Carmel McSharry
Actress BORN AUGUST 18, 1926 DIED MARCH 4, 2018, AGED 91
IT is for the 1970s ITV series Beryl’s Lot that actress Carmel McSharry will be best remembered.
In the comedy drama she played a downtrodden housewife who signs up for an evening class in philosophy. The story of working-class Beryl Humphries who discovers there’s more to life than drudgery arguably paved the way for Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.
McSharry also enjoyed a co-starring role alongside Warren Mitchell in the second series of In Sickness And In Health, the sequel to Till Death Us Do Part, as landlady Mrs Hollingbery.
McSharry was born in Ireland but her family moved back to London after her birth. She was evacuated to Surrey during the Second World War and, on leaving school, worked as a secretary for Unilever in London. She began acting in a local drama group and later gained a scholarship to Rada. In 1947 she made her West End debut in the JB Priestley play The Linden Tree and appeared as Nicholas Lyndhurst’s mother in Straight & Narrow and Mrs Bedwin in the Oliver! revival at the London Palladium. In 1962 she played Nancy in a BBC adaptation of Oliver Twist.
Between 1977 and 1979 McSharry was in Liverpool sitcom The Liver Birds playing Mrs Boswell, the mother of Carol (Elizabeth Estensen). In another revival of the sitcom in 1996, McSharry played Mrs Hennessey, the mother of Beryl (Polly James).
She is survived by three children.