This Is Your Life: Nyree Dawn Porter

Nyree Dawn PORTER (1936-2001)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Nyree Dawn Porter, actress, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews - in the Martini Terrace at New Zealand House in central London, having been led to believe she was there for a meeting with producer John Scarborough.

Nyree, who was born in Napier, New Zealand, began her acting career with the Players Trust. She moved to the UK in 1958 after winning a talent competition with Cinema magazine, with a prize of three weeks all expenses paid trip to London.

She had success on the London stage in plays such as Come Blow Your Horn and appeared in films such as Live Now, Pay Later. However, she became a household name when cast as Irene in 1967 in the muti-award winning BBC drama series The Forsyte Saga.

"Oh goodness me! How can you do that to me?"

programme details...

Edition No: 534
Subject No: 531
Broadcast date: Wed 20 Feb 1980
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Tue 12 Feb 1980
Venue: New London Theatre
Series: 20
Edition: 13
Code name: Morning

on the guest list...

Ian Hendry
John Scarborough
David Reid
Dennis Vance
Lorna Mason
Val Clark
Douglas Watkinson
Graham Crowden
Jeffrey Daunton
Bruce Montague
David Rodigan
Jeremy Sinden
Vincent Brimble
Robert Duncan
Robin Halstead - husband
John Bennett
Merle - sister
John - step-brother
Barbara Kelly
Bob Monkhouse
Wendy Craig
Ian Ogilvy
Aimi MacDonald
Vanessa Redgrave
Natalya - daughter
Edna May - mother
Michael York
Robert Vaughn
Cassidy Vaughn

production team...

Researchers: Robin Ellis-Bextor, Vivien Lind
Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
Directors: Paul Stewart Laing, Terry Yarwood
Producer: Jack Crawshaw

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

An Actor's Life For Me

spotlight on the stars

Screenshots of Nyree Dawn Porter This Is Your Life

TVTimes magazine article: Nyree Dawn Porter This Is Your Life

TV Times 26 April 1980

New dawn for Nyree

By Stewart Knowles

NYREE DAWN Porter knew she was going to die even before she read the scripts of For Maddie with Love and was quite taken by the idea.

Dennis Vance, producer-director of this new twice-weekly lunchtime drama series, explained the role to her when he first approached her to do the part. Nyree plays Maddie who discovers she has terminal cancer.

The drama is humorous as well as sad and deals frankly with important and controversial social issues – euthanasia and the right of people to determine at what point their suffering should be ended.

Vance told Nyree that the writers saw Maddie as a woman in her forties who shows both fear and courage, jealousy and generosity but, above all, honesty.

These are ingredients in a character richly textured enough to tempt any actress. Nyree - who became a major international star in the long-running TV serialisation of The Forsyte Saga – took the scripts on holiday with her before finally deciding to do the part.

She went to the Greek island of Poros with her actor husband Robin Halstead – he is 10 years her junior – and their five-year-old daughter Natalya Francesca, whose pet name is Tassy.

"Quite apart from my immediate liking for the character of Maddie, the thing that most attracted me was the subject," she said. "I think it is time a lot of myths and skeletons about cancer and other terminal illnesses are brought into the open."

Maddie, she soon realised, is quite different from some of those cool, rather distant English beauties she has played in the past.

She has, of course, "died" in other television roles. As Madame Bovary she took her own life. But nothing she has done before is likely to be as physically demanding as her latest part, in which she stars with Ian Hendry. "It is one of the most exhausting roles I have ever played," says Nyree.

She is at ATV's Elstree studios all week – apart from Sunday – sometimes leaving her home in London soon after 7am and often not returning until evening.

"Emotionally, Maddie and I are very similar," says Nyree. "As a person she leapt up at me because she doesn't want to go under even though she is eventually forced to do so. She is sad because she is going to have to leave everything she loves behind her. But, like me, she is a bubbly person. You see me now, rather tired, but I am by nature an optimist, quite buoyant person."

To the extent that every actress must draw something from her own experiences, past sadnesses in Nyree's own life must make their own contribution to the way she plays Maddie.

In 1970, while Nyree was receiving numerous awards, including the OBE for her services to television, her first husband Bryon O'Leary was in the throes of a nervous breakdown. In May of that year he was found dead.

The inquest revealed that he had died accidentally from a combination of alcohol and sleeping drugs.

Nyree's career, for a while, was erratic as she fought with her grief. She starred in the series The Protectors but otherwise did little else on television. At one time she was quoted as saying she might leave Britain as she couldn't get enough work.

But she met and fell in love with Robin Halstead and in January 1975 gave birth to a baby daughter. Suddenly happiness – there had been three miscarriages in the 11 years she was married to Bryon O'Leary – gave way to elation.

"Tassy is a dear little person and Robin is a superb dad – miles better than I thought he was going to be. And if the age gap was a problem, we wouldn't have had a child at all. I just know I am very happy and I think he is happy too."

She would be the first to agree that her hectic domestic life is greatly aided by Tassy's French nanny, Micheline.

Nyree is well aware that lunchtime drama series on TV are often dubbed "soap operas" but says her feelings about that would depend on the kind of inflexion used with such a description.

"I think this is a good story to tell. I happen to believe that Maddie is very brave and the whole subject of euthanasia is so important. I do know – we all know – that it happens and that society hasn't allowed for it yet."

In a life that has more than once been described as a series of highs and lows, one recent high came when Nyree Dawn Porter was the subject of This Is Your Life, which included the surprise appearance of her mother, who was flown from New Zealand where Nyree was born.

"The whole thing was very moving, very beautiful – and I loved every minute of it," she said.

Series 20 subjects