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Rachel Roberts (September 20, 1927 – November 26, 1980) was a Welsh actress.

An actress of fervour and passion, Rachel Roberts gave forthright performances in two key films of the 1960s. After a Baptist upbringing (which she rebelled against), followed by the University of Wales and RADA, she was on stage from 1951. She made her film debut in the Welsh-set comedy Valley of Song (1953; directed by Gilbert Gunn), but was too direct and intense to fit comfortably into leading roles in 1950s British films.

However, these qualities led to her breakthrough BAFTA-winning portrayal of Brenda in Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Lindsay Anderson saw that she would be perfect as the suffering Mrs Hammond in This Sporting Life (1963, another BAFTA and an Oscar nomination).

In theatre, she played at the Royal Court and was the life-enhancing tart Maggie May in Lionel Bart's musical (1964). In films she continued to play women with lusty appetites (as in Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man! (1973), although the haunting Australian-made Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975, directed by Peter Weir) provided her with a different kind of role.

In 1979, Roberts co-starred with Jill Bennett in the London Weekend Television production of Alan Bennett's The Old Crowd, directed by Lindsay Anderson.

She appeared in supporting roles in several U.S. films such as Foul Play (1978) after relocating to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, her final British film being Yanks (1979, directed by John Schlesinger), for which she received a Supporting Actress BAFTA.

She married firstly Alan Dobie (1955–1961), then Rex Harrison (1962–1971). Impulsive and insecure, her alcoholism and depression increased after her divorce from Harrison in 1971, and she died from an overdose of barbiturates. Her journals became the basis for No Bells on Sunday: The Memoirs of Rachel Roberts (1984).

• The Limping Man (1953)
• Our Man in Havana (1959)
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
• This Sporting Life (1963), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
• A Flea in Her Ear (1968)
• Doctors' Wives (1971)
• Wild Rovers (1972)
• O Lucky Man! (1973)
• Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
• Foul Play (1978)
• When a Stranger Calls (1979)
• Yanks (1979) (British Film Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress)
• Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1980)

• Rachel Roberts at the Internet Movie Database
• Rachel Roberts at the TCM Movie Database
• Rachel Roberts at the Internet Broadway Database