--- name: "Diane Cilento" canonical: "https://film.one/person/diane-cilento" fi1m_id: "diane-cilento" imdb_id: "nm0162283" tmdb_id: 45467 wikidata_id: "Q238871" roles: ["Actor"] born: "5 October 1933" died: "7 October 2011" reviewed_on_fi1m: 4 average_fi1m_score: 80 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-26T16:30:47.759016+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Diane Cilento ## Identity Diane Cilento - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/diane-cilento - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** diane-cilento - **IMDb ID:** nm0162283 - **TMDB ID:** 45467 - **Wikidata ID:** Q238871 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Cilento, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q238871, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0162283/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/45467 Actor. Born 5 October 1933 in Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia. Died 7 October 2011. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 5 October 1933, Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia - **Died:** 7 October 2011 - **Active:** 1963–1973 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 4: 3 acting, 1 other - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 80, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 64 (1), 1960s 76 (2), 1970s 90 (1) - **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Comedy 1, Drama 1, History 1, Horror 1, Romance 1, Western 1 - **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $13m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Cilento, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q238871, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0162283/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/45467 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*The Wicker Man*](https://film.one/film/the-wicker-man.md) (90), [*Hombre*](https://film.one/film/hombre.md) (77) - **HBO Max:** [*Tom Jones*](https://film.one/film/tom-jones.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Diane Cilento > Diane Cilento was the warmest thing in a good many cool British films, a husky-voiced supporting player who brought life to pictures that needed it. Her best screen work is early in *Tom Jones* and, in a stranger key, among the islanders of *The Wicker Man*. Molly Seagrim in *Tom Jones* (1963) has dirty knees and a warm face, and she is on screen early and not for long. That is Diane Cilento's film career in a sentence. She came through RADA and a contract with Alexander Korda into the British films of the mid-1950s, pictures like *Passage Home* (1955) that were, for the most part, pale things, and she was not. Obituarists reached for the same words, vitality and sexuality, and for once the words are right: she looks like someone who has been outdoors and enjoyed it, in films full of people who had not. Tony Richardson's *Tom Jones* was the breakthrough, and it suited her because Richardson treats the eighteenth century as a party he has crashed, and Molly is the sort of guest who makes a party worth crashing. We liked her more than the film has time for; Richardson hurries on towards Upton and Joyce Redman's oysters, and we found ourselves wishing he had stayed with her a little longer. After that came the supporting parts Hollywood gives to women it admires but does not know what to do with: Contessina de' Medici opposite Charlton Heston in *The Agony and the Ecstasy* (1965), Jessie opposite Paul Newman in *Hombre* (1967). We have not reviewed either, and will only say that neither title is remembered for her, which tells its own story. Then, in 1973, Miss Rose. Robin Hardy's *The Wicker Man* is the film of hers we would tell a stranger to see, and she is in it as the island's schoolteacher, one of the smiling, reasonable pagans against whom Edward Woodward's sergeant keeps bumping his stubborn head. It is not a part that asks her to carry anything. It asks her to be pleasant and quite certain, and the film's unease comes from how many people on that island are pleasant and quite certain at once. She was one of them, and the island still frightens us. It was her last major screen role. The stage got the rest. She had already been Helen of Troy and was, by every account, a stronger presence in a theatre than the cinema ever let her be, and she went home to Queensland and founded the Karnak Playhouse. She once said, of starting out, "I didn't actually sit there thinking I wanted to be Sarah Bernhardt; I didn't know anything about acting." She learned, and the films mostly did not notice. Start with *Tom Jones*, where she is on screen early, briefly and worth it, then *The Wicker Man*, where nobody is the star and that is the point. ## Biography Diane Cilento was an Australian actress. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and began appearing in British films and theatre in the early 1950s. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in *Tom Jones* (1963) and appeared in *Hombre* (1967) and as Miss Rose in *The Wicker Man* (1973). She was also nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in the play *Tiger at the Gates*. Cilento was married to actor Sean Connery from 1962 until their divorce in 1973, and later to playwright Anthony Shaffer, whom she met while working on *The Wicker Man*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, theguardian.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (4) ### Performed in (3) — the average rests on these - *The Wicker Man* (1973), Fi1m 90, as Miss Rose — [page](https://film.one/film/the-wicker-man.md) - *Hombre* (1967), Fi1m 77, as Jessie — [page](https://film.one/film/hombre.md) - *Tom Jones* (1963), Fi1m 74, as Molly Seagrim — [page](https://film.one/film/tom-jones.md) ### Also credited (1) — thanks, archive footage, uncredited - *Moulin Rouge* (1952), Fi1m 64, as Midinette (uncredited) — [page](https://film.one/film/moulin-rouge-1952.md) ## Complete filmography (47) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Boy Who Had Everything* (1985), as Mother - *For the Term of His Natural Life* (1983), series, as Lady Elinor Devine - *Duet for Four* (1982), as Margot Mason - *Death Becomes Me* (1979), as Kate Sinclair (archive footage) - *Tycoon* (1978), series, as Diana Clark - *Affairs of the Heart* (1974), series, as Elizabeth Damerel - *The Wicker Man* (1973), as Miss Rose — Fi1m 90, [page](https://film.one/film/the-wicker-man.md) - *Spell of Evil* (1973), as Clara - *Hitler: The Last Ten Days* (1973), as Hanna Reitsch - *Thriller* (1973), series, as Clara - *Z.P.G.* (1972), as Edna - *The Persuaders!* (1971), series, as Kate Sinclair - *ITV Saturday Night Theatre* (1969), series, as Lady Sarah Bellasize - *Negatives* (1968), as Reingard - *The Kiss of Blood* (1968), as Lady Sannox - *Late Night Horror* (1968), series, as Lady Sannox - *Rogues' Gallery* (1968), series, as Lady Sarah Bellasize - *Dial M for Murder* (1967), as Margo Wendice - *Hombre* (1967), as Jessie — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/hombre.md) - *Thirty-Minute Theatre* (1965), series, as Penelope - *The Agony and the Ecstasy* (1965), as Contessina de'Medici - *Blackmail* (1965), series, as Euphrasia Jones - *Once Upon a Tractor* (1965), as Geraldine - *Rattle of a Simple Man* (1964), as Cyrenne - *The Third Secret* (1964), as Anne Tanner - *Festival* (1963), series, as Lysistrata - *Espionage* (1963), series, as Lina - *Tom Jones* (1963), as Molly Seagrim — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/tom-jones.md) - *I Thank a Fool* (1962), as Liane Dane - *The Naked Edge* (1961), as Mrs. Heath - *The Full Treatment* (1960), as Denise Colby - *Jet Storm* (1959), as Angelica Como - *Whicker's World* (1959), series, Actor - *The Truth About Women* (1957), as Ambrosine Viney - *The Admirable Crichton* (1957), as Eliza Tweeny - *Armchair Theatre* (1956), series, as Sadie Thompson - *The Taming of the Shrew* (1956), as Bianca - *The Woman for Joe* (1955), as Mary - *Passage Home* (1955), as Ruth Elton - *The Passing Stranger* (1954), as Jill - *The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp* (1954), as The Angel - *Meet Mr. Lucifer* (1953), as Woman in Street (uncredited) - *All Hallowe'en* (1953), as Harriet - *Moulin Rouge* (1952), as Midinette (uncredited) — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/moulin-rouge-1952.md) - *Wings of Danger* (1952), as Jeannette - *Hallmark Hall of Fame* (1951), series, as Bianca - *Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.* (1951), as Maria Hornblower (voice) (uncredited) ## Gallery - ![Diane Cilento](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-8b46daf4694d.jpg) Diane Cilento — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Diane_Cilento%2C_1954.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Diane Cilento with Peter Finch. Photographed in London during the making of the film 'Passage Home' (released in 1955). (1954)](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-054bc45099a6.jpg) Diane Cilento with Peter Finch. Photographed in London during the making of the film 'Passage Home' (released in 1955). (1954) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Diane_Cilento_with_Peter_Finch.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photo of Laurence Harvey and Diane Cilento in the televisio presentation of the play "The Small Servant". Both made their US television debuts in this productio (1955)](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-d64698bff86e.jpg) Photo of Laurence Harvey and Diane Cilento in the televisio presentation of the play "The Small Servant". Both made their US television debuts in this productio (1955) — Arthur Cantor, press rep for The Alcoa Hour, sponsor of the program., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Laurence_Harvey_Diane_Cilento_The_Small_Servant_Alcoa_Hour_1955.jpg/1280px-Laurence_Harvey_Diane_Cilento_The_Small_Servant_Alcoa_Hour_1955.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Diane Cilento. Dianne Cilento, Australian actress photographed as a child. (Photograph from the Courier Mail, June 1963).](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-45a647ca74d0.jpg) Diane Cilento. Dianne Cilento, Australian actress photographed as a child. (Photograph from the Courier Mail, June 1963). — Contributor(s): The Courier-Mail, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/StateLibQld_2_191771_Diane_Cilento.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Diane Cilento](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-eae862fa04aa.jpg) Diane Cilento — Image via TMDB - ![Diane Cilento](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-8143737c9603.jpg) Diane Cilento — Image via TMDB - ![Diane Cilento](https://film.one/media/person/59679/gallery-4946214a1003.jpg) Diane Cilento — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1964: Best Supporting Actress (nominated), for *Tom Jones* ### Other awards — 2 won, 1 nominated - Centenary Medal 2001: Centenary Medal (won) - Theatre World Award 1956: Theatre World Award (won) - Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play 1956: Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play (nominated) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/diane-cilento