Elizabeth Sellars

Elizabeth Sellars was born Elizabeth Macdonald Sellars on 6 May 1921 in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, the daughter of Stephen Sellars and Jean Sutherland. From the age of fifteen she began performing on stage, a precocious start that foreshadowed a lifelong devotion to the dramatic arts. After a brief stint studying law in England for five years, she pursued formal training at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she honed the techniques that would define her versatile career. During World War II she served with ENSA, entertaining British troops abroad, and emerged from the conflict with a reputation for professionalism and poise. Her London stage debut arrived in 1946 when she appeared in The Brothers Karamazov under the direction of Peter Brook, sharing the bill with Alec Guinness, and soon after she became a regular presence with the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking on such iconic roles as Elizabeth in Richard III, Helen in Troilus and Cressida, Gertrude in Hamlet, and Hermione in The Winter’s Tale.