Gabrielle Daye

Gabrielle Daye was a distinguished character actress who had a long career both on stage and film. She worked with many of Britain's leading directors, including John Schlesinger, Lindsay Anderson and Richard Attenborough and was best known on television for her role as Beattie Pearson, Albert Tatlock's daughter in Coronation Street (1960), between 1975 and 1983. She also starred as the sharp-tongued Mrs Pring in Bless Me, Father (1978-1981), the hit TV comedy starring Arthur Lowe as a hapless Catholic priest. Born in Manchester on October 2, 1911, she was educated at the city's Notre Dame High School for Girls before studying drama at Mordern Gray Academy, Manchester. A diminutive but feisty figure, she made her professional debut at Manchester Repertory Company in productions of Love on the Dole and When We Are Married and later appeared in London in The Glass Slipper, directed by Robert Donat, Joan of Arc at the Stake opposite Ingrid Bergman and in Peter Hall's 1955 production of The Waltz of the Toreadors. She was a regular performer at the Royal Court Theatre where her work included The Seagull, The Daughter-in-Law, The Merry-Go-Round, directed by Peter Gill, and Lindsay Anderson's acclaimed 1969 production of David Storey's In Celebration. She also worked for Anderson when she played Mrs Holly in the Ben Travers farce The Bed Before Yesterday at the Lyric in 1975. At The Old Vic Theatre she played Sarah in Eden End, directed by Laurence Olivier. Her many films included The Patricia Neal Story, with Dirk Bogarde and Glenda Jackson, Ten Rillington Place, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, O Lucky Man and Sunday Bloody Sunday. She made many notable TV guest appearances including Alan Bennett's Sunset Across the Bay (1975).