A FORMER actress with York Repertory Company, whose career started more than 60 years ago, has died at the age of 84.

Pauline Letts worked in all the acting media, although in recent years she was best known as a radio actress.

The daughter of a Leicester headmaster, Pauline studied at RADA.

In 1935, she made her first professional appearance with the Coventry Repertory Company where she met her husband, Geoffrey Staines, who was subsequently director of productions at York Repertory Company.

It was early in 1939 that she joined the company, where she remained until 1943.

She played a wide range of parts at York, from Nina Conti, in Young Madame Conti, via Ruth, in Coward's Blithe Spirit, to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in The Barretts Of Wimpole Street.

Shakespearean roles included Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (opposite Owen Holder) and Katherine, in The Taming Of The Shrew, to Michael Warre's Petruchio.

In 1948 she had one of her greatest successes playing opposite Robert Morley in his play Edward, My Son, at the Lyric Theatre, London.

The role of Evelyn Holt had been written specifically for her, but was originally played by Peggy Ashcroft when Pauline found that she was pregnant.

In the early 1950s, while still living in York, Pauline concentrated on raising her family, but made guest appearances at the Theatre Royal, notably as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, and Paula Tanqueray in The Second Mrs Tanqueray.

Her films included Robert Hamer's Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945), and she led the chorus in Michael Caccoyanis film The Trojan Women (1972).

On television, Pauline was in a number of ground-breaking productions - in 1946, she played Lavinia in Shaw's Androcles and the Lion, one of the first plays to be shown when the BBC reopened the service after the Second World War. Her last appearance on the small screen was as Denis Waterman's difficult mother, in the sit-com On the Up.

She continued to work until her late seventies, when ill-health made it impossible for her to go on.

She is survived by her daughter and three sons.

Updated: 10:30 Saturday, August 11, 2001