Eileen Mary Ure (18 February 1933 - 3 April 1975) was a Scottish actress of stage and film.
Born in Glasgow where she studied at the School of Drama Ure was the daughter of civil engineer Colin McGregor Ure and Edith Swinburne. She went to the independent Mount School in York and went on to train for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Known for her beauty, Ure began performing on the London stage and quickly developed a reputation for her abilities as a dramatic actress.
While starring in John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger she began a relationship with the married Osborne; after he obtained a divorce they married in 1957. Ure went to New York City in 1958 to star in the Broadway production of Look Back in Anger and earned a Tony Award nomination for best dramatic actress. The highly successful play was translated to film and Ure reprised her role alongside Richard Burton. But her marriage to the womanizing John Osborne was already in difficulty and in 1959 she began an affair with actor Robert Shaw while they costarred in The Changeling at London's Royal Court Theatre. She gave birth to a son, naming him Colin Murray Osborne despite his physical resemblance to Shaw. She married Shaw on 13th April 1963 and as a married couple they legally adopted Colin who then became Colin Murray Shaw. The couple went on to have three more children.
In 1960 she appeared in the film Sons and Lovers and was nominated for both the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1960 she took time off to begin a family, returning to motion pictures in the sci-fi drama The Mind Benders (1962) starring Sir Dirk Bogarde in which she provided a wonderfully layered performance. In 1967 Ure appeared in a film with her husband Robert Shaw. The following year she teamed up again with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in the box office success Where Eagles Dare. Then in 1968 she appeared with Shaw as his wife in Custer of the West.
Ure did not return to film for another five years, although she did perform on stage. However her personal life was in turmoil and her growing alcoholism affected her career to the point she was fired from the 1974 pre-Broadway production of Love for Love and was replaced by her understudy Glenn Close.
In April of 1975 she appeared on the London stage with Honor Blackman and Brian Blessed and, after a disastrous opening night, died as the result of an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates. She was 42.
