Mary Ure: An Outstanding Actress Whose Legacy Is Sadly Connected To The Men She Loved
The Scots actress had a meteoric rise in theatre, but later her chaotic love life would provide the headlines.
Mary Ure’s work as an actor tends to be overshadowed by the men she married, in death as it was in life. Both her husbands were multi-talented men with forceful personalities; ‘Angry Young Man’ playwright John Osborne and Robert Shaw, star of The Sting (1973) and Jaws (1975). They were also boorish, selfish, abusive adulterers who saw their talent above her own. It’s difficult to write about her now without looking at the two relationships that dominated her short life.
Eileen Mary Ure was born on 18 February 1933 in Glasgow, Scotland. Her father, Colin, was a civil engineer. Her great-grandfather was flour merchant John Ure, who served from 1880 to 1883 as the Lord Provost of Glasgow.
Initially intending to become a teacher, she studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. After a year, she decided she would change to acting. “I felt I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher,” she told The Stage in 1955. “I wanted to do something more practical.” After three years of study, in June 1954, Mary was awarded the Sybil Thorndike Prize for best actress at the end of term…
