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Lila Kaye

Acting Born Nov 7, 1929 Worthing, Sussex, England, UK 24 credits

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.

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Known for

Murder, She Wrote

as Teresa Mancini
Film

Donnie Darko

as Lillian Huxley

The Saint

as Ma

Sherlock Holmes

as Mrs. Mordecai Smith
Film

Dracula 3000

as Audrey
Film

An American Werewolf in London

as Barmaid

Cafe Americain

as Margaret Hunt

Awkward.

as Gypsy Mother

Full filmography

  • Murder, She Wrote (1984) as Teresa Mancini
  • Cheers (1982) as Lillian Huxley
  • The Saint (1962) as Ma
  • Sherlock Holmes (1984) as Mrs. Mordecai Smith
  • Theatre 625 (1964) as Romaine
  • Birds of a Feather (1989) as Mrs. McCarthy
  • Dear John (1988) as Audrey
  • BBC2 Play of the Week (1977) as Bertha
  • Festival (1963) as Sophie
  • An American Werewolf in London (1981) as Barmaid
  • Cafe Americain (1993) as Margaret Hunt
  • Ellis Island (1984) as Kathleen O'Donnell
  • Anglo Saxon Attitudes (1992) as Dr. Rose Lorimer
  • The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1982)
  • The Flaxton Boys (1969) as Sarah Weekes
  • Mama Malone (1984) as 'Mama' Renate Malone
  • David Copperfield (1966) as Clara Peggotty
  • The Invisible Man (1984) as Mrs Jenny Hall
  • The Sign of Four (1987) as Mrs Mordecai Smith
  • See No Evil (1971) as Gypsy Mother
  • Nuns on the Run (1990) as Sister Mary of the Annunciation
  • Eskimo Day (1996) as Mother Polly
  • Camille (1984) as Nanine
  • Antonia and Jane (1990) as Jane's Mother