Hildegard Neil

Actress

Born - 19 September 1939, Cape Town, South Africa
Died - 19 September 2023

Dark, apple-cheeked, South African-born actress with sculpted features who made most of her career in England, and is best remembered for playing Cleopatra in the 1972 film of Antony and Cleopatra. Born Hildegarde Neil Zimmermann and on UK TV from 1963, her other films include The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), England Made Me (1972), A Touch of Class (1973), The Legacy (1978), The Mirror Crack'd (1980), Seaview Knights (1994), The Bruce (1996), Macbeth (1997), King Lear (1999), Upstaged (2005), Mr Bojagi (2009), Leni, Leni (2016) and Lullabies for the Lost (2020), her last. Married (second) to actor Brian Blessed, who survives her, she died from cancer.