FRANCES CUKA
(21 August 1936 - 16 February 2020)
Although never a household name, the actress Frances Cuka, who has died aged 83 following a stroke and cancer, will always be remembered for creating one of the iconic stage roles in the history of the British theatre. As Jo in Shelagh Delaney’s groundbreaking 1958 play A Taste of Honey for Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at Stratford East, she portrayed a teenager who becomes pregnant by a black sailor but is then cared for by a gay boyfriend, a scenario that the middle-class theatre-going public had never encountered before. Sadly Cuka did not get the film role, which went to Rita Tushingham, but she did get to play Jo on Broadway. Born in London to a family of Czech extraction, Frances Cuka was educated in Brighton and studied acting at the Guildhall School. She made her stage debut in Warrington and various other rep theatres. After Stratford East, she worked at the Royal Court in London and also for the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Aldwych. Her first film was Over the Odds in 1961 and she went on to appear in Scrooge (as Mrs Cratchit) with Albert Finney, Henry VIII and His Six Wives (as Catherine of Aragon), Hide and Seek for the Children’s Film Foundation, The Watcher in the Woods with Bette Davis, Bob Rafelson’s Mountains of the Moon, Afraid of the Dark with James Fox, Snow White: A Tale of Terror with Sigourney Weaver, François Ozon’s Swimming Pool with Charlotte Rampling, Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist (as Mrs Bedwin), and Closer to the Moon with Vera Farmiga. Frances Cuka appeared in many television series and TV movies such as Henry IV Part II (as Doll Tearsheet), Minder, Trial & Retribution, The Bill and Holby City, among others. She was originally cast as Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders but the part eventually went to Jo Warne and ultimately Barbara Windsor. Her last TV appearances were in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner, playing, hilariously, the Jewish grandma Nelly Buller and showing her great talent for comedy. Frances Cuka was a fine but perhaps underrated actress of great versatility. She remained unmarried, despite having two long-running partnerships.
MICHAEL DARVELL