Actress
Heather Ripley was born in Dundee, Scotland and first appeared on stage at the age of seven in ‘Roar Like A Dove’ with Rene Houston at Dundee Repertory theatre where her mother worked as costume designer. She was spotted by a talent scout and offered for the part of Jemima Potts in Cubi Broccoli’s film ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ with Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries and Benny Hill.
Based on the book written by Ian Fleming, the film was unexpectedly hugely successful and plunged Heather, as a child, into the limelight which she was extremely uncomfortable with.
Heather moved to the South of Ireland and finished her education in Dublin, then returned to Scotland. She qualified as an optician and joined the family practise with her father and grandfather.
In her early thirties she developed a keen interest in ecology and moved to Findhorn, a spiritual community living in an Eco Village on a small peninsula on the North East coast of Scotland. Here she met John Seed, founder of Earth First! And became inspired to join various protest groups campaigning for various ecological issues, such as the campaign to stop the Newbury Bypass, where she lived in a tent for 10 months, Faslane peace camp, where she was arrested attempting to shut down the nuclear submarine base and ‘Pollock Free State’ in Glasgow a group attempting to stop the destruction of Pollock park to build the M11 motorway.
Heather returned to Dundee and studied Internet and Communication studies at Abertay University, then after a brief period of maintaining websites, highlighting ecological and human rights issues returned to Findhorn in 2003, where she has trained in camera work and directing the live stream of conference and community events onto the Internet from the Universal Hall in the Findhorn Foundation.
Heather will be one of The Misty Moon Scream Queen Judges at this year’s Misty Moon International Film Festival.
Misty Moon Event
- The Misty Moon International Film Festival