Biographie

Has won four Tony Awards, one for each time she was nominated: as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic), in 1966 for Tennessee Williams's "Slapstick Tragedy," and as Best Actress (Play), in 1968 for playing the title role in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie;" in 1982 for playing the title role in a revival of "Medea," which she recreated in a television version of the same name, Medea (1983); and in 1996 for playing Maria Callas in Terence McNally's "Master Class.".

She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1970 Queen's New Years Honours List for her services to theatre and the John Gielgud Award by the Shakespeare Guild.

Graduated from the Methodist Ladies College and, much later, received an honorary degree from the University of Melbourne.

Her first stage role was as "Slightly Soiled" (one of the Lost Boys) in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan", at the age of nine, in her native Australia.

One of her primary acting rules is never to get romantically involved with a co-star. She believes that actors playing at being in love are showing the audience what they're feeling at each stage in the relationship, which is the exact opposite of what a real love affair needs, which is privacy. Acting, the audience becomes an intimate partner of the staged lovers, where in real life, lovers need to curtain themselves off from the rest of the world to create real intimacy. Though she admits in her 2001 memoir, "I Will Be Cleopatra", that she violated the rule, she was reticent in providing details. However, she was named as a correspondent by Albert Finney's wife Jane Wenham in their divorce.