The Academy Award nominee, who was previously married to Bond star Sir Sean Connery, passed away at the Cairns Base Hospital, in Cairns, Australia on Thursday (06Oct11).
Cilento moved to England in the 1950s after winning a scholarship at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and she soon started acting in British films.
During her career she was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in a 1956 production of Tiger at the Gates, while she picked up a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for 1963’s Tom Jones.
She also starred with Charlton Heston in 1965’s The Agony and the Ecstasy and with Paul Newman in 1967 western Hombre.
Cilento married second husband Connery in 1962, but the marriage ended in 1973 after nine years. The pair share a son, actor Jason Connery.
The actress then went on to marry playwright Anthony Shaffer, who she met when she appeared in his 1973 film The Wicker Man. The couple was married until Shaffer’s death in 2001.
