Lila Kaye

Biography

Lila Kaye (7 November 1929 – 10 January 2012) was an English actress. She spent a number of years working in the United States, on Broadway and in television, before returning to England. She often played motherly and/or comedic characters, mostly on television, including Cathy Come Home (1966) as a staff member at a homeless shelter, and My Son Reuben (1975), co-starring Bernard Spear, as a Jewish mother and her bachelor son who jointly run a dry-cleaning business. She also appeared in films including Blind Terror (1971), The Black Panther (1977) and Quincy's Quest (1979), and found film success in later years for her performances in An American Werewolf in London (1981) as the conflicted rural barmaid trying to warn off the two doomed American backpackers, in Nuns on the Run (1990) as a formidable nun, and in Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story (1991; an American television film), in which she played Dorothy Ireland, the real-life mother of cancer-stricken actress Jill Ireland (played by Jill Clayburgh).[1] Kaye appeared in Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (1989) as Mrs. Pennington, and in Dragonworld (1994) as Mrs. Cosgrove.

Known For

Murder, She Wrote

Cheers

The Saint

Sherlock Holmes

Theatre 625

Birds of a Feather

Dear John

BBC2 Play of the Week

All Movies (24)

• Eskimo Day1996 · as Mother Polly
• Dragonworld1994 · as Mrs. Cosgrove
• Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris1992 · as Vi Butterfield
• Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story1991 · as Dorothy, Jill's mother
• Antonia and Jane1990 · as Jane's Mother
• Nuns on the Run1990 · as Sister Mary of the Annunciation
• Bert Rigby, You're a Fool1989 · as Mrs. Pennington
• The Trial of Klaus Barbie1987 · as Lagrange
• The Sign of Four1987 · as Mrs Mordecai Smith
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes1987 · as Ms. Houston
• Making Waves1987 · as Mrs Nash
• The Canterville Ghost1986 · as Mrs. Umney
• Camille1984 · as Nanine
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre1984 · as Bawd
• Sredni Vashtar1981 · as Mrs. Woolridge
• An American Werewolf in London1981 · as Barmaid
• Quincy's Quest1979 · as Griselda
• The Black Panther1977
• The Kitchen1977 · as Bertha
• A Place to Die1973 · as Bess
• King's Cross Lunch Hour1972 · as The Manageress
• See No Evil1971 · as Gypsy Mother
• Mr. Horatio Knibbles1971 · as Nancy's Mother
• The Fiction Makers1968 · as Ma

All TV Shows (18)

• Cafe Americain1993 · as Margaret Hunt
• Anglo Saxon Attitudes1992 · as Dr. Rose Lorimer
• Birds of a Feather1989 · as Mrs. McCarthy
• Dear John1988 · as Audrey
• Ellis Island1984 · as Kathleen O'Donnell
• Murder, She Wrote1984 · as Teresa Mancini
• The Invisible Man1984 · as Mrs Jenny Hall
• Pull The Other One1984 · as Grandma
• Sherlock Holmes1984 · as Mrs. Mordecai Smith
• Mama Malone1984 · as 'Mama' Renate Malone
• The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby1982
• Cheers1982 · as Lillian Huxley
• BBC2 Play of the Week1977 · as Bertha
• The Flaxton Boys1969 · as Sarah Weekes
• David Copperfield1966 · as Clara Peggotty
• Theatre 6251964 · as Romaine
• Festival1963 · as Sophie
• The Saint1962 · as Ma