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Barbara Ewing

Barbara Ewing is a New Zealand-born British actress and writer whose career stretches across film, television and the stage. Born in Carterton, New Zealand, on 14 January 1939, she grew up in a home filled with books brought back by her father from his work at the Ministry of Education. She began writing while young, an early interest that would eventually develop alongside her acting career. After attending Wellington East Girls’ College, Ewing studied English and Māori language at Victoria University of Wellington. With no national acting school training available in New Zealand at the time, she moved to Britain in 1962 on a New Zealand Government scholarship and trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her first television role came in A Choice of Kings in 1966, followed by her film debut in the Amicus horror anthology Torture Garden in 1967. She soon entered Hammer territory with Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, directed by Freddie Francis. Later film appearances included The Reckoning, S.O.S. Titanic, Eye of the Needle, Haunters of the Deep, When the Whales Came, Brothers of the Head and Mute. Television gave Ewing an especially varied run. She appeared in the Granada comedy Brass, played Treen Dudgeon in Comrade Dad and took the role of the accused witch Anne Mothersole in the 1975 Ghost Story for Christmas production The Ash Tree. Her credits also include The Sweeney, Casualty, Doctors, Holby City, The Bill, Peak Practice and several Ruth Rendell mysteries. Back in New Zealand, she appeared in Rachel, Pioneer Women and Loose Enz. Ewing’s stage work has ranged from Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen and Tennessee Williams to her acclaimed one-woman show Alexandra Kollontai. Writing became another substantial part of her creative life, with novels including The Mesmerist, The Fraud and The Petticoat Men, as well as the 2020 memoir One Minute Crying Time. Taken together, her work suggests a career shaped less by one defining role than by sustained curiosity across different forms and genres.