Jill Bennett (British actress) Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

In 1992, Bennett’s ashes, along with those of her friend, the actress Rachel Roberts (who also died by suicide, in 1980), were scattered by their friend Lindsay Anderson on the waters of the River Thames in London. Anderson, with several of the two actresses’ professional colleagues and friends, took a boat trip down the Thames, and the ashes were scattered while musician Alan Price sang the song “Is That All There Is?” The event was included in Anderson’s autobiographical BBC documentary Is That All There Is? (1992).

Bennett died by suicide in October 1990, aged 58, having long suffered from depression and the brutalising effects of her marriage to Osborne (according to Osborne’s biographer). She did this by taking an overdose of Quinalbarbitone Her death took place at home, 23, Gloucester Walk, Kensington, London W8, and she left an estate valued at £596,978.

She made forays into television, such as roles in Play for Today (Country, 1981), with Wendy Hiller, and as the colourful Lady Grace Fanner in John Mortimer’s adaptation of his own novel, Paradise Postponed (1985). In 1984 she co-wrote and starred in the sitcom Poor Little Rich Girls alongside Maria Aitken. Among several roles, Osborne wrote the character of Annie in his play The Hotel in Amsterdam (1968) for her. But Bennett’s busy schedule prevented her from playing the role until it was screened on television in 1971.

She co-starred with Rachel Roberts in the Alan Bennett television play The Old Crowd (1979), directed by Lindsay Anderson.

Masha in The Three Sisters/TRI SESTRY, BBC Home Service Radio 1965. Directed by John Tydeman. Cast included Paul Scofield, Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave and Wilfrid Lawson.

Nora in A Doll’s House, BBC Third Programme 1959. Directed by Frederick Bradnum. Cast included Jack May and John Gabriel.

Bennett made many appearances in British films including Lust for Life (1956), The Criminal (1960), The Nanny (1965), The Skull (1965), Inadmissible Evidence (1968), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Julius Caesar (1970), I Want What I Want (1972), Mister Quilp (1975), Full Circle (1977) and Britannia Hospital (1982). She also appeared in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981), Lady Jane (1986) and Hawks (1988). Her final film performance was in The Sheltering Sky (1990).

Bennett was born in Penang, the Straits Settlements, to British parents, educated at Prior’s Field School, an independent girls boarding school in Godalming, and trained at RADA. She made her stage début in the 1949 season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford upon Avon, and her film début in The Long Dark Hall (1951) with Rex Harrison.

Bennett was the live-in companion of actor Godfrey Tearle in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She was married to screenwriter Willis Hall and later to John Osborne. Bennett and Osborne divorced, acrimoniously, in 1978. She had no children.

Nora Noel Jill Bennett (24 December 1931 – 4 October 1990) was a British actress, and the fourth wife of playwright John Osborne.