Biography

Beryl Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents and grew up in industrial Manchester, England. She left home at the age of 16 to go and work in a shop. She lasted 6 weeks. She applied for and was accepted in a revue in the Summer season in Bridlington. She had no formal training but joined the National Theater in London as a comedy actress. Her first big success came in the BBC radio show "Educating Archie" (a ventriloquist - on the radio). She played the naughty schoolgirl, Monica, and later, the Brummie Marlene. Her film roles were few and far between, but always well received. She transferred her Tony award winning performance of the lesbian radio star to the screen in The Killing of Sister George (1968). But she was best known and loved for her (slightly tipsy) older ladies such as in The Beiderbecke Tapes (1987) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979).
- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>

Born in Hereford to Scottish parents, she was educated at an all girls school in Manchester. Even as a child she enjoyed making people laugh. A dance teacher sensed her capacity to play to a wide audience and told her that even if she stood on a dustbin doing it, she had to perform. She used to do funny monologues in hospital wards and old peoples homes. She spent her teens singing and dancing in summer shows and pantomimes for £2.50 a week. Eventually, she graduated to sketches, then someone told her that the only thing she did well was character parts and it was the awful schoolgirl Monica and the Birmingham Marlene that made her name in the radio show 'Educating Archie'. She moved into a London West End revue extending her skills as a singing, dancing, acting comedienne. Her big break as an actress came in 1965 in the part of the lesbian radio actress June Buckridge in the play 'The Killing of Sister George', which was a West End sell out. She transferred with the play to Broadway where she won a Tony Best Actress Award. The 1966 film of the play, despite being banned by many local British authorities, introduced her to a wider audience. Actors invent various routes to get to the core of a character, such as a walk, a voice or the hair -- with Beryl it was the shoes.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

Comedy is the longest apprenticeship in the world.