Wednesday, July 20

Gayle Hunnicutt

Sonnet meets Gayle Hunnicutt, an American actress whose design donation will be used in the V&A's ballgowns show.

Sooo . .. Hunnicutt born in Fort Worth, Texas, attended UCLA which we don't hold against her. She was married from 1968 to 1975 to the actor David Hemmings and later, the journalist Sir Simon Jenkins (they divorced in '08).

During her brief Hollywood career, Hunnicutt was typecast as a brunette sexpot. She co-starred with James Garner in the 1969 film Marlowe, the character she played being a glamorous Hollywood actress. After she moved to England with Hemmings in 1970, however, the finer range of her acting emerged. A notable role was that of Charlotte Stant, in the critically acclaimed Jack Pulman television adaptation (1972) of Henry James's The Golden Bowl. She went on to play Lionel's wife in The Legend of Hell House in 1973, and Tsarina Alexandra in Fall of Eagles in 1974. In 1984, she appeared as Irene Adler opposite Jeremy Brett in the very first episode ("A Scandal in Bohemia") of the series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Hunnicutt returned to America to play the role of Vanessa Beaumont in Dallas from 1989 to 1991.

Photo from Hunnicutt to Sonnet, presumably in item to be exhibited.