This attractive redhead seemed destined for film fame in the 1960s, but there wasn't much left of her movie career by the mid-70s. Her earliest British films - such as "The Wild And The Willing" (which also introduced John Hurt and Ian McShane to the cinema), "Doctor In Distress" and "Psyche 59" - didn't make much impact, though she was attractive and talented in them, but then she got the female lead in "The Collector", playing a young art student kidnapped by a deranged stalker who, unfortunately for her, is rich enough to indulge his obsession. In advance, people talked of this as a
… More stardom-clinching role, and she did get an Oscar nomination for it; but when the film was finally seen, it was regarded as a massive disappointment, a travesty of John Fowles's brilliant novel, and a box-office flop. Two years later, she was Rex Harrison's leading lady in "Dr. Dolittle", a far bigger failure in which she had a negligible part (which, however, consumed her energies for nearly a year's shooting) and "The Molly Maguires" in 1970 was a third very expensive box-office failure, although it was a distinguished film in which she was excellent. The writing was on the wall, alas; after her divorce from actor Tom Stern in 1971, she was mostly seen in small Canadian films, although TV kept her quite busy.
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