This ill-fated British actress was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, on February 27th 1936. After the outbreak of World War II, young Virginia and her family were evacuated to South Africa. She eventually returned to London and entered a convent school where the pretty, grey-eyed brunette developed an interest in acting. She attended drama school and finally broke into the business with TV parts, usually playing demure young lasses in assorted dashing action series such as 'The Buccaneers' and 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'.
After filming 'Only Two Can Play' in 1962 all filming stopped, this was primarily due to her marriage and focus on family life. There were occasional TV appearances in such popular series as Danger Man where she starred in the fifty-minute episode 'The Colonel's Daughter' and the first episode of The Prisoner playing the Woman/Number 9 who was romantically linked to Cobb.
It was learned that following the birth of her second son in February 1966, she began showing acute signs of post-natal depression. In the summer of 1967 Virginia returned auspiciously to filming but then suffered a severe nervous breakdown following the film's shoot and never recovered. On January 24th 1968, a bitterly cold day she took a major overdose of antidepressants, drove from her home at Princes Risborough, and never returned. She was found collapsed in a nearby wooded area the next day suffering from acute hypothermia. Although she was revived briefly, she died shortly after at a nearby hospital on January 25th 1968. She was just short of her 32nd birthday. |
