Rachel Roberts (Actress)

Roberts made her film debut in a key role in J. Lee Thompson's Young and Willing (1954), a drama about life in a women's prison. She continued appearing in British films through the sixties, becoming hard to forget as the cankerous housewife in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Her greatest success came as Richard Harris's love interest in This Sporting Life (1963), a role that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

In the 1970s, Roberts took on supporting roles, often as tough authority figures or villainous beauties, in films like Doctors' Wives (1971), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Foul Play (1978), When a Stranger Calls (1979), and Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981). She was also seen on television, such as Mrs. Bonnie McClellan in the 1976 series The Tony Randall Show.

Roberts was devastated by her divorce from Rex Harrison, and her alcoholism and depression worsened. She moved to Hollywood in 1975, but in 1980, when she attempted to reconcile with Harrison, he was married to his sixth wife, Mercia Tinker. On 26 November 1980, Roberts died at her home in Los Angeles at age 53. Her death was initially thought to be a heart attack, but an autopsy revealed she had swallowed lye or another caustic substance, along with barbiturates and alcohol. The coroner ruled it a suicide.