Adrienne Corri
| Adrienne Corri | |
|---|---|
Adrienne Corri in a trailer for Vampire Circus (1972)
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| Born |
Adrienne Riccoboni 13 November 1930 Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK |
| Died | 13 March 2016 (aged 85) London, England, UK |
| Cause of death | Coronary artery disease |
| Nationality | Scottish-Italian |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1949–1992 |
| Spouse(s) | Daniel Massey (1961–1967) (divorced) |
Adrienne Corri (13 November 1930 – 13 March 2016) was a Scottish-Italian actress.
She was born Adrienne Riccoboni in Glasgow, the daughter of Olive Smethurst and an Italian father Luigi Riccoboni (sometimes spelt Reccobini). Her distinctive auburn hair came from her mother's Lancastrian Mancunian Smethurst family. In the 1930s her father Luigi (known as Louis) ran the Crown Hotel, Callander, Perthshire. She had one brother.
Despite having significant roles in many films, Corri is best known for one of her smaller parts, that of Mrs. Alexander, the wife of the writer Frank Alexander, in Stanley Kubrick's dystopian film A Clockwork Orange (1971). Though not originally cast in this role, she was brought in after the previous actress, reported to be Bernadette Milnes, left the film. Corri was offered the role after two actresses had already withdrawn from the film, one of them, according to Malcolm McDowell (Alex in the film), because she found it "too humiliating -– because it involved having to be perched, naked, on Warren Clarke's (playing Dim the Droog) shoulders for weeks on end while Stanley decided which shot he liked the best." Corri had no such qualms about appearing naked, joking to McDowell: "Well, Malcolm, you’re about to find out that I’m a real redhead." Corri earned Kubrick's respect by her willingness to undergo the grueling process of shooting endless takes. She recalled: "For four days I was bashed about by Malcolm (Alex) and he really hit me. One scene was shot 39 times until Malcolm said 'I can't hit her anymore!'"
Corri's film debut was in The Romantic Age (1949), which was followed by Jean Renoir's version of The River (1951). Her other film roles included Lara's mother in David Lean's Dr. Zhivago (1965), and Dorothy in Otto Preminger's thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing (also 1965). She also appeared in a number of horror and suspense films until the 1970s including Devil Girl from Mars (1954), The Tell-Tale Heart (1960), A Study in Terror (1965) and Vampire Circus (1972). She also appeared as Therese Duval in Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978). The range and versatility of her acting is shown by appearances in such diverse productions as the science fiction movie Moon Zero Two (1969) where she played opposite the character actor Sam Kydd (Len the barman), and again in a television version of Twelfth Night (1969), directed by John Sichel, as the Countess Olivia, where she played opposite Alec Guinness as Malvolio.
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