There was a streak of European exoticism in the voice and acting of Jane Lapotaire, who has died aged 81. Her poise and the lustrous sheen of her acting led her to the top of the Royal Shakespeare Company tree, where she was an honorary associate artist, and to leading roles at the National Theatre under Laurence Olivier.
On television she seemed perfect casting as, say, the Dowager Empress Dagmar of Russia in the Edward the Seventh (1975) miniseries starring Timothy West, or as an irresistible Cleopatra opposite Colin Blakely’s Antony in 1981, directed by Jonathan Miller, though, surprisingly, she never played that role on stage and was terrified of snakes (discovered when playing Charmian in the 1972 film version with Charlton Heston).
