Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dame Virginia Anne McKenna, DBE (born 7 June 1931) is a British stage and screen actress, author, activist, and wildlife campaigner. She is best known for the films A Town Like Alice (1956), Carve Her Name with Pride (1958), Born Free (1966), and Ring of Bright Water (1969), as well as her work with The Born Free Foundation.
Known For
Complete Filmography

Wings
2020
as Dora
A heartwarming love story that spans over six decades, between two Land Army girls during World War II.

Widow's Walk
2019
as Myrtle
Eve's husband has been killed in Afghanistan. She takes her young son to a Suffolk beach house on the edge of the North Sea to grieve. But someone els...

Ethel & Ernest
2016
as Lady of the House (voice)
This hand drawn animated film, based on the award winning graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, is an intimate and affectionate depiction of the life and t...

Golden Years
2016
as Martha
Fate, the pensions crisis and a steadfast refusal to accept the injustice of old age have contrived to force law abiding, retired couple, Arthur and M...

Hello: A Portrait Of Leslie Phillips
2013
as Self
A Portrait Of Leslie Phillips takes a look at the life of Leslie Phillips; the legendary actor, writer and veritable British institution. Leslie's fra...

Leona Calderon
2013
Leona Calderon is a retiring altruistic music lover earning her living cleaning establishments and private homes. Having a fun loving nature she is fa...

Love/Loss
2010
as Mary
A chance meeting reunites Mary and Joe, childhood sweethearts from the 1940s. But after 60 years apart, is there still love between them? How have the...

The Whistle-Blower
2001
as Theresa Elliot
A bank employee, Laura Tracey, places herself and her family in mortal danger after reporting irregularities in the firm's overseas accounts to the Na...

Sliding Doors
1998
as James' Mother
London publicist Helen, effortlessly slides between parallel storylines that show what happens when she does or does not catch a train back to her apa...
The Scold's Bridle
1998
as Violet Orloff
Detective Cooper investigates the bizarre circumstances surrounding the murder of Matilda who was found dead in her bath wearing the Scold's Bridle.

Rosamunde Pilcher: September
1996
as Violet
Verena Steynton is holding a party for her daughter. All the aristocratic families of Strathcroy in the Scottish Highlands are attending, with all the...

Staggered
1994
as Flora
Very much in love, Neil's wedding plans are sabotaged, beginning when he is abandoned, naked, on a Scottish island. A road trip ensues, with Neil enco...

The Lady in Waiting
1992
as Miss Peach
In 1970s New York, a drag queen and elderly woman meet during a blackout. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Duel of Hearts
1992
as Lady Brecon
Lady Caroline Faye meets Lord Vane Brecon and is attracted to him. When she finds out that he is being accused of a murder he did not commit, she sets...

Have a Nice Night
1990
as Jennifer Warrenton
Movie star Barbara Jenkins arrives in Cannes to host an auction of her costumes, under protection of Tom Lepski. She is under surveillance of a politi...

Puccini
1984
as Elvira
In Torre del Lago, by Lake Massaciuccoli, Puccini is writing "The Girl of the Golden West" when his wife Elvira accuses him of a dalliance with their ...

The Case of the Frightened Lady
1983
as Lady Lebanon Amersham
A woman tries to protect her family's name when one relative becomes a murderer.

Blood Link
1982
as Woman in Ballroom
A man who has been having psychic visions of himself killing naked women soon discovers that it's not himself he's seeing, it's his Siamese twin. (yes...

Julius Caesar
1979
as Portia
The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for Brutus and the republic.

The Disappearance
1977
as Catherine
The wife of a contract killer disappears. When he is hired by an international organisation to carry out a hit, he suspects they are connected with he...

Holocaust 2000
1977
as Eva Caine
An executive in charge of a nuclear power plant in the Mid-East must stop his son-- who turns out to be the Anti Christ -- from blowing it up.

Peter Pan
1976
as Mrs. Darling
Peter Pan is a 1976 musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, produced for television as part of the Hallmark H...

Beauty and the Beast
1976
as Lucy
A beautiful girl agrees to marry a hideous, deformed beast and live in his castle in order to save her father's life.

The Gathering Storm
1974
as Clemmie Churchill
Winston Churchill's life in the years leading up to World War II.

Swallows and Amazons
1974
as Mrs. Walker
On holiday with their mother in the Lake District in 1929 four children are allowed to sail over to the nearby island in their boat Swallow and set up...

The Lion at World's End
1971
The astonishing true story of a zoo-born lion who found himself in the pet department of Harrods, then the cellar of an antique shop in London and, ul...

Waterloo
1970
as Duchess of Richmond
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the ...

Ring of Bright Water
1969
as Mary MacKenzie
Stuck in a dead-end job, Graham Merrill adopts an otter, Mij, as a pet and then moves to an isolated village in western Scotland. Together they set ou...
The Lions Are Free
1969
The true life sequel to the movie classic Born Free. The actors from the movie Born Free, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, with the help of their fr...

An Elephant Called Slowly
1969
as Ginny
Bill and Ginny are invited by a naturalist friend to take care of his home in Africa while he is away, and they find themselves adopted by three orpha...

The Admirable Crichton
1968
as Lady Mary
A group of people are shipwrecked when their yacht runs aground on a South Pacific island. The usual hierarchy in an upper-class British family breaks...

Born Free
1966
as Joy Adamson
At a national park in Kenya, English game warden George Adamson and his wife, Joy, care for three orphaned lion cubs. After the two larger lions are s...

A Passage to India
1965
as Adela Quested
The BBC's 1965 adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, screened as part of their Play of the Month strand, adapted by Santha Ramu Rau and John Maynard, an...
Two Living, One Dead
1961
as Helen Berger
Three Post Office employees are at work when the facility is held up. The robber kills the supervisor and knocks out another employee. The third one o...

The Wreck of the Mary Deare
1959
as Janet Taggart
A disgraced merchant marine officer elects to stay aboard his sinking cargo ship in order to prove the vessel was deliberately scuttled and, as a resu...

Storm Over Jamaica
1958
as Judy Waring
A British schoolteacher moves to Jamaica to teach after a tumultuous divorce and meets an exciting new woman.

Carve Her Name with Pride
1958
as Violette Szabo
London, England, during World War II. After living a tragic life experience, young Violette Szabo joins the Special Operations Executive and crosses t...

The Smallest Show on Earth
1957
as Jean Spenser
Jean and Bill are a married couple trying to scrape a living. Out of the blue they receive a telegram informing them Bill's long-lost uncle has died a...

The Barretts of Wimpole Street
1957
as Henrietta Barrett
Director Sidney Franklin's 1957 remake of his own 1934 film, about the romance of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.

A Town Like Alice
1956
as Jean Paget
In 1941 Malaysia, the advancing Japanese army captures a lot of British territory very quickly. The men are sent off to labor camps, but they have no ...

The Ship That Died of Shame
1955
as Helen Randall
After World War II the crew of a motor gunboat join together to buy their old vessel and go into business for themselves. This may sound like a laudab...

Simba
1955
as Mary Crawford
A European family in East Africa finds itself caught up in an uprising by local black Africans against their white colonial masters. Based on the Mau-...

The Oracle
1953
as Shelagh
An Irish "oracle" foretells the next day's track results to a newspaperman, resulting in a national uproar.

The Cruel Sea
1953
as Julie Hallam
At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. Th...

Father's Doing Fine
1952
as Catherine
Lady Buckering, an English widow, has four daughters; Doreen, married to Dougall and about to give birth at home, and Gerda, Bicky and Catherine. The ...

Echoes of Camusfearna
N/A
as Narrator
This fascinating and haunting wildlife program is narrated by Virginia McKenna and centers on the West of Scotland not far from the Isle of Mull, the ...