Diane Cilento, an Australian actress whose long stage and screen career included an Oscar-nominated performance in the 1963 movie “Tom Jones,” died in Queensland, Australia, on Thursday, a day after her 78th birthday.
Her death was announced by Anna Bligh, the premier of Queensland. No cause was given.
Ms. Cilento began acting in her teens and was 22 when she was nominated for a Tony Award in 1956 for her portrayal of Helen of Troy in a production of the Jean Giraudoux play Tiger at the Gates. On screen she appeared with Charlton Heston in “The Agony and the Ecstasy” (1965) and with Paul Newman in the western “Hombre” (1967).
She received an Academy Award nomination in 1963 for her supporting performance in “Tom Jones,” Tony Richardson’s hugely successful film version of Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel, as a gamekeeper’s daughter who lusts after the roguish title character, played by Albert Finney. (“Diane Cilento is all teeth and claws as the insatiable Molly,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his enthusiastic New York Times review.) The film was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 4, including best picture and best director.
Ms. Cilento was born in Queensland on Oct. 5, 1933, to parents who were both doctors, and moved to New York after her father took a job with the United Nations. She later moved to London, where she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Source: The New York Times Obituary