I saw Charlotte Cornwell be wonderfully full of fire, depth and romance opposite Ian McKellen in Michael Frayn’s Wild Honey, and then luminous in Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, both at the National Theatre. Like many great actors, she could exist on two planes, at once both of the earth and of the spirit.
Later I was fortunate to direct her in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys in Los Angeles, where she played Mrs Lintott, one of the teachers. The boys in the production revered her as she challenged and encouraged them, and she inspired many others while teaching at the University of Southern California.
Charlotte was a teacher, a campaigner, and a force of nature. Furious at Donald Trump’s threat to endangered species like the grey wolf, she said she was “at peace with animals, but seldom with people. I want to come back as a wolf, a lone wolf.” Yet she was the warmest, staunchest ally you could hope to have.
Fearless Choices was the name that Charlotte gave to her project to help working-class actors fund their training: it was also how she led her life. As Maggie Steed, a close friend, said, she was lionhearted.
