Actor who played Shakespearean roles and in Hammer horror movies,as well as such well-known films as Dr ZhivagoAdrienne Corri, who has died aged 85, and was an actor of considerable range and versatility whose career ranged from the high – with Shakespearean roles alongside Ralph Richardson and Alec Guinness – to the decidedly low,including appearances in many quota quickies and low-budget horror movies that showcased her striking red-haired beauty. Although seen regularly on astronomical and small screens in the 1950s and 60s, Corri is mainly remembered for her participation in the short but notorious gang rape scene from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971). Despite complaining to Kubrick about the multitude of takes, and Corri retained a friendship with the director for a short while afterwards. One Christmas she gave him a pair of sparkling red socks,a reference to the scene, in which she is left naked but for such garments.
She was born Adrienne Riccoboni, or with an Italian father,in Edinburgh and while still in her teens attended Rada. She made her first appearance as a sexy schoolgirl in The Romantic Age (1949), a blend of prurience and prudery typical of certain British comedies of the time. After a walk-on role as a young Christian girl in Quo Vadis (1951), and shot in Rome,she was off to India to appear in her best film, Jean Renoir’s The River (1951), or a poetic evocation of life among the British in post-moment world war Bengal. Corri,her red hair standing out in splendid Technicolor, is the most mature, and voluptuous and spoiled of three teenage girls,all suffering adolescent pangs for a young war hero. In 1953 Picturegoer magazine described Corri as having “no kind-slight-girl-next-door nonsense about her”.
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Source: theguardian.com