(23 June 1925 – 3 June 2011)
Early life
Born Miriam Samuels[1] in Hampstead, North London, she was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish family; members of her extended family were among those who later died at Auschwitz. She was the daughter of Céline (née Aronowitz) and Harry Samuels, a Jewish barrister, who specialised in industrial and trade union law. Her brother was Michael Samuels a historical linguist, responsible for the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary.[2] When she was doing one of her first radio shows, Terry-Thomas's Top of the Town, she based some of the zany characters she invented and played on people who had appeared before the rent tribunal chaired by her father.[3][4]Career
After training at RADA, Karlin made her stage debut for ENSA – the Forces Entertainment organisation – in wartime shows and subsequently appeared in repertory theatre and cabaret. She appeared in productions of The Diary of Anne Frank, The Bad Seed, The Egg, Fiddler on the Roof and Bus Stop, among others.She made her film debut in 1952's Down Among the Z Men, as well as featuring in Room at the Top, Heavens Above!, Ladies Who Do and Mahler by Ken Russell.
In 1960, she appeared opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in the film of John Osborne's play The Entertainer.[5] Karlin also had parts in A Clockwork Orange and The Millionairess. She appeared in the stage version of Fiddler on the Roof at Her Majesty's Theatre, starring the Israeli actor Topol.
On television, Karlin became known for playing the belligerent shop steward Paddy in the The Rag Trade, a British sitcom set in a textile factory.[6] Paddy would use the slightest opportunity to cause a strike; her trademark was blowing a whistle and shouting "Everybody out!" She played the role, to great success, between 1961 and 1963. The show was resurrected by the BBC's rival channel, ITV, in 1977, but did not meet with the same success as the original[citation needed]. She later played Yetta Feldman, the Jewish ghost, in the BBC sitcom, So Haunt Me.
Karlin appeared on stage for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Aldwych Theatre, and The Barbican Centre. She appeared in a national tour of 84 Charing Cross Road. In 1990 she became the first woman to play the title role in The Caretaker by Harold Pinter in a production at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. She appeared in the 1989 television film The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
In 2008 she appeared, aged 83, in the stage play Many Roads to Paradise by Stewart Permutt at the Finborough Theatre, London.[7]
Personal life
Karlin, who never married, lived in South London. She was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association and a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, the London-based group campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma.A self-proclaimed atheist,[8] she was a lifelong campaigner for Jewish and left-wing causes and an anti-fascist activist. A member of the Anti-Nazi League she was prominent in protests against Holocaust denier David Irving and campaigned to expose the Nazi sympathies of Austrian politician Jörg Haider.[9] She had been an active member of the actors' union, Equity, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)[10] in 1975 for her union and welfare work. She had been a patron of Dignity in Dying, a body that campaigns for a change to the laws on assisted dying.
Death
In 2006, while filming an Agatha Christie television mystery, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Karlin was told that she had cancer and that part of her tongue would have to be removed. Unfortunately, her lengthy bout with cancer was unsuccessful and she died on 3 June 2011.[1] She was twenty days shy of her 86th birthday.Works
- Karlin, Miriam (2007). Jan Sargent. ed. Some Sort of a Life. London: Oberon Books. ISBN 9781840027808. (autobiography)
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