Biography
Billie Honor Whitelaw (6 June 1932 – 21 December 2014) was an English stage and screen actress. She worked in close collaborration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and wass regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs Baylock, the demonic nanny in The Omen.
Known For
Complete Filmography
Notfilm
2015
as Self
NOTFILM is a feature-length experimental essay on FILM -- its author Samuel Beckett, its star Buster Keaton, its production and its philosophical impl...
I, Of Whom I Know Nothing
2014
John Calder, Samuel Beckett’s British publisher, moved to Montreuil, a town to the east of Paris, where Calder met with Billie Whitelaw, the muse, so ...
Hot Fuzz
2007
as Joyce Cooper
Former London constable Nicholas Angel finds it difficult to adapt to his new assignment in the sleepy British village of Sandford. Not only does he m...
The Curse of 'The Omen'
2005
as Self
The filming of "The Omen" (1976) was plagued by tragedy and bizarre incidents. "The devil was at work and he didn't want that film made" - Producer Ha...
The Story of 'Frenzy'
2001
as Self
Documentary about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Frenzy'.
Quills
2000
as Madame LeClerc
A nobleman with a literary flair, the Marquis de Sade lives in a madhouse where a beautiful laundry maid smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, def...
The Last of the Blonde Bombshells
2000
as Evelyn
After Elizabeth's husband dies, she begins to play her tenor saxophone again, and remembers when she was 15 and a member of the Blonde Bombshells, an ...
The Lost Son
1999
as Mrs. Spitz
Xavier Lombard is a world-weary private eye in London, in exile from his native Paris; his best friend is Nathalie, a high-class call girl. He gets a ...
Samuel Beckett: As the Story Was Told
1996
as interviewee
A two-part biography of the Irish writer Samuel Beckett. The first part covers the traumas of his formative years: his ill-fated love affair with his ...
Jane Eyre
1996
as Grace Poole
After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she mee...
Deadly Advice
1994
as Kate Webster
Mother rules the house with an iron hand and has such power over her daughters that they see themselves as becoming old unmarried, maids. Jodie has fe...
Skallagrigg
1994
as Margaret
Back in the 'bad old days' when the physically and mentally disabled were locked away in institutions a legend grew of someone who could stand up to t...
The Entertainer
1993
as Phoebe Rice
Adaptation of John Osborne's play.
Freddie as F.R.O.7.
1992
as Messina (voice)
The story about a man-sized frog named Prince Frederic who is turned into a frog by his wicked aunt Messina and hired by British Intelligence to solve...
The Cloning of Joanna May
1992
as Mavis
Joanna once was married to Carl May, a very rich and powerful nuclear energy magnate. They love each other, but had to divorce after Joanna was caught...
Duel of Hearts
1992
as Dorcas
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...
A Murder of Quality
1991
as Mad Janie
At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just receive...
Morrissey - Hulmerist
1991
as Cast - Everyday is Like Sunday
Hulmerist is a VHS and DVD release that includes seven promotional films by Morrissey, released initially on VHS, in 1990, and then on DVD in 2004. It...
Lorna Doone
1990
as Sarah Ridd
A feisty 17th-century Scotswoman falls in love with a despised landowner, to the dismay of her father.
The Krays
1990
as Violet Kray
The Krays is a film based on the lives and crimes of the British gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray, twins who are often referred to as The Krays and ...
The Picnic
1989
as Margie
A widowed teacher marries again, but her hopes of her daughter accepting a stepfather her own age, and her anticipation of a birthday picnic by the ri...
The Fifteen Streets
1989
as Beatrice Llewellyn
In northern England around 1900, the worker John O'Brien lives near poverty in a small house in the worker's district. He falls in love with Mary, the...
The Dressmaker
1988
as Margo
In England during World War II, a repressed dressmaker and her sister struggle looking after their 17-year-old niece, who is having a delusional affai...
Joyriders
1988
as Tammi O'Moore
The growing relationship of two people who travel through Ireland in a series of stolen cars.
The Secret Garden
1987
as Mrs. Medlock
When a spoiled English girl living in 19th century India loses both parents in a cholera epidemic, she is sent back to England to live in a country ma...
Maurice
1987
as Mrs. Hall
After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.
Samuel Beckett: Silence to Silence
1987
The elusive author of Waiting for Godot cooperated in the production of this portrait, which traces Beckett’s artistic life through his prose, plays, ...
Shadey
1985
as Doctor Cloud
A young man discovers that not only does he have the ability to read minds, but that if he holds a camera next to his head he can transmit the thought...
Murder Elite
1985
as Margaret Baker
An English woman (Ali MacGraw) returns to her homeland after losing her fortune in America, and is stalked by a serial killer.
Tangiers
1985
as Louise
A former CIA agent is forced by crooked agents of the government to pose as a notorious smuggler of the Tangier Straits who happens to be a stiff
Camille
1984
as Prudence Duvorney
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hop...
An Audience with Mel Brooks
1984
as Self (uncredited)
Mel Brooks delivers an enjoyable hour of comic diversion with his lovely actress-wife Anne Bancroft, writer comedian Ronny Graham and British Shakespe...
The Chain
1984
as Mrs. Andreos
Comedy featuring interweaving stories of seven households caught up in a property chain on moving day, each one dependent on the other.
Slayground
1983
as Madge
After thieves botch an armored truck robbery that leads to the death of an innocent young girl, her father vows revenge by recruiting a sociopathic hi...
Making Samuel Beckett's 'Rockaby'
1983
as The Actress
The filmmakers accompany Alan Schneider, director of the American premieres of most of Beckett's plays, and producer Daniel Labeille to the home of Bi...
Jamaica Inn
1983
as Aunt Patience
The respected squire of a quiet Cornish village is in reality the leader of a gang of murderous pirates who attack passing ships, kill their crews and...
The Dark Crystal
1982
as Aughra (voice)
On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world, be...
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
1982
as Elizabeth Leaming
After finding her boss, a private detective, has committed suicide and has left her his agency, Cordelia Gray is asked to investigate the suicide of t...
Last Summer's Child
1981
as Rose Marriott
Young Col is not enjoying his Cornish holiday and wishes his father would not join the family. Events make him grow up rather fast.
Rockaby
1981
as W
A one-woman play written by Samuel Beckett at the request of Daniel Labeille. The piece was produced by Labeille on behalf of the State University of...
A Tale of Two Cities
1980
as Madame Therese Defarge
Set against the conditions leading up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, French doctor Alexandre Manette serves an 18-year imprisonment...
Leopard in the Snow
1979
as Isabel James
A tender romance develops between an attractive young woman and a famous race car driver who lives incognito after supposedly being killed in an auto ...
The Water Babies
1978
as Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby / Old Crone / Mrs. Tripp / Woman in Black / Water Babies 'Gate Keeper'
Grimes, an amoral chimney sweep, occasionally likes to steal valuables from his clients. One day, on the verge of being caught, he frames his young ap...
Thomas Hardy: A Haunted Man
1978
as Emma Hardy
Drama documentary from 1978 exploring the private feelings of novelist Thomas Hardy through the poems of love and remorse that he wrote after the deat...
Ghost Trio
1977
A female voice identifies a lone man in a room. The shots cut closer, revealing he is holding a cassette recorder, playing Beethoven's "Ghost" Piano T...
The Omen
1976
as Mrs. Baylock
Immediately after their miscarriage, the US diplomat Robert Thorn adopts the newborn Damien without the knowledge of his wife. Yet what he doesn’t kno...
Not I
1973
Performed at the Royal Court Theatre on 16th January, 1973 Produced for the BBC in 1977 by Tristram Powell Directed by Anthony Page and Samuel Becke...
Night Watch
1973
as Sarah Cooke
A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the aband...
Follow The Yellow Brick Road
1972
as Judy Black
Jack Black is a disturbed actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera.
Night Duty
1972
as Wendy
A night worker at a mental institution finds his job beginning to change.
Frenzy
1972
as Hetty Porter
London is terrorized by a vicious sex killer known as The Necktie Murderer. Following the brutal slaying of his ex-wife, down-on-his-luck Richard Blan...
Poet Game
1972
as Jeanne Saunders
Mercurial, hard-drinking poet Hugh Saunders (Sir Anthony Hopkins) awaits his fortieth birthday, trying to preserve his art and his marriage against th...
Eagle in a Cage
1972
as Madame Bertrand
1815. A soldier becomes the governor of St. Helena and jailer of Napoleon
Gumshoe
1971
as Ellen
A would be private eye gets mixed up in a smuggling case.
Brown Skin Gal, Stay Home and Mind Bay-Bee
1971
as Ruth
In this sad world where words unspoken do more damage than words spoken too much, a woman and her lodger are destined to stay on separate paths.
Leo the Last
1970
as Margaret
Prince Leo, last in the line of rulers of a long-deposed monarchy on continental Europe and jaded with the frenetic search for kicks with the European...
Start the Revolution Without Me
1970
as Queen Marie
Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, C...
The Adding Machine
1969
as Daisy Devore
An accountant whose job is about to be taken over by a computer starts to re-examine his life and his priorities.
Twisted Nerve
1968
as Joan Harper
Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he re...
Charlie Bubbles
1968
as Lottie
Charlie Bubbles, a writer, up from the working class of Manchester, England, who, in the course of becoming prematurely rich and famous, has mislaid a...
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1968
as Gwyn Thomas
In this Dan Curtis production of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, Jack Palance stars as Dr. Henry Jekyll, a scientist experimenting to reveal the h...
The Comedy Man
1964
as Judy
A middle-aged stock actor goes to London to try the big time. After much frustration, he lands a job doing TV commercials, gaining wealth and recognit...
The Devil's Agent
1962
as Piroska Maslov
German actor Peter van Eyck stars as Droste, a mild-mannered businessman who was an intelligence expert during World War II. When Droste runs into his...
Mr. Topaze
1961
as Ernestine
Mr. Topaze is an unassuming school teacher in an unassuming small French town, who is honest to a fault. He is fired when he refuses to give a passing...
No Love for Johnnie
1961
as Mary
Johnnie Byrne is a member of the British Parliament. In his 40s, he's feeling frustrated with his life and his personal as well as professional proble...
Payroll
1961
as Jackie Parker
A vicious gang of crooks plan to steal the wages of a local factory, but their carefully laid plans go wrong, when the factory employs an armoured van...
Lena, O My Lena
1960
as Lena
Tom, a sensitive Liverpool student, takes a job on a loading dock in a Lancashire factory town. He's smitten with a girl named Lena who works in a mac...
Make Mine Mink
1960
as Lily
In a mansion block in Knightsbridge, a gang of middle-aged biddies decide to brighten up "the dullness of the tea time of life" by staging a series of...
Hell Is a City
1960
as Chloe Hawkins
Set in Manchester, heartland of England's industrial north, Don Starling escapes from jail becoming England's most wanted man. Ruthless villain Starli...
The Flesh and the Fiends
1960
as Mary Patterson
Edinburgh surgeon Dr. Robert Knox requires cadavers for his research into the functioning of the human body; local ne'er-do-wells Burke and Hare find ...
Bobbikins
1959
as Lydia Simmons
This adventure follows the story of a young navy man, his wife and their baby son, Bobby, also known as Bobbikins. To his surprise, Dad discovers his ...
Breakout
1959
as Rose Munro
A local government official leads a double life when organising a breakout from a prison.
Carve Her Name with Pride
1958
as Winnie
London, England, during World War II. After living a tragic life experience, young Violette Szabo joins the Special Operations Executive and crosses t...
Small Hotel
1957
as Caroline Mallet
The dining room of the Jolly Fiddler has long been presided over by Albert, an aged but very shrewd waiter. A past master of the gentle art of fiddlin...
Miracle in Soho
1957
as Maggie
In London's colourful but seedy Soho, Michael Morgan is working mending the road. He is unhappy, with little hope of finding happiness. Then he meets ...
Mr. Arkadin
1955
as Raina Arkadin (voice) (uncredited)
Claiming that he doesn't know his own past, a rich man enlists an ex-con with an odd bit of detective work. Gregory Arkadin says he can't remember any...
Room in the House
1955
as Margaret
Betsy Richards, a hard-working widow, tries to solve the domestic problems of her three grown-up sons.
The Sleeping Tiger
1954
as Receptionist at Pearce & Mann
A petty thief breaks into the home of a psychiatrist and gets caught in a web of a doctor who wishes to experiment on him and a doctor's wife who wish...
The Fake
1953
as Waitress
Someone is stealing priceless paintings from the great museums of the world and replacing them with nearly flawless forgeries. Leonardo da Vinci's "Ma...