Thursday 15 February 2024 Leeds Girls’ High School alumna Thelma Ruby (OG39) has scored a role in the hotly-anticipated Amy Winehouse film Back to Black, due to be released in the UK on 12 April 2024. Chapel Allerton-born Thelma, who trained as an actress in New York, has chalked up too many theatre, film and TV appearances to name, including Coronation Street, Z Cars and co-starring in Cabaret with Dame Judi Dench in London’s West End. And although her 99th birthday is approaching in March 2024, she shows no sign of slowing down. “In the film, I play Amy’s great-aunt Rene – the sister of her beloved grandmother, played by Lesley Manville,” explains Thelma. “I had such a wonderful time making it – everyone was so kind and welcoming.” Temperatures plummeted when the cast were required to film a funeral scene outside a London crematorium. “It was a freezing cold January day,” says Thelma. “And every time there was a break in filming, the dear man playing Amy’s father – Eddie Marsan – would shout out ‘Get a seat for Thelma!’ He even took his big coat off and put it around me. The whole crew were very sweet – they gave us thermals and hot drinks, everything they could do to keep us warm!” Thelma and Winehouse both have Jewish heritage, and Thelma recalls a Friday night Shabbat scene where Amy and her extended family gather to break bread and share wine. “There was a rabbi on set to guide us and he asked if anyone knew the prayer. Well of course, I did – and so I said the prayer and they did a close-up of my hands lighting the candles.” Of Marisa Abela, who plays Winehouse, Thelma has nothing but praise: “She’s a wonderful girl, and she does all her own singing,” she says. “I was in another family scene with her where she sings Fly Me to the Moon with her father – just terrific!” But Thelma admits she wasn’t a huge Amy Winehouse fan before filming. “I’m afraid my interest in popular music ended in the Irving Berlin era,” she says. “But nevertheless, I think it’s going to be a very good film.” Thelma left Leeds Girls’ High School in 1939 as war broke out, moving to the United States with her mother. “I lost touch with school, but when I was back in London I needed a dentist. A friend recommended one and, when I went, I found out she was from Leeds. I said, ‘I’m from Leeds and my father was a dentist! Which school did you go to?’ When she said Leeds Girls’ we both started singing the school song in Latin!” Thelma’s first starring role was at age 5, playing The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe in a school performance. “My aunt told me afterwards that the curtains got stuck and so I stepped forward and started to tug at them. I said to the audience ‘You thought you were going to see me put my children to bed, didn’t you? But you’re not!’ They all fell about laughing!” Thelma has some more performances coming up in her 100th year and is already making plans for her milestone birthday in 2025. “I’m very able, feeling fine and very much enjoying life,” she says. “I’m a very, very lucky woman.” Back to Black is released in the UK on 12 April 2024. Alumni
