10 Essex & Suffolk Based Celebrities & Historical Figures

Lillie Langtry (main photo)

The vivacious Victorian actress, who shared her bed with two royals and whose social circles included meeting Oscar Wilde, bought a property in Kentford near Newmarket. Choosing a farmhouse near the home of racing was to indulge her fondness of horses but she also turned it into an expensively extended and decorated ‘pleasure palace’ to impress her friends and lovers.

Charlotte Rampling

The Hollywood star, most recently seen in the sci-fi epic Dune, spent her formative years in the village of Sturmer on the Suffolk/Essex border. In those days both Charlotte and her sister dreamed of being singers but after education at a French convent and Madrid University – via a typing pool – she entered the film industry and never looked back. Roles in Georgy Girl, The Night Porter, Angel Heart, Stardust Memories and The Verdict followed.

Leonard Cheshire

The one time Cavendish resident was a hero in both war and peace. He was a highly decorated pilot in World War II becoming a Group Captain and flying a unique total of 100 missions. He was the only British observer of the atom bombing of Nagasaki.
Some three years after the war he started his charity, Leonard Cheshire Care Homes. In 1959 he married Margaret Susan Ryder and their home in Cavendish became the original headquarters of the Sue Ryder charity.

Stephen Fry (pictured)

Although the comedian, author, actor and presenter is most commonly linked with Norfolk his maternal grandparents lived in Bury St Edmunds during the 1920s. His Slovakian grandfather was one of the people responsible for establishing the town’s sugar beet factory. Fry went to school at Gresham’s which inspired his love of literature, theatre and dramatic art.

Sir Peter Hall

Hall’s obituary in The Times called him “the most important figure in British theatre for half a century.” Born the only son of a railway clerk he rose from an impoverished childhood in Bury St Edmunds to become the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a pioneer of the National Theatre. His talents also took him into the worlds of opera, television and cinema, the latter with his film Akenfield, a portrait of a Suffolk village (said to be Charsfield) in the first 60 years of the 20th century.

John Le Mesurier

The actor was the most famous member of staff at Bury St Edmunds law firm Greene & Greene. He lived in Bury and followed his father into the legal profession becoming an articled clerk in 1930. He left after three years for a career on stage and screen, culminating in his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC TV sitcom Dad’s Army which ran from 1968-77.

Dodie Smith (pictured)

Many will know the children’s classic story (and Disney favourite) The Hundred and One Dalmatians but not so noted is the tribute to the author on Sudbury’s Market Hill. A drinking fountain bears a plate quoting a passage from Smith’s book as it is believed Sudbury was the setting for part of the story’s search for the missing puppies. Smith lived in neighbouring North Essex but set another of her novels, I Capture The Castle, in Suffolk.

Patricia Highsmith

American novelist and master of the psychological thriller, Highsmith lived for a few years at Earl Soham, near Stowmarket. Best known for her books The Talented Mr Ripley, Strangers On A Train and Carol she loved to shock and as an alcoholic nymphomaniac she often succeeded.

Bob Hoskins

On screen he was often famed as a London gangster but if Bob Hoskins had stayed in his birthplace of Bury St Edmunds maybe that cockney growl would have been a Suffolk burr. Evacuated from war-torn London, Hoskins spent precious little time in West Suffolk. The family moved back to the capital and after a variety of jobs he turned to acting with his breakthrough coming in the TV drama Pennies From Heaven. Film roles in The Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa and Who Framed Roger Rabbit reinforced his star appeal.

Hammond Innes (pictured)

His ripping yarns of wartime exploits and high seas adventure were usually bestsellers in the 1960s and 70s, yet these high paced tales were written from one of the quietest backwaters of Suffolk. Innes loved the peace and tranquility of his home in Kersey and was made a CBE for his services to literature.