Kate O'Mara - obituary
Kate O'Mara was an actress who delighted 'Dynasty' audiences with her glowering showdowns with Joan Collins
Kate O'Mara with her Dynasty co-stars John Forsythe and Christopher Cazenove Photo: REX
Kate O'Mara, who has died aged 74, was an actress whose cliff-high cheek bones, brooding glare and nifty line in tough talk fuelled a successful international television career. She first came to prominence in cult British series, such as Dr Who and Triangle, but found international fame as Joan Collins’s catty sister in the hugely popular American television show Dynasty. However, her onscreen persona — granite graced with lace — was often at odds with the more placid elements of her personality. “Recently I did The Graham Norton Show, which was very alarming,” she said in 2008. “He was being crude and I’m not very good with crude. I like sophistication and elegance.”
As Cassandra “Caress” Morrell — the revenge-obsessed sybling of Collins’s Alexis Colby — O’Mara excelled in bouts of verbal sparring with her British co-star over the course of 19 episodes in the mid-1980s. Cassandra is a jailbird with payback on her mind. Having been released from a Venezuelan prison — where she was incarcerated over an incident involving Alexis — she arrives in Denver, Colorado, under the name Caress. Her plan is to make a fortune by writing a searing exposé on her sister’s dark, salacious past.
Kate O'Mara at home in 2008 (REX)
Alexis discovers the ploy, however, covertly buys up the publishing company and pulps the project. “I’ve come to ask you for your autograph, congratulations sister dearest, it’s a wonderful piece of fiction,” sneers Alexis. “Of course I’ve read it. It doesn’t take very long. It’s like a comic book without the pictures.”
“We had a tremendous bitchy tension between us,” recalled O’Mara. “My character Caress was like an annoying little mosquito who just kept coming back and biting her.” The performance was a masterclass in melodrama — delivering a rollercoaster ride of fictional success and trauma that was matched by her own life story. “I’m part of six generations of a theatrical family,” she wrote in her memoirs, Vamp Until Ready: A Life Laid Bare (2003). “For over 40 years I’ve done everything from Shakespeare to Hollywood soaps, from Restoration Comedy to Cult Television Drama, from Westerns to Pantomime. I have been nothing if not diverse! My personal life, however, has been a disaster area. Rape, desertion, adoption, divorce and numerous relationships with very much younger men. And this for someone who sees herself as an intellectual and can’t be doing with sex at all... Oh well, the show must go on!”
Kate O'Mara with her Dynasty co-stars, Christopher Cazenove, John Forsythe and Joan Collins
Kate O’Mara was born in Leicester on August 10 1939, the daughter of John F. Carroll, an RAF flying instructor, and actress Hazel Bainbridge. After boarding school she studied at art school before becoming a full-time actress (her younger sister, Belinda, followed suit). Her early television appearances during the 1960s included roles in series such as The Saint, The Champions, The Avengers and Z-Cars.
In the early Seventies she made a more selacious name for herself as the voluptuous figure of desire in erotic horror B-movies such as The Vampire Lovers (1970). Equally dubious was Triangle, an early-Eighties soap opera in which she starred. Set on a North Sea ferry running a route between Felixstowe and Gothenberg it has often been cited as one of the worst pieces of television ever produced (although retrospectively it drew admirers).
Kate O'Mara in The Saint in 1967
The move to America for Dynasty came with its own problems for a country girl from England. “I had a five-year contract on Dynasty and after two months I was thinking, goodness, how am I going to stand it out here?” she recalled. “It’s just relentless sunshine. It’s a desert at the end of the day. I love the seasons, I love winter and autumn and rain. The people were very charming but I did find that it wasn’t terribly good for my soul.” She was let go after a series. “The studio said: 'Joan thinks it’s not a good idea to have another brunette on the show,’” recalled O’Mara. “I was quite relieved. I’d been asked to appear in King Lear back in Britain, and they said: 'Oh you go back and do your little play,’ which I thought was hilarious.”
If Triangle had been Crossroads-on-sea then her role as a cut-throat businesswoman in thee sailing soap opera Howard’s Way in 1990 at least saw her play up-stream with the regatta set. O’Mara also had a recurring role playing the renegade Time Lord “The Rani” in the cult Doctor Who series. Appearing opposite both the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy incarnations of the Doctor, her scientifically-minded devilish character enslaved planets to experiment on their subjects (during last year’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the series she expressed a wish to come back to the role as an older woman).
Kate O'Mara, alongside Shirley Bassey and Joan Collins, meeting the Queen at the Royal Academy in 2012
In later years she returned to familiar territory playing another character with a difficult sister — this time playing second sibling to Joanna Lumley’s Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. During the Ninties she followed her Joan Collins lead and turned her hand to writing, publishing two novels (When She Was Bad, 1995, and Good Time Girl, 1993) and two autobiographical volumes (Vamp Until Ready, 2003, and Game Plan: A Woman’s Survival Kit, 1990).
In 2012, her son, Dickon Young — formerly a stage manager for the Royal Shakespeare Company — was found hanged at the family home. He had had a history of mental illness. Late in life she talked how she had overcome her own bouts of depression : “particularly during my first marriage break-up 31 years ago. But I’ve since learnt a cure for depression: listening to J.S. Bach and reading P.G. Wodehouse. This got me through the break-up of my second marriage 17 years ago. The great thing about Wodehouse is that his books are full of romantic problems and yet so hilarious that it puts things in perspective.” The quiet country life in occassional retirement in Somerset suited her. “I’m not frightened of dying, but I love the countryside so much and I’m going to miss it. I’d like to be out in the wind and the trees for ever.”
Kate O’Mara married twice. First to Jeremy Young in 1961 (dissolved in 1976) and, secondly, in 1993, to Richard Willis (dissolved 1996). Her son, from a separate relationship, predeceased her.
She is survived by her sister.
Kate O’Mara, born August 10 1939, died March 30 2014
Kate O'Mara with her Dynasty co-stars, Christopher Cazenove, John Forsythe and Joan Collins
Kate O’Mara was born in Leicester on August 10 1939, the daughter of John F. Carroll, an RAF flying instructor, and actress Hazel Bainbridge. After boarding school she studied at art school before becoming a full-time actress (her younger sister, Belinda, followed suit). Her early television appearances during the 1960s included roles in series such as The Saint, The Champions, The Avengers and Z-Cars.
In the early Seventies she made a more selacious name for herself as the voluptuous figure of desire in erotic horror B-movies such as The Vampire Lovers (1970). Equally dubious was Triangle, an early-Eighties soap opera in which she starred. Set on a North Sea ferry running a route between Felixstowe and Gothenberg it has often been cited as one of the worst pieces of television ever produced (although retrospectively it drew admirers).
Kate O'Mara in The Saint in 1967
The move to America for Dynasty came with its own problems for a country girl from England. “I had a five-year contract on Dynasty and after two months I was thinking, goodness, how am I going to stand it out here?” she recalled. “It’s just relentless sunshine. It’s a desert at the end of the day. I love the seasons, I love winter and autumn and rain. The people were very charming but I did find that it wasn’t terribly good for my soul.” She was let go after a series. “The studio said: 'Joan thinks it’s not a good idea to have another brunette on the show,’” recalled O’Mara. “I was quite relieved. I’d been asked to appear in King Lear back in Britain, and they said: 'Oh you go back and do your little play,’ which I thought was hilarious.”
If Triangle had been Crossroads-on-sea then her role as a cut-throat businesswoman in thee sailing soap opera Howard’s Way in 1990 at least saw her play up-stream with the regatta set. O’Mara also had a recurring role playing the renegade Time Lord “The Rani” in the cult Doctor Who series. Appearing opposite both the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy incarnations of the Doctor, her scientifically-minded devilish character enslaved planets to experiment on their subjects (during last year’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the series she expressed a wish to come back to the role as an older woman).
Kate O'Mara, alongside Shirley Bassey and Joan Collins, meeting the Queen at the Royal Academy in 2012
In later years she returned to familiar territory playing another character with a difficult sister — this time playing second sibling to Joanna Lumley’s Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. During the Ninties she followed her Joan Collins lead and turned her hand to writing, publishing two novels (When She Was Bad, 1995, and Good Time Girl, 1993) and two autobiographical volumes (Vamp Until Ready, 2003, and Game Plan: A Woman’s Survival Kit, 1990).
In 2012, her son, Dickon Young — formerly a stage manager for the Royal Shakespeare Company — was found hanged at the family home. He had had a history of mental illness. Late in life she talked how she had overcome her own bouts of depression : “particularly during my first marriage break-up 31 years ago. But I’ve since learnt a cure for depression: listening to J.S. Bach and reading P.G. Wodehouse. This got me through the break-up of my second marriage 17 years ago. The great thing about Wodehouse is that his books are full of romantic problems and yet so hilarious that it puts things in perspective.” The quiet country life in occassional retirement in Somerset suited her. “I’m not frightened of dying, but I love the countryside so much and I’m going to miss it. I’d like to be out in the wind and the trees for ever.”
Kate O’Mara married twice. First to Jeremy Young in 1961 (dissolved in 1976) and, secondly, in 1993, to Richard Willis (dissolved 1996). Her son, from a separate relationship, predeceased her.
She is survived by her sister.
Kate O’Mara, born August 10 1939, died March 30 2014
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