Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Googie Withers

Actress

Born - 12 March 1917, Karachi, India (now Pakistan)
Died - 15 July 2011

Formidable titian-haired actress of slightly harsh attractiveness who, after years of toil in the British cinema, proved to be at her best as minxish, sometimes dangerous schemers. One of Britain's most-distinctive post-war performers, she was lost to that country's screens when moving to Australia with her second husband, actor John McCallum (1914-2010), her co-star in several English movies. A dancer at 14, she was spotted as an extra by director Michael Powell, who promoted her to second lead in his frothy comedy The Girl in the Crowd (1934). She was quickly a British screen regular without finding her niche: Windfall (1935), Accused (1936), The Green Cockatoo (1937), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Trouble Brewing (1939), Busman's Honeymoon (1940), Jeannie (1941) and Back-Room Boy (1942) among many others. After her breakthrough with the only notable female role in One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942, again for Powell), she was seen in starring roles: The Silver Fleet (1943), On Approval (1944), Dead of Night (1945) administering poison in Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945), It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), Miranda (1948), Traveller's Joy (1949), Night and the City (1950), White Corridors (1951), Derby Day (1952), Devil on Horseback (1954) and Port of Escape (1956). Her only remaining films were The Nickel Queen (1970), Country Life (1994) and Shine (1996). She had a hit UK TV series in the 1970s as a prison governess in Within These Walls.