Andrée Melly

Andrée Melly was an English actress.

Early life

Melly was born on 15 December 1932 in Liverpool, Lancashire to Edith and Francis Melly. She made her stage début aged nine at the Little Theatre, Southport. After leaving Belvedere School, she attended the Swiss finishing school Mon Fertile, after which she acted in repertory theatre.

Career

She performed at the Old Vic in Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice and T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral in her early twenties and worked with Peter Finch and Robert Donat at the theatre. In 1958, she appeared with the Jamaican actor Lloyd Reckord in the Ted Willis play Hot Summer Night, a production which was later adapted for the Armchair Theatre series in 1959 and in which she was a participant in the earliest known interracial kiss on television. She continued to appear on British television until 1991. Her other stage work includes the original West End production of the farce Boeing-Boeing at the Apollo Theatre in 1962 with David Tomlinson and as Alice "Childie" McNaught in The Killing of Sister George at St Martin's in 1966.
Melly appeared in British films, including the comedy The Belles of St. Trinian's and the Hammer Horror film The Brides of Dracula. Her role in the latter film was as Gina, a woman who is bitten by Baron Meinster, a vampire, turning her into another undead character.
She reported in an interview with the writer Oscar Martinez in the magazine Little Shoppe of Horrors that she had played the role of Dracula's bride because she wanted to explore varied characters. She had previously played, on BBC television, Joan of Arc, and Jo March in Little Women, and the first white woman who played opposite a black man in a romantic drama in the West End, Hot Summer Night. She also played a lesbian lead in The Killing of Sister George also in the West End, in keeping with unusual roles.
During the filming of The Brides of Dracula, she invited her older brother George Melly, who was writing the cartoon strip Flook in The Daily Mail, to come to the film set to capture the filming of her climbing out of a coffin dressed as a vampire. George satirised his visit in his comic strip by having the character Flook visit a horror film studio that was employing his sister, who was playing a witch. The episode subsequently reappeared as a chapter on "My Little Sister" in George's fictional autobiography, I, Flook, in which Andrée's character, Lucretia, is described as having "long ratty hair and not too clean", and "baleful malevolence" in her eyes.
When Oscar Martinez interviewed Melly and her husband, the actor Oscar Quitak, he called the interview "The Vampire Woman and the Hunchback" because Quitak had played a hunchback in another Hammer horror film, The Revenge of Frankenstein.
Melly played Tony Hancock's girlfriend in two series of the Hancock's Half Hour radio series replacing Moira Lister. With the death of Bill Kerr in 2014, Melly was the last surviving regular cast member of Hancock's Half Hour. From 1967 to 1976, she was a regular panellist in the BBC radio comedy Just a Minute. Along with Sheila Hancock, she was one of the most regular female contestants, appearing in fifty-four episodes between 1967 and 1976. In 1972, she chaired an episode. She was the first panellist to win points for talking for the prescribed 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation. She also appeared in several episodes of The Benny Hill Show.

Personal life

One of her two brothers, George Melly, was a jazz singer. She latterly lived in Ibiza with her husband. The marriage produced two children.
Melly died on 31 January 2020 at the age of 87. Her husband survived her, dying on 31 December 2023.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	So Little Time	Paulette	Film
1954	The Belles of St. Trinian's	Lucretia	Film
1956	The Secret Tent	Ruth Martyn	Film
1957	The Passionate Stranger	Marla	Film
1958	Nowhere to Go	Rosa, cocktail waitress	Film
1960	Beyond the Curtain	Linda	Film
1960	The Brides of Dracula	Gina	Film
1960	The Big Day	Nina Wentworth	Film
1964	The Horror of It All	Natalia Marley	Film
1964	Boy with a Flute	Caroline Laser	Short film

Television appearances

Radio appearances

The appearances below have been sourced from the BBC Programme Index.

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	Mistress Macham's Repose	Maria	BBC Home Service, 6 April 1952
1955–1956	Hancock's Half Hour	Andrée	BBC Light Programme, 33 episodes
1955	Manservant and Maidservant	Sarah	BBC Home Service, 11 January 1955
1955	Waters of the Moon	Tonetta	BBC Home Service, 9 June 1955
1957	The Repair of Heaven	Allan McClelland	BBC Third Programme, 9 April 1957
1959	Unaccompanied Child	Jane	BBC Home Service, 20 September 1959
1959	Rhinoceros	Daisy	BBC Third Programme, 12 September 1959
1960	Dead Men's Embers	Jane Cleary	BBC Home Service, 8 May 1960
1960	Woman's Hour	self	BBC Light Programme, 12 July 1960
1960	Home For the Day		BBC Home Service, 10 September 1960
1962	A Girl in a Garden	Gwen	BBC Home Service, 28 August 1962
1962	London Mirror	self	BBC Light Programme, 10 March 1962
1962	Medea	Creusa	BBC Third Programme, 12 December 1962
1963	Don't Listen, Ladies	Madeline	BBC Home Service, 8 July 1963
1966	Woman's Hour	self	BBC Light Programme, 18 January 1966
1967–1976	Just a Minute	self	BBC Radio 4, 54 episodes
1968	Play School	self	BBC Radio Two, 2 episodes
1969	Story Time		BBC Radio 4, 4 episodes
1969	Saturday-Night Theatre		BBC Radio 4, Episode: "The Lady of Lyons", 18 October 1969
1970–1973	Petticoat Line	self	BBC Radio 4, 8 episodes
1971	Right or Wrong?	self	BBC Radio 2 & Radio 4, 7 episodes
1971	Saturday-Night Theatre	Catherine	BBC Radio 4, Episode: "The Hidden Face", 23 January 1971
1974	Husband of the Year	self	BBC Radio 2, 23 February 1974
1975	Many a Slip	self	BBC Radio 4, 22 December 1975
1976	Twenty Questions	self	BBC Radio 4, 14 July 1976
1989	With Great Pleasure	self	BBC Radio 4, 30 July 1989

Theatre appearances

The appearances below have been sourced from Theatricalia.