Judith Furse

Career

A member of the noted Furse family, her father was Lieutenant-General Sir William Furse. Her brother, Roger, became a stage designer and painter who also worked in films.

She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School and studied theatre at the Old Vic in the early 1930s. By the end of that decade, she became a stage actress. One of Judith Furse's earliest film successes was as Sister Briony in Black Narcissus (1947). She was known for her heavy-set, somewhat masculine looks, and was often cast as overbearing types such as the villainous Doctor Crow in Carry On Spying (1964). Other films included The Man in the White Suit (1951), Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952), Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957), Carry On Regardless (1961), Live Now, Pay Later (1962) and Carry On Cabby (1963). One of her more sympathetic roles was as Flora, Greer Garson's concerned travelling companion, in the original Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939). In 1972 she made her last film appearance, as a drag king, in the Australian film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.