Jill Freud

{{short description|British actress and theatre director (1927–2025)|bot=PearBOT 5}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = | image = Cropped_Photo_of_June_Flewett.jpg | caption = Freud in 2005 | birth_name = June Beatrice Flewett | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1927|4|22}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2025|11|24|1927|4|22}} | death_place = | occupation = {{flatlist| *Actress *theatre director }} | years_active = 1947–2016 | spouse = {{marriage|[[Clement Freud|Sir Clement Freud]]|1950|2009|end=d.}} | children = 5, including [[Emma Freud|Emma]] and [[Matthew Freud|Matthew]] | website = }}

'''June Beatrice, Lady Freud''' ({{née|'''Flewett'''}}; 22 April 1927 – 24 November 2025) was a British actress and theatre director. She was also known by her stage-name '''Jill Raymond''', and was usually known as '''Jill Freud''' after her marriage to [[Clement Freud]]. As a wartime teenager, she was evacuated to [[C. S. Lewis]]'s house in [[Oxford]] and she is said to have been the inspiration for [[Lucy Pevensie]] in the ''[[Chronicles of Narnia]]''.<ref>Nigel Farndale, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505196/I-was-sure-that-children-would-not-want-to-be-told-that-this-old-lady-was-Lucy.html 'I was sure that children would not want to be told that this old lady was Lucy'], Telegraph Co. UK, 11 December 2005</ref><ref name="Grdn2025">{{cite news |last=Shoard |first=Catherine |title=Jill Freud, Love Actually actor and inspiration for Lucy in Narnia books, dies aged 98 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/24/jill-freud-love-actually-actor-cs-lewis-inspiration-narnia-dies-aged-98 |access-date=28 November 2025 |work=The Guardian |date=24 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Grdnobit2025"/>

==Stay with Lewis== June and her two sisters were [[Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II|evacuated from London]] to escape [[The Blitz]]. In the summer of 1943, at the age of 16, she took a housekeeper's job at [[The Kilns]], in [[Risinghurst]], a suburb of Oxford. The house was the property and home of [[Maureen Dunbar]], her late son's friend [[C. S. Lewis]], and his brother Warren Lewis. Her [[C. S. Lewis bibliography|favourite writer was C. S. Lewis]], known to his friends as Jack, and initially she had no idea she was living in a house with the same man. She developed what she later called a "tremendous crush" on him.<ref name="Grdn2025"/> She was highly regarded in the household; C. S. Lewis wrote to her mother praising her in January 1945: "I have never really met anything like her unselfishness and patience and kindness and shall feel deeply in her debt as long as I live."<ref>C. S. Lewis, ''The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis'', Volume 2, HarperOne, 2004, p. 636.</ref>

==Career== Freud was an aspiring actress. After two years, she left The Kilns to take up a place at the [[Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]] (RADA), her fees being paid by Lewis. Following her graduation, she embarked upon a successful career in the [[West End of London|West End]] under the stage name Jill Raymond.<ref name="Grdn2025"/> She married [[Clement Freud]] in 1950 and performed in occasional radio plays. In the 1970s, when her husband became a [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] [[Member of Parliament|MP]] for the [[Isle of Ely (UK Parliament constituency)|Isle of Ely]], she helped him canvass.

In 1980, she formed her own theatre company, "Jill Freud and Company", in [[Suffolk]].<ref name="Phillips2002">{{cite book|author=Justin Phillips|title=C.S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7vIdAQAAIAAJ|year=2002|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-00-710437-6|page=109}}</ref> Her last role was [[Hugh Grant]]'s Downing Street housekeeper in ''[[Love Actually]]''.<ref name="Grdnobit2025">{{cite news |last1=Freud |first1=Emma |title=Jill Freud obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/nov/27/jill-freud-obituary |access-date=28 November 2025 |work=The Guardian |date=27 November 2025}}</ref>

In 2001, she received an [[Honorary degree|Honorary]] [[Doctor of Civil Law|Doctorate in Civil Law]] from the [[University of East Anglia]] for services to the theatre.<ref name="telegraph obit" /><ref name="Grdnobit2025"/>

==Personal life and death== Freud was Vice President of TACT, the Actors' Children's Trust.<ref>[https://actorschildren.org/about-act/famous-names/ "Famous Names," TACT, the Actors' Children's Trust official website]</ref>

Freud had five children (one adopted), Nicola, Ashley, Dominic, [[Emma Freud|Emma]]<ref name="Guardian">{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/24/clement-freud-funeral-emma-freud |title=Emma Freud: My father, Clement Freud, remembered |date=24 April 2010 |work=The Guardian |access-date=9 January 2011}}</ref> and [[Matthew Freud|Matthew]]. At the time of her death, she had 18 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. <ref>{{cite news |last=Freud |first=Emma |date=2025-11-27 |title=Jill Freud obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/nov/27/jill-freud-obituary |access-date=2025-12-15 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

Freud died on 24 November 2025, at the age of 98.<ref name="telegraph obit">{{cite news |title=Lady Freud, actress wife of Clement Freud and inspiration for Lucy in CS Lewis’s Narnia |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/11/25/lady-freud-jill-raymond-clement-cs-lewis-narnia-lucy/ |access-date=25 November 2025 |publisher=The Telegraph |date=25 November 2025}}</ref><ref>[https://metro.co.uk/2025/11/24/love-actually-star-inspiration-narnia-jill-freud-dies-aged-98-24789062/ Love Actually star Jill Freud who inspired Narnia character dies aged 98] Metro</ref><ref name="guard-24nov2025">{{cite news |last=Shoard |first=Catherine |title=Jill Freud, Love Actually actor and inspiration for Lucy in Narnia books, dies aged 98 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/24/jill-freud-love-actually-actor-cs-lewis-inspiration-narnia-dies-aged-98 |access-date=24 November 2025 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=24 November 2025}}</ref>

==See also== * [[Freud family]]

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{IMDb name|0713298}} * {{discogs artist|Jill Freud}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freud, Jill}} [[Category:1927 births]] [[Category:2025 deaths]] [[Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]] [[Category:English stage actresses]] [[Category:English theatre directors]] [[Category:British women theatre directors]] [[Category:Place of birth missing]] [[Category:Freud family|Jill]] [[Category:People educated at Sacred Heart High School, Hammersmith]] [[Category:20th-century English actresses]] [[Category:Actresses from London]] [[Category:People from Kensington]] [[Category:Actors from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea]]