Liz Smith

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2008

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actress Liz Smith. Her story is a triumph of talent and perseverance over circumstance. Her mother died when she was tiny, her father walked out of her life and for many years she was brought up by her grandmother who was in mourning for her only child and her own husband. For Liz, acting and making people laugh was an escape from the often harsh realities of life, but she had to wait until she was 50 for her first real break - a role in Mike Leigh's film Bleak Moments. By that time, she'd raised her two children on her own with very little money and knew that this was her opportunity to prove what she could do.

She won critical acclaim and was later awarded a Bafta for her appearance in Alan Bennett's A Private Function and finally, when she was in her 70s, she became a household name through her roles in The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family. She's now 86 years old and, although she concedes the characters she plays have a habit of dying on screen, she isn't planning to retire any time soon.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Only The Lonely by Roy Orbison Book: A very large catalogue Luxury: A complete artist's set.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.7	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.4	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to helping
0:22.7	you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put together
0:28.7	by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:41.8	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:44.9	The program was originally broadcast in 2008.
1:06.9	Music My castaway this week is the actress Liz Smith.
1:12.6	As Nana in the royal family, she portrayed the vagaries of old age with acute comic timing and poignancy. Indeed, the part was a fitting career-defining performance for someone who
1:17.9	specialised in playing a long line of idiosyncratic old bats. Her success has been a triumph of
1:25.1	talent and perseverance over circumstance.
1:35.3	She didn't make it as an actress until she was 50, and her early family life was plagued with loss, abandonment and sorrow.
1:39.8	Now 86, her characters have a habit of dying on screen.
1:42.3	It is, she says, an occupational hazard.
1:46.4	Even so, acting and making people laugh has always been a way of escaping the often harsh realities of her life, and she isn't planning to retire anytime soon.
1:52.6	So, Liz Smith, let's start, if you don't mind, with your screen deaths. We had Letty Cropley
1:57.7	and the Vicar of Dibbley and Nana in the Royal Family. Yes. You are in essence...
2:02.6	That stage. You're at that stage in your career, but you're also a method actor. I mean, how... I am. Yes, that's right. I worked for years with Charles Maravis.
2:11.6	So how difficult is it to play yourself dying on screen? If you're a method actor, it must be quite a traumatic process.
2:18.9	Well, it is, but then it's been a long life and you kind of see it coming.
	...

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