Gabrielle Reidy

Reidy was born on 23 July 1960 and grew up in Malahide, County Dublin.[1] Her father was a former Royal Air Force pilot,[2] and later an Aer Lingus pilot.[1][2] She had two older sisters.[1] She studied modern languages at Trinity College Dublin, as Ireland had no professional acting qualifications at the time.[3] Reidy's mother died during Gabrielle's first year of college.[4]

Reidy acted in 23 films, 31 television series, and 25 theatre performances.[3] Reidy's first acting appearance was in 1971, at the age of 11,[5] in a performance of Seán O'Casey's The Shadow of a Gunman at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.[1][6][2] At Trinity College Dublin, she joined the players at the college,[1] and performed in Footfalls and Hippolytus.[3] In 1979, she performed in Graham Reid's play The Death of Humpty Dumpty at the Abbey Theatre.[1][3] At the Abbey Theatre, she also worked alongside Joe Dowling and Tómas Mac Anna.[4] In 1989, she wrote and starred in an adaptation of Isabella Leitner's autobiographical Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Fragments of Isabella. The play was about Leitner's experiences in surviving The Holocaust.[7]

After moving to London in 1989,[3] Reidy appeared in a 1995 version of The Trojan Women (also known as the Women of Troy) at the Royal National Theatre,[1] as well as Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe.[1] She starred alongside Daniel Radcliffe in Equus.[4] Reidy played the mother of Greit (Scarlett Johansson) in the film Girl with a Pearl Earring.[4] In 2010, she began starring in Abbey Theatre's production of Seán O'Casey's play The Plough and the Stars. In 2012, she went on the play's national tour.[2] In 2011, she starred in Andrew Sheridan's play Winterlong at the Soho Theatre.[8] She also performed as Hermione from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.[9]

On Irish television, she starred in The Clinic, and played Monica Hall in Never The Same Again: Monica Hall.[6] On British television, she starred in Doctors, Waking The Dead, Holby City, Out of Hours, Scott & Bailey, The Bill, and Prime Suspect.[6] She was once nominated for an IFTN award.[6]

Reidy met her husband, actor Gary Lilburn, whilst performing Desire Under the Elms in 1995.[1] The couple had one son.[1] Lilburn was from Limerick.[4] Reidy was a member of Amnesty International.[4]

In 2014, Reidy was diagnosed with cancer.[6] She died of the disease on 13 October 2014, aged 54,[1] at her London home.[3] On the same day, the Abbey Theatre gave a standing ovation in her memory.[2]

• Gabrielle Reidy at IMDb