Sheila Beryl Grant Attenborough, the Lady
Attenborough, known professionally by her
maiden name Sheila Sim, is an English film
and theatre actress and the widow of the actor
and director Richard Attenborough.
Career
Sim was mainly active as an actress in the
1940s and 1950s.
She appeared in the Powell and Pressburger
film, A Canterbury Tale in 1944; she acted
alongside her husband in the Boulting brothers'
The Guinea Pig in 1948; and starred opposite
Anthony Steel in 1954's West of Zanzibar.
In theatre, she notably co-starred with her
husband, Richard Attenborough, in the first
production of The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie,
which opened in London in 1952.
This thriller has since become the world's
longest-running production of a play.
After recruitment by Noël Coward, Sim has
actively served the Actors' Charitable Trust
for more than 60 years.
She was instrumental in the success of two
redevelopments of the actors' care home, Denville
Hall, in the 1960s and 2000s, and is currently
a Trustee and Vice President of the charities.
Sim has been a significant benefactor to the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she originally
trained; her husband was RADA's president
from 2003 until his death in 2014.
Family
Sheila married Richard Attenborough on 22
January 1945 and they had lived in a house
on Richmond Green in London from 1956 until
2012, when Richard put it up for sale for
£11.5 million.
The couple had three children, Michael, Jane,
and Charlotte.
Jane, along with her 15-year-old daughter,
Lucy, and her mother-in-law, also named Jane,
were killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami as
it struck their villa on the coast of Thailand
on 26 December 2004.
Michael and Charlotte are both involved, like
their parents, in the dramatic professions:
he as a director, she as an actress.
Sim's brother, Gerald, is also an actor.
Richard Attenborough died on 24 August 2014.
Sim and Attenborough had been married for
nearly 70 years.
Recent health
Shortly before her 90th birthday, in June
2012 Sim entered the actors' north London
retirement home Denville Hall, for which she
and her husband had helped raise funds.
In July 2012, while her husband Richard had
been battling health issues in recent years,
it was announced that Sim has been diagnosed
with senile dementia.
In March 2013. in light of his deteriorating
health, Richard Attenborough moved into Denville
Hall to be with his wife, confirmed by their
son Michael.
Selected filmography
A Canterbury Tale
Great Day
Dancing with Crime
The Guinea Pig
Dear Mr. Prohack
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
The Magic Box
West of Zanzibar
The Night My Number Came Up
External links
Sheila Sim at the Internet Movie Database
Notes and references
