Janet McTeer as Riah Millican/ Black Velvet Gown(1991)/ P.3/10 Video

Filmed for British television in 1991, Black Velvet Gown is a two-part adaptation of Catherine Cookson 's novel. Directed by Norman Stone.
The story begins in 1834 in northern England; Riah Millican ( Janet McTeer ), left penniless by her husband's death, is evicted from her home along with her children. She takes a job as housekeeper for Percival Miller ( Bob Peck ), the reclusive master of Gulmington Mansion. Miller creates Riah the present of the black velvet robe, as well as even educates her young kids . Though when Riah discovers the reason at the back of Millers gifts, she vows to leave his residence, though Miller has the reason upon her, even after his genocide, when he leaves his residence to her upon the condition which she never wed. Riah's daughter, Biddy (Geraldine Somerville) grows up, and becomes a laudress in a large house, where her education keeps her from fitting in and makes her a target. But it also catches the eye of a son of the house, and with Miller's legacies, Biddy may yet find her way to happiness.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106422/

Dame Catherine Cookson (1906-1998) was an English author. She became the United Kingdom's most widely read novelist, while remaining a relatively low-profile figure in the world of celebrity writers. Her books were inspired by her deprived youth in North East England , the setting for her novels. The historical background is generally carefully researched. Her plots and characters frequently draw on her own or her mother's experience of deprivation, illegitimacy, violence, rejection, and the struggle to survive financially and emotionally. When Catherine Cookson died she had completed 104 works, nine of them still unpublished. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne.
Many of Cookson's novels have been transferred to stage, film, radio ad TV. The Black Velvet Gown (1991), with Janet McTeer , Bob Peck , Geraldine Somerville won the International Emmy award for best drama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherin...

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