WITH her elegant looks and perfect diction Moira Redmond was one of the British theatre’s most distinctive actresses. A former understudy to Vivien Leigh, she was often cast as duchesses or ladies-in-waiting and she played the role of Queen Victoria twice on stage at the Royal Court Theatre.

She also had a successful film and television career and was best known to TV viewers as Alice Keppel, Edward VII’s mistress, in the 1975 mini-series Edward The King, starring Timothy West in the title role.

Moira Redmond was born in Bognor Regis, Sussex, in 1928. She made her first appearance on stage as a walk-on and understudy to Vivien Leigh in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company’s 1957 tour of Titus Andronicus, directed by Peter Brook and starring Laurence Olivier. Leigh suffered periodically from mental illness and on several occasions Redmond had to go on stage for her at short notice.

A notoriously bloody production, full of slaughter and maiming, one memorable scene saw Lavinia ravished on her husband’s corpse. “Audiences were horrified,” recalled Redmond. “Nurses were on standby for every show.”

Redmond made her London debut the same year when the production transferred to the Stoll Theatre. She appeared in several other small West End roles before joining repertory companies at Leatherhead and Nottingham in the early Sixties.

In 1966 she played Hermione in The Winter’s Tale and Helen in The Trojan Women at the Edinburgh Festival and a year later she played three parts in Trifles and Tomfooleries, a Shaw triple bill (Mermaid). She first played Queen Victoria in Early Morning (Royal Court 1968, revival 1969) and she was Lady Claire Gurney in The Ruling Class (Nottingham Playhouse 1968). Other critically acclaimed roles included Grainne Gibbon in The Patrick Pearse Motel (Queen’s 1971) and the title role in The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd (Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead 1971).

In 1972 Redmond was one of the original members of The Actors Company, with Ian McKellen, a then ground-breaking group in which actors chose their own plays and shared equal billing and pay. She toured the UK with them in Ruling the Roost and in 1975 she became a leading figure with the Bristol Old Vic, appearing in leading roles in Heartbreak House, Habeas Corpus and The National Health.

She began her long film and TV career in the early Fifties in series such as No Hiding Place, and among her many films were thrillers such as Pit of Darkness (1961) and Jigsaw (1962). She appeared alongside Montgomery Clift in the bio-pic Freud (1962). In 1964 she starred in the Freddie Francis cult horror film Nightmare and also had a key role in A Shot in the Dark, with Peter Sellers.

Redmond was seen at her best in TV costume drama. She had perfect poise, beautifully coiffeured hairstyles and wore gowns with great style. Unsurprisingly, she was said to be a costume designer’s dream to work with. She was Barbara, the Duchess of Cleveland in The First Churchills (1969), the Duchess d’Abrantes in Prometheus: The Life of Balzac (1975), Domitia in I, Claudius (1976) and Lady Bantling in The Alleyn Mysteries (1994).

Proving that she was not just a glamorous clothes horse, she gave an outstanding performance as Mrs Holly in an American TV production of Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer (1992), opposite Maggie Smith.

Her most recent television appearance was as Aunt Nessie in Catherine Cookson’s Wingless Bird (1998).

She was married twice, first to Anthony Hughes (marriage dissolved) and secondly to Herbert Wise.

Moira Redmond, actress, was born on July 14, 1928. She died on March 16, 2006, aged 77.