Born as Mary Barbara Jefford and brought up in the West Country, Barbara Jefford attended Weirfield School in Taunton, Somerset before training at RADA in London, where she was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal. In 1946, whilst still a student, she obtained small parts in the radio production of Westward Ho! and other radio plays, but her stage debut came in 1949, when she played the part of Viola in Twelfth Night at the Dolphin Theatre, Brighton.
After spending just one year working in repertory theatre, in 1950 she was given the part of Isabella in Peter Brook's production of Measure for Measure at the Shakespeare Memorial Company, (now the Royal Shakespeare Company) in Stratford upon Avon, playing opposite John Gielgud (Angelo) and Harry Andrews (Vincentio).
Over the next four years she went on to play many more major Shakespearean roles: Anne Bullen in Henry VIII opposite Tyrone Guthrie in 1950; Calphurnia in Julius Caesar opposite Anthony Quayle and Michael Langham in 1950; Hero, opposite John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft in 1950; Lady Percy in Henry IV, opposite John Kidd, Anthony Quayle and Michael Redgrave in 1951; Isabel opposite Richard Burton in Henry V , in 1951; Desdemona to Anthony Quayle's Othello in 1952; Rosalind in As You Like It (New Zealand Tour, 1953); Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part 1 ( New Zealand Tour and International Tour, 1953); Hippolyte in A Midsummer Night's Dream] in 1954; Kate to Keith Michell's Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew in 1954; and Helen in Troilus and Cressida in 1954.
After leaving Stratford she co-starred with Michael Redgrave, in Tiger at the Gates in the West End and on Broadway, before returning to work at the Old Vic. Amongst other roles she played there were Portia in The Merchant of Venice; Imogen in Cymbeline; Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing; Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Tamora in Titus Andronicus; Lady Anne in Richard III; Viola in Twelfth Night; Queen Margaret in Henry VI 1-3 ; Isabella in Measure for Measure; Regan in King Lear; Rosalind in As You Like It; and Viola in Twelfth Night. In 1978 she played Gertrude to Derek Jacobi's Hamlet.
She also played Beatrice in Shelley's The Cenci and Joan in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, emulating her mentor and friend, Dame Sybil Thorndike. Many of these productions toured the USA, the USSR, the Middle East and Europe.
Jefford next started a period of work with Frank Hauser's Oxford Playhouse which included the first of her three Cleopatras, Racine's Phèdre and Lina in Misalliance which transferred to the Criterion Theatre.
Other West End plays included Ride A Cock Horse, Filumena, Mistress of Novices and The Dark Horse, as well as the Almeida Theatre's Racine Season at the Albery Theatre. With this company she also played her second Volumnia in Coriolanus, opposite Ralph Fiennes in London, New York and Tokyo, her first being at Stratford with Charles Dance. In 1976 she was in the opening production at the Olivier Theatre playing Zabina in Tamburlaine the Great with Albert Finney.
She has repeated many Shakespeare roles in her long career, appearing in 54 productions of all but four of his plays. The last of these was Michael Grandage's Richard III with Kenneth Branagh in 2002, at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield in which she played Queen Margaret, opposite Derek Jacobi for the second time.
In July 2007 she played Mrs Higgins (the mother of Henry Higgins) in Peter Hall's acclaimed Theatre Royal, Bath production of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, which transferred to the Old Vic in May 2008
In 1959 she appeared as Ophelia in a TV production of Hamlet. In 1963 she provided the voice (uncredited) of the Russian heroine of the James Bond film From Russia with Love. Jefford provided additional voice work in later Bond films, dubbing Mollie Peters in Thunderball and Caroline Munro in The Spy Who Loved Me. Her first major film role was as Molly Bloom in Ulysses in 1967, for which she was nominated for a British Academy Award. This was followed by The Bofors Gun (Jack Gold, 1968); The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) and Lust for a Vampire (1971) She played Magda Goebbels in Hitler: the Last Ten Days (Ennio de Concini, 1973). Other films include Nelly's Version (1983), Fellini's And the Ship Sails On (E la nave va) (1983) Claudia (1985) and The Ninth Gate (Roman Polanski, 2000).
Barbara Jefford has appeared in several television dramas in the Play For Today series and has guest starred in several other popular television series. These include Edna, the Inebriate Woman in 1971; Walter and June (TV, 1986); Porterhouse Blue (TV, 1987); When the Whales Came (1989); Harold Pinter's Reunion (1989); Mrs Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread (Charles Sturridge, 1991); The House of Eliott (TV, 1991); The Saint (Philip Noyce, 1997); Midsomer Murders (TV, 2000) and Madame Bovary (TV, 2000). She has also appeared in episodes of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, and the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries.
In 1965, Jefford was awarded the OBE for her service to the theatre, becoming the youngest ever recipient of the award to that date; however she remains to be promoted (to CBE or DBE).
In 1977 she was also awarded the Jubilee Festival Medal.
