Leonard took it particularly seriously, and rightly so. Comedy, which is so much down to timing, is exhausting work. But it was a happy time." Upon reprising her Rising Damp role in the 1980 film version, she won Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards.
In the mid-1980s, de la Tour was considered, along with Joanna Lumley and Dawn French, as a replacement for Colin Baker on Doctor Who. The idea was scrapped and the job was given to Sylvester McCoy.
In 2003, de la Tour played a terminally ill gay woman in the film Love Actually with the actress Anne Reid, although her scenes were cut from the film's theatrical release and appear only on the DVD.
In 2005, she portrayed Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In 2010, she reprised Maxime as a cameo in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Notable television roles during this time include Agatha Christie's Poirot: Death on the Nile (2004), Waking the Dead (2004), the black comedy Sensitive Skin (2005), with Joanna Lumley and Denis Lawson, Agatha Christie's Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) and New Tricks as a rather morbid Egyptologist, also in 2006.
She was nominated for the 2006 BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role for her work on the film version of The History Boys.
She later appeared in several well-received films, including Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland as Aunt Imogene, a delusional aunt of Alice's, opposite Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Mia Wasikowska and a supporting role in the film The Book of Eli, directed by the Hughes brothers. In 2012, she appeared in the film Hugo.
Until 2012, she was also a patron for the performing arts group Theatretrain.
From 2013 to 2016, de la Tour played the role of Violet Crosby in ITV sitcom Vicious with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi.
From 2013 to 2014, she portrayed headmistress Ms Baron in the BBC One sitcom Big School.
In April 2016, she joined the second series of Outlander as Mother Hildegarde.
In 2021, de la Tour appeared in an ITV production, initially released on BritBox - Professor T. - in which she played the mother of the titular character.

## Personal life

She is the sister of actor and screenwriter Andy de la Tour.
An episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, first broadcast on 22 October 2015, revealed de la Tour to be a descendant of the aristocratic Delaval family.
Politically, de la Tour is a socialist and was a member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party in the 1970s.

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1970 | Country Dance | District Nurse | |
| 1970 | Every Home Should Have One | Maud Crape | |
| 1972 | Our Miss Fred | Miss Lockhart | |
| 1974–1978 | Rising Damp | Miss Ruth Jones | 24 episodes |
| 1976 | To the Devil a Daughter | Salvation Army Major | |
| 1977 | Wombling Free | Julia Frogmorton | |
| 1977 | Maggie: It's Me | Maggie | |
| 1980 | Rising Damp | Miss Ruth Jones | Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress |
| 1980 | Flickers | Maud Cole | |
| 1983 | The Bounder | Celia | |
| 1984 | Ellis Island | Millie Renfrew | |
| 1985 | Murder with Mirrors | Miss Bellaver | |
| 1990 | Strike It Rich | Mrs. De Vere | |
| 1996 | Cold Lazarus | Emma Porlock | |
| 1997 | The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling | Aunt Western | |
| 1998 | Heartbeat | Tessa | Episode "Bad Penny" |
| 1999 | The Cherry Orchard | Charlotte Ivanova | |
| 2004 | Agatha Christie's Poirot | Salome Otterbourne | Episode "Death on the Nile" |
| 2004 | Waking the Dead | Alice Taylor-Garrett | Episode "False Flag" |
| 2005 | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | Madame Olympe Maxime | |
| 2005 | Sensitive Skin | Sarah Thorne | 1 episode |
| 2006 | Agatha Christie's Marple | Mrs. Maud Dane Calthrop | Episode The Moving Finger |
| 2006 | The History Boys | Dorothy Lintott | Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated – British Independent Film Awards |
| 2006 | New Tricks | Professor Styles | 1 episode (Old Dogs) |
| 2010 | The Book of Eli | Martha | |
| 2010 | Alice in Wonderland | Aunt Imogene | |
| 2010 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 | Madame Olympe Maxime | |
| 2010 | The Nutcracker in 3D | The Rat Queen/Housekeeper | |
| 2011 | Hugo | Madame Emile | |
| 2012 | Private Peaceful | Grandma Wolf | |
| 2013–2016 | Vicious | Violet Crosby | |
| 2013–2014 | Big School | Ms. Margaret Baron | |
| 2014 | Into the Woods | The Giantess | |
| 2015 | Mr. Holmes | Madame Schirmer | |
| 2015 | Survivor | Sally | |
| 2015 | The Lady in the Van | Ursula Vaughan Williams | |
| 2015 | Miss You Already | Jill | |
| 2016 | Outlander | Mother Hildegarde | Series 2 |
| 2016 | The Collection | Yvette | |
| 2017 | Man in an Orange Shirt | Mrs March | |
| 2018 | Vanity Fair | Lady Matilda Crawley | |
| 2020 | Dolittle | Dragon (voice) | |
| 2020 | Enola Holmes | The Dowager | |
| 2021 | The Prince | Queen Elizabeth II (voice) | |
| 2021–present | Professor T. | Adelaide | |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 1980 | Olivier Award | Actress of the Year in a New Play | Duet for One | Won |
| 1980 | Evening Standard Film Award | Best Actress | Rising Damp | Won |
| 1983 | Olivier Award | Actress of the Year in a Revival | A Moon for the Misbegotten | Won |
| 1986 | BAFTA TV Award | Best Actress | Duet for One | Nominated |
| 1992 | Olivier Award | Best Supporting Actress | When She Danced | Won |
| 1995 | Olivier Award | Best Actress | Les Parents Terribles | Nominated |
| 2006 | Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play | The History Boys | Won |
| 2006 | Tony Award | Best Featured Actress in a Play | The History Boys | Won |
| 2006 | British Independent Film Award | Best Actress | The History Boys | Nominated |
| 2007 | BAFTA Film Award | Best Supporting Actress | The History Boys | Nominated |
| 2014 | BAFTA TV Award | Best Female Comedy Performance | Vicious | Nominated |

## Stage

| Year | Title | Role(s) | Notes |
| 1965 | Timon of Athens | unnamed parts | |
| 1965 | Hamlet | unnamed parts | |
| 1966 | The Government Inspector | Avdotya, Wife | |
| 1966 | Henry IV, Part 1 | unnamed parts | |
| 1966 | Twelfth Night | unnamed parts | |
| 1966 | Henry V | Alice | |
| 1966 | The Proposal | Natalyia Stepanovna | |
| 1967 | The Taming of the Shrew | Nicholas, Widow | |
| 1967 | As You Like It | Audrey | |
| 1967 | The Relapse | Miss Hoyden | |
| 1969 | Dutch Uncle | Doris Hoyden | |
| 1969 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Helena | |
| 1970 | Doctor Faustus | Devil | |
| 1970 | Hamlet | Player Queen | |
| 1971 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Helena | Broadway debut |
| 1971 | The Man of Mode | Bellinda | |
| 1971 | The Balcony | Bishop's girl | |
| 1973 | The Banana Box | Ruth Jones | |
| 1975 | The Vegetable; or, From President to Postman | Charlotte | |
| 1975 | As You Like It | Rosalind | |
| 1979 | Hamlet | Hamlet | |
| 1980 | Duet for One | Stephanie Anderson | |
| 1982 | Uncle Vanya | Sonya | |
| 1983 | A Moon for the Misbegotten | Josie Hogan | |
| 1984 | Saint Joan | St. Joan | |
| 1985 | The Dance of Death | Alice | | 1987 | Lillian by William Luce Lyric Theater London |
| 1989 | King Lear | Regan | |
| 1989 | Chekhov's Women | performer | |
| 1991 | When She Danced | Miss Belzer | |
| 1994 | Three Tall Women | Middle Tall Woman | |
| 1998 | The Play About the Baby | Woman | |
| 1999 | The Forest | Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya | |
| 1999 | Antony and Cleopatra | Cleopatra | |
| 2000 | Fallen Angels | Jane Banbury | |
| 2001 | The Good Hope | Kitty | |
| 2003 | The Dance of Death | Alice | |
| 2004 | The History Boys | Mrs. Lintott | |
| 2007 | Boeing-Boeing | Bertha | |
| 2009 | The Habit of Art | Stage Manager | |
| 2012 | People | Dorothy | |