British Dames
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This distinguished theatrical tragedienne will be remembered forever if only for the fact George Bernard Shaw wrote his classic "Saint Joan" work specifically for her. Her over six-decade career allowed for a gallery of sterling, masterful portrayals, both classic and contemporary, performing all over the world including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and both Western and Eastern Europe. She was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1931, when her career was not quite half over, and in 1970 was made Companion of Honor to Queen Elizabeth.
Born Agnes Sybil Thorndike on October 24, 1882 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, she was the daughter of a minor canon of Rochester Cathedral. She was the eldest of four children. One younger brother, Frank, was killed in WWI action, a tragedy that left her father inconsolable. He himself would die a few months later. Sybil first became a concert pianist until nerve injuries in her hands quickly altered her destiny. She, at brother Russell Thorndike's suggestion, decided upon acting. Russell would later become a novelist and his sister's biographer.
Not a classic beauty by any stretch, Dame Sybil had sharp features, prominent cheek bones and a pronounced chin that gave her a rather severe look. At age 21 she and her brother began professionally in a touring company guided by actor-manager Ben Greet. She performed as Portia in a production of The Merchant of Venice in 1907 while touring in New York. The following year she met playwright George Bernard Shaw while understudying the role of Candida in a tour which was being directed by the writer himself. It was also during this tour that Sybil met and married actor Sir Lewis Casson and solidified one of the most respected personal and professional relationships the acting realm has known. She stayed with The Old Vic for five years (1914-1919) and in 1924 earned stardom as Shaw's Joan of Arc.
Sybil's film career, unlike that of her esteemed contemporary Edith Evans, fell far short of expectations. Silent films recreated some of her finest theatrical experiences, including Lady Macbeth and, of course, Joan of Arc, but she would not evolve into a film star. She was sporadically utilized in later years as a flavorful character support and played a number of queens, dowagers and old crones with equal finesse. Such classic costumed fare would include Major Barbara (1941), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947), Stage Fright (1950), Gone to Earth (1950), The Lady with a Lamp (1951), Melba (1953), as Queen Victoria, and The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) in which she managed to grab focus during her scenes with Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. In 1969, Sybil lent her name to the new theatre in Leatherhead, Surrey, which became The Thorndike. Despite her 87 years, she performed in the new play There Was An Old Woman in its first season. It was to be her final theatrical performance. Always a healthy, vigorous woman, she died of a heart attack on June 9, 1976 at the ripe young age of 93. She was survived by four children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.- Legendary British stage actress who made a few silent film appearances. The daughter of strolling players, she was born in Coventry into an almost exclusively theatrical family. Her grandparents were actors, as were all six of her siblings. But only her son, Edward Gordon Craig, would in any way approach her fame in the theatre, albeit as a designer rather than as an actor. She made her debut in 1856 at the age of 8 before an audience which included Queen Victoria. By age 11, she had played a dozen roles including Puck. At 16, after showing early brilliance, she played "An American Cousin" (a year before the famed American production clouded by Lincoln's assassination) and then retired. After six years, still only 22, she returned to the stage and in 1875 played a landmark Portia in "The Merchant of Venice." For the next three decades, she played every major Shakespearean role opposite the greatest British tragedians, in England and in America. Her long association with theatrical giant Henry Irving ended with his death, but a year later, in 1906, she began a long professional and personal relationship with George Bernard Shaw. After more than half a century onstage, she undertook a tour of England, America, and Australia, lecturing on the theatre and on Shakespeare. She was coaxed into a film appearance in 1916 and played in a handful of additional pictures through 1922. Created a Dame by George V in 1925, she was the recipient of virtually every honor available to a figure of the English-speaking stage. After a long illness, she died at 81 from a combination of stroke and heart attack at her home in Smallhythe Place, Tenterdon, Kent, England. Her long estranged husband, James Carew, survived her.
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Edith Evans was the greatest actress on the English stage in the 20th century, treading the boards for over half-a-century. She made her professional stage debut in 1912 and excelled in both classic and modern roles in the West End of London and on Broadway, as well as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Old Vic. She was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (the equivalent of a knighthood) in 1946.
Laurence Olivier has written in his memoirs that Evans's power on stage began to falter in the early 1960s, as her memory dimmed with age. It was about this time that she made a transition to the screen, after generally ignoring the medium for the first two decades of talking films. (After making her movie debut in 1915, Evans appeared in no films at all between 1916 and 1949, when she came back to the screen in support of a young Richard Burton in Emlyn Williams's Woman of Dolwyn (1949).) In the 1950s, she had made memorable appearances in film in The Queen of Spades (1949), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Fred Zinnemann's The Nun's Story (1959) (1959), and in Tony Richardson's film version of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1959), but it was her performance as Miss Western in Richardson's Oscar-winning Best Picture Tom Jones (1963) that established her as a major film presence. She won her first Oscar nomination for "Tom Jones", and her second the following year for The Chalk Garden (1964). She won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Actress for her performance as the frightened old lady in Bryan Forbes's The Whisperers (1967). The role also brought her a 1967 Oscar nomination for Best Actress, though she lost the trophy to Katharine Hepburn, who had recently lost her long-time lover Spencer Tracy and rode a wave of Hollywood sentiment to victory.
Dame Edith Evans continued to act in films until her death, though the material generally was beneath her great talent. She died on October 14, 1976, at the age of 88.- Actress
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Gladys Cooper was the daughter of journalist William Frederick Cooper and his wife Mabel Barnett. As a child she was very striking and was used as a photographic model beginning at six years old. She wanted to become an actress and started on that road in 1905 after being discovered by Seymour Hicks to tour with his company in "Bluebell in Fairyland". She came to the London stage in 1906 in "The Belle of Mayfair", and in 1907 took a departure from the legitimate stage to become a member of Frank Curzon's famous Gaiety Girls chorus entertainments at The Gaiety theater. Her more concerted stage work began in 1911 in a production of Oscar Wilde's comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest" which was followed quickly with other roles. From the craze for post cards with photos of actors - that ensued between about 1890 and 1914 - Cooper became a popular subject of maidenly beauty with scenes as Juliet and many others. During World War I her popularity grew into something of pin-up fad for the British military.
In the meantime she sampled the early British silent film industry starting in 1913 with The Eleventh Commandment (1913). She had roles in a few other movies in 1916 and 1917. But in the latter year she joined Frank Curzon to co-manage the Playhouse Theatre. This was a decidedly new direction for a woman of the period. She took sole control from 1927 until other stage commitments in 1933. She was also doing plays, some producing of her own, and a few more films in the early 1920s. It was actually about this time that she achieved major stage actress success. She appeared in W. Somerset Maugham's "Home and Beauty" in London in 1919 and triumphed in her 1922 appearance in Arthur Wing Pinero's "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray". It was ironic that writer Aldous Huxley criticized her performance in "Home and Beauty" as "too impassive, too statuesque, playing all the time as if she were Galatea, newly unpetrified and still unused to the ways of the living world." On the other hand, Maugham himself applauded her for "turning herself from an indifferent actress (at the start of her career) to an extremely competent one". She also debuted the role of Leslie Crosbie (the Bette Davis role in the 1940 film) in Maugham's "The Letter" in 1927.
In 1934 Cooper made her first sound picture in the UK and came to Broadway with "The Shining Hour" which she had been doing in London. She and it were a success, and she followed it with several plays through 1938, including "Macbeth". About this time Hollywood scouts caught wind of her, and she began her 30 odd years in American film. That first film was also Alfred Hitchcock's first Hollywood directorial effort, Rebecca (1940). Hers was a small and light role as Laurence Olivier's gregarious sister, but she stood out all the same. Two years later she bit into the much more substantial role as Bette Davis' domineering and repressive mother in the classic Now, Voyager (1942) for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress - the first of three. Though aristocratic elderly ladies were roles she revisited in various guises, Cooper was busy through 1940s Hollywood.
She returned to London stage work from 1947 and stayed for some early episodic British TV into 1950 before once again returning to the US, but was busy on both sides of the Atlantic until her death. Through the 1950s and into the 1960s Cooper did a few films but was an especially familiar face on American TV in teleplays, a wide range of prime-time episodic shows, and popular weird/sci-fi series: several Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, and Outer Limits. When Enid Bagnold's "The Chalk Garden" opened in London in 1955, Cooper debuted as Mrs. St. Maugham and brought it to Broadway in October of that year where it ran through March of 1956. Her last major film was My Fair Lady (1964) as Henry Higgins' mother. The year before she had played the part on TV. In the film, the portrait prop of a fine lady over Higgins' fireplace is that of Cooper painted in 1922. She wrote an autobiography (1931) followed by two biographies (1953 and 1979). In 1967 she was honored as a Dame Commander of the Order of British Empire (DBE) for her great accomplishments in furthering acting.- Actress
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Cicely Courtneidge was born on 1 April 1893 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for Along Came Sally (1934), Things Are Looking Up (1935) and The Ghost Train (1931). She was married to Jack Hulbert. She died on 26 April 1980 in Putney, London, England, UK.- Barbara Cartland was born on 9 July 1901 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Duel of Hearts (1991), The Lady and the Highwayman (1988) and The Flame Is Love (1979). She was married to Hugh Rowley McCorquodale and Alexander George McCorquodale. She died on 21 May 2000 in Camfield Place, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England, UK.
- Agatha was born as "Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller" in 1890 to Frederick Alvah Miller and Clara Boehmer. Agatha was of American and British descent, her father being American and her mother British. Her father was a relatively affluent stockbroker. Agatha received home education from early childhood to when she turned 12-years-old in 1902. Her parents taught her how to read, write, perform arithmetic, and play music. Her father died in 1901. Agatha was sent to a girl's school in Torquay, Devon, where she studied from 1902 to 1905. She continued her education in Paris, France from 1905 to 1910. She then returned to her surviving family in England.
As a young adult, Agatha aspired to be a writer and produced a number of unpublished short stories and novels. She submitted them to various publishers and literary magazines, but they were all rejected. Several of these unpublished works were later revised into more successful ones. While still in this point of her life, Agatha sought advise from professional writer Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960). Meanwhile she was searching for a suitable husband and in 1913 accepted a marriage proposal from military officer and pilot-in-training Archibald "Archie" Christie. They married in late 1914. Her married name became "Agatha Christie" and she used it for most of her literary works, including ones created decades following the end of her first marriage.
During World War I, Archie Christie was send to fight in the war and Agatha joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a British voluntary unit providing field nursing services. She performed unpaid work as a volunteer nurse from 1914 to 1916. Then she was promoted to "apothecaries' assistant" (dispenser), a position which earned her a small salary until the end of the war. She ended her service in September, 1918.
Agatha wrote "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", her debut novel ,in 1916, but was unable to find a publisher for it until 1920. The novel introduced her famous character Hercule Poirot and his supporting characters Inspector Japp and Arthur Hastings. The novel is set in World War I and is one of the few of her works which are connected to a specific time period.
Following the end of World War I and their retirement from military life, Agatha and Archie Christie moved to London and settled into civilian life. Their only child Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Christie (1919-2004) was born early in the marriage. Agatha's debut novel was first published in 1920 and turned out to be a hit. It was soon followed by the successful novels "The Secret Adversary" (1922) and "Murder on the Links" (1923) and various short stories. Agatha soon became a celebrated writer.
In 1926, Archie Christie announced to Agatha that he had a mistress and that he wanted a divorce. Agatha took it hard and mysteriously disappeared for a period of 10 days. After an extensive manhunt and much publicity, she was found living under a false name in Yorkshire. She had assumed the last name of Archie's mistress and claimed to have no memory of how she ended up there. The doctors who attended to her determined that she had amnesia. Despite various theories by multiple sources, these 10 days are the most mysterious chapter in Agatha's life.
Agatha and Archie divorced in 1928, though she kept the last name Christie. She gained sole custody of her daughter Rosalind. In 1930, Agatha married her second (and last) husband Max Mallowan, a professional archaeologist. They would remain married until her death in 1976.Christie often used places that she was familiar with as settings for her novels and short stories. Her various travels with Max introduced her to locations of the Middle East, and provided inspiration for a number of novels.
In 1934, Agatha and Max settled in Winterbrook, Oxfordshire, which served as their main residence until their respective deaths. During World War II, she served in the pharmacy at the University College Hospital, where she gained additional training about substances used for poisoning cases. She incorporated such knowledge for realistic details in her stories.
She became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956 and a Dame Commander of the same order in 1971. Her husband was knighted in 1968. They are among the relatively few couples where both members have been honored for their work. Agatha continued writing until 1974, though her health problems affected her writing style. Her memory was problematic for several years and she had trouble remembering the details of her own work, even while she was writing it. Recent researches on her medical condition suggest that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia. She died of natural causes in early 1976. - Actress
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Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance (1981) in which she appeared with her husband, Michael Williams, and Best Supporting Actress in A Handful of Dust (1988) and A Room with a View (1985). She received an ACE award for her performance in the television series Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill (1985). She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005.- Actress
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One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974. She was married to Cross until his death in 1999. She had two sons with Stephens, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who are also actors.
Maggie Smith's career began at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1950s. She made her film debut in 1956 as one of the party guests in Child in the House (1956). She has since performed in over sixty films and television series with some of the most prominent actors and actresses in the world. These include: Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), California Suite (1978) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, A Room with a View (1985), Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent, Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Cher and Gosford Park (2001) with Kristin Scott Thomas and Clive Owen, directed by Robert Altman. Maggie Smith has also been nominated for an Oscar six times and won twice, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978).
Smith later appeared in the very successful 'Harry Potter' franchise as the formidable Professor McGonagall as well as in Julian Fellowes' ITV drama series, Downton Abbey (2010) (2010-2011) as the Dowager Countess of Grantham.- Writer
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Jacqueline Wilson was born on 17 December 1945 in Bath, Somerset, England, UK. She is a writer and actress, known for The Dumping Ground (2013), Double Act (2002) and Hetty Feather: Live on Stage (2019).- A.S. Byatt was born on 24 August 1936 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), Possession (2002) and Angels and Insects (1995). She was married to Peter John Duffy and Ian Charles Rayner Byatt. She died on 16 November 2023 in London, England, UK.
- Margaret Drabble was born on 5 June 1939 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, UK. She is a writer, known for A Touch of Love (1969), Isadora (1968) and It's a Woman's World (1964). She has been married to Michael Holroyd since 1982. She was previously married to Clive Swift.
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Dame Joan Ann Plowright, the Baroness Olivier, is one of the most distinguished actors of her generation. She may be best remembered as the third wife and widow of Laurence Olivier, generally considered the greatest anglophone actor of the 20th Century, but she had a distinguished career of her own on stage and screen spanning six decades.
Born in Brigg, Lincolnshire on October 28, 1929, she received her training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and made her professional stage debut at Croydon in 1948. Her London debut came in 1954, and two years later, she joined George Devine's English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, which would change her life just as the drama at the Royal Court revolutionized the English theater.
The Royal Court's 1956 production of John Osborne's _Look Back In Anger' was a watershed in English theatrical history, ushering in the 'Angry Young Man" era in British cultural life. In 1957, Plowright first co-starred with her future husband Olivier in the Royal Court's production of Osborne's The Entertainer (1960) when she took over the role of Archie Rice's daughter Jean Rice when the play transferred to a commercial venue in the West End. She recreated the role in Tony Richardson's 1960 film of the play.
To escape the notoriety from Olivier's divorce from Vivien Leigh, Plowright and Olivier went to New York, where they appeared on Broadway, he in Becket (1964) and she in A Taste of Honey (1961). For her performance as Josephine, which Rita Tushingham played in the movie version, she won a 1961 Tony Award as Best Actress in a Play. (She had first appeared on Broadway in a twin bill of Eugène Ionesco's "The Chairs" and "The Lesson" in January 1958, a month before she appeared with Olivier in "The Entertainer".) When his divorce from Leigh came through, they were married in March 1961 in New York with Richard Burton as Larry's best man.
From 1963 onward, she was a member of the National Theatre, which was headed by Olivier. Plowright created a distinguished stage career and was acclaimed when she began appearing more frequently in movies and television starting in the the 1980s. She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the female equivalent of a knighthood, in the 2004 Queen's New Year Honours.
Plowright divorced her first husband, the actor Roger Gage, to marry Olivier in 1961 and they had three children, Richard Kerr Olivier, Tamsin Olivier and Julie Kate Olivier.- Actress
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British actress Dame Diana Rigg was born on July 20, 1938 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England. She has had an extensive career in film and theatre, including playing the title role in "Medea", both in London and New York, for which she won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Rigg made her professional stage debut in 1957 in the Caucasian Chalk Circle, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959. She made her Broadway debut in the 1971 production of "Abelard & Heloise". Her film roles include Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968); Lady Holiday in The Great Muppet Caper (1981); and Arlene Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982). She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC miniseries Mother Love (1989), and an Emmy Award for her role as Mrs. Danvers in the adaptation of Rebecca (1997). In 2013, she appeared with her daughter Rachael Stirling on the BBC series Doctor Who (2005) in an episode titled "The Crimson Horror" and plays Olenna Tyrell on the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011).
From 1965 to 1968, Rigg appeared on the British television series The Avengers (1961) playing the secret agent Mrs. Emma Peel. She became a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), playing Tracy Bond, James Bond's only wife, opposite George Lazenby. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at the 1988 Queen's New Years Honours for her services to drama. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) at the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.
Dame Diana Rigg died of lung cancer on September 10, 2020, she was 82 years old.- Actress
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Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.- In a career than spanned eight decades, Thora Hird was widely-regarded as one of Britain's finest character actresses. She made over 100 films as well as starring in a host of TV comedies and, as a straight actress, excelled in the works of playwright Alan Bennett. Even in her 90s, she was working almost daily.
Born in Morecambe, Lancashire, the daughter of the manager of the local Royalty Theatre, she was carried on to the stage in a melodrama at the age of eight weeks. When old enough, she joined the Royalty's theatre company, although she kept a day job as a cashier in a grocery store. "I spent 10 years working in that grocery store", she recalled, "and I've played nearly all the customers I used to serve - maids, landladies, cleaners, forthright parents. When I'm acting, I'll do some little thing I've remembered, so simple". At the theatre, she appeared in over 500 plays and, in 1941, the comedian George Formby, on a visit to the theatre, recommended her to Michael Balcon at Ealing Film Studios. Put under contract, she first appeared in Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) with Will Hay and a string of comedy films and dramas followed. In the same vein as the saucy seaside postcards of her Morecambe birth, Hird was usually cast as the all-seeing boarding house landlady, a gossiping neighbour or a sharp tongued mother-in-law.
In the 1950s, Hird was under contract to the Rank Organisation and was established as a major character actress. She worked with some of Britain's finest directors, including Herbert Wilcox, Lewis Gilbert and John Schlesinger but, by her own account, was not easily awed. "I've appeared in hundreds of films and television things and, in some cases, I literally mean 'appeared' around the door, that was all. Like anybody earning a living, I took most of the work that came along". She gave outstanding performances in Simon and Laura (1955) and The Entertainer (1960), opposite Laurence Olivier, but one of her best- remembered roles was that of the monstrous TV-addicted mother in A Kind of Loving (1962).
As her career progressed, she frequently returned to the stage, often in comedies, with comedians such as Arthur Askey and Harry Secombe, and, in 1964, she was memorably team with the comedian Freddie Frinton in the TV series, Meet the Wife (1963). She starred in a succession of hit TV comedies throughout the 70s and 80s but proof of her talent as a straight actress came in 1987, when she starred in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologue, A Creamcracker under the Settee for which she won a BAFTA award. She wrote several volumes of autobiography, including "Scene and Hird" and "Not in the Diary" and, in 1995, was the subject of a South Bank Show (ITV) monograph. One of the show's contributors, the actor Alan Bates, said of her, "Thora always had a grasp of her character immediately. She didn't have to work herself into a state to get it right. She is a naturally funny woman whose comedy is on the edge of tragedy. It's instinctive and very understanding of life itself". - Gwen Ffrangcon Davies was born on 25 January 1891 in Hampstead, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1991), Nine Days a Queen (1936) and Paul Krüger (1956). She died on 27 January 1992 in Stambourne, Essex, England, UK.
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Monica Mason was born on 6 September 1941 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is an actress, known for Romeo and Juliet (1966), Nijinsky (1980) and The Rite of Spring (1962).- Actress
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Peggy Hookham was always destined to be a dancer. Her Brazilian/Irish mother groomed her for stardom from almost as soon as she could walk. When she was aged 8 her father's work took the family to Shanghai. Peggy and her Mother returned to the UK when she was 14. Her father stayed in Shanghai and was interned by the Japanese for the duration of the war. Young Peggy was enrolled with the Royal Ballet School just when they were looking for a young British dancer to groom as the new Prima Ballerina. Until then all leading dancers in Britain had been Russian or French. Part of the grooming process was to change her name to Margot Fonteyn. Her most influential coach was Tamara Karsavina in London. Fonteyn also regarded her teacher Olga Preobrajenska, a disciple of George Balanchine. Fontain herself worked with George Balanchine as he staged and choreographed ballet for Sadler's Wells. She soon showed the natural talents and dedication required of a Prima Ballerina and after many wonderful performances at Sadler's Wells she went with the Royal Ballet on their 1949 American tour. Her performance as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty on their opening night in NYC wowed the critics and fans alike. Her performance set a new standard for the role. Success followed success and she was soon to become the most famous and most successful ballerina in the world. But one thing eluded her. She fell in love with composer / conductor Constant Lambert but he decided in favor of another. She then fell for playboy Roberto "Tito" Arias. He was a Panamanian delegate to the U.N. and the son of a powerful Panamanian family that had fallen out of political favor. Despite his reputation the couple were married at the Panamanian Consulate in Paris in February 1955. Whilst Margot continued her successful career, she was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1956, Tito planned an armed invasion of Panama City to try to win back some of the power he felt was rightfully his. Margot joined him but the invasion was a total failure. In 1962 Margot was thinking of retirement (she was 43) from ballet when she met Rudolf Nureyev who had fled from the Soviet Union. Young Rudolf Nureyev revitalized Margot and led to some of her most wonderful performances. In 1964, just when Margot was thinking about divorcing him, Tito was shot five times and from then he was paralyzed from the neck down. Margot flew to his side and from then on was his nurse as well as the wife he had never let her be before. Although she knew how he had had many affairs she dedicated the rest of her life to him. It was mainly because of the money she needed to care for Tito that she kept dancing long after most dancers would have retired. She attracted some bad publicity by performing in apartheid South Africa and in the Chile run by the military dictators. As a dancer she made her last appearance in Nureyev's 1979 summer season, and in February 1986 (aged 66) she appeared on stage for the last time, as 'The Queen' in "The Sleeping Beauty", for the Birmingham Royal Ballet in Miami. She subsequently retired to Panama where she and Tito ran a cattle stud. When Tito died in 1989 Margot discovered that he had mortgaged their farm and she had to auction all her jewelry to pay for her own medical care for the newly discovered cancer. Dame Margot died on February 21st 1991. She was buried in the Arias family plot in Panama beside her Tito.- Additional Crew
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It has been rightly suggested that Dame Ninette de Valois is one of the most important women of the century. It was due to her drive and ambition that the modern English ballet was created. In that respect she changed history single handed. Born in Ireland, young Ninette (her stage name was her mother's suggestion) came to England aged 7 to study dance.
At that time (1905) the only ballet seen in England was touring Russian or French companies. Inspired by a perfromance of the Ballets Russes under Diaghilev, she joined them in 1923. By the mid 1920's she was convinced that Britain needed and should be capable of producing it's own National Ballet and she set about working towards it with a single minded determination.
By 1926 she opened her first school in London, called the Academy of Choreographic Arts. By the early 1930s she had, with the help of Lillian Bayliss, the director of The Old Vic that the theater needed it's own ballet company and school. With help from Lillian Bayliss, Madame (as she was known by her pupils), bought the old Sadler's Wells Theatre and opened her new Ballet School there.
As well as starting the new theatre and ballet school she also found time to choreograph such works as The Rake's Pregress (based on the Hogarth prints) for the new company. She soon attracted quite a few talented people around her including the young Frederick Ashton.
By 1934 the new theatre and ballet school were in full operation and they produced full length ballets such as Giselle and Copellia (featuring Alicia Markova). That year a young dancer may have been found in the ranks by the name of Margot Fonteyn. de Valois had realised from the beginning that the only way to make a truly British Ballet was to have a complete system in place from school to stage.
She had developed what came to be known as the English Ballet style of narrative, lyrical ballet and this was taught in the school. She was also still an innovative choreograph such innovative works as Checkmate (1937). During the years of the second world war they toured extensively and became a major morale booster.
For all her work Ninette was created a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1951. In 1955 she started a new ballet school in White Lodge, Richmond Park, Surrey. Away from the busy metropolis the Royal Ballet (as they had become) had a perfect home here. Although retired since 1963, Dame Ninette is still a powerful force in the world of ballet.- Actress
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Joan Sutherland was born on 7 November 1926 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for The Metropolitan Opera Presents (1977), Spectre (2015) and Carlito's Way (1993). She was married to Richard Bonynge. She died on 10 October 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland.- Actress
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Janet Baker was born on 21 August 1933 in York, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Morgan (2016), Byzantium (2012) and Happiness (1998).- Actress
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Margaret Price was born on 13 April 1941 in Blackwood, Wales, UK. She was an actress, known for Aida (1981), God's Comedy (1995) and Verdi: Requiem (2009). She died on 28 January 2011 in Moyle Grove, Wales, UK.- Suzi Leather was born on 5 April 1956 in Uganda. She is married to Iain Hampsher-Monk. They have three children.
- Ann Leslie was born on 28 January 1941 in Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. She was a writer, known for Think of England (1991), University Challenge (1962) and What the Papers Say (1956). She was married to Michael Fletcher. She died on 25 June 2023.
- Mary Peters was born on 6 July 1939 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK.
- Kelly Holmes was born on 19 April 1970 in Pembury, Kent, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Absolutely Fabulous (1992), Superstars (2008) and Ten Count.
- Anita Roddick was born on 23 October 1942 in Littlehampton, Sussex, England, UK. She was married to Gordon Roddick. She died on 10 September 2007 in Chichester, West Sussex, England, UK.
- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was considered one of the last, if not the last, major star to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early in her youth and kept the world hooked with ever after.
Taylor was born on February 27, 1932 in London, England. Although she was born an English subject, her parents, Sara Taylor (née Sara Viola Warmbrodt) and Francis Taylor, were Americans, art dealers from St. Louis, Missouri. Her father had moved to London to set up a gallery prior to Elizabeth's birth. Her mother had been an actress on the stage, but gave up that vocation when she married. Elizabeth lived in London until the age of seven, when the family left for the US when the clouds of war began brewing in Europe in 1939. They sailed without her father, who stayed behind to wrap up the loose ends of the art business.
The family relocated to Los Angeles, where Mrs. Taylor's own family had moved. Mr. Taylor followed not long afterward. A family friend noticed the strikingly beautiful little Elizabeth and suggested that she be taken for a screen test. Her test impressed executives at Universal Pictures enough to sign her to a contract. Her first foray onto the screen was in There's One Born Every Minute (1942), released when she was ten. Universal dropped her contract after that one film, but Elizabeth was soon picked up by MGM.
The first production she made with that studio was Lassie Come Home (1943), and on the strength of that one film, MGM signed her for a full year. She had minuscule parts in her next two films, The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) and Jane Eyre (1943) (the former made while she was on loan to 20th Century-Fox). Then came the picture that made Elizabeth a star: MGM's National Velvet (1944). She played Velvet Brown opposite Mickey Rooney. The film was a smash hit, grossing over $4 million. Elizabeth now had a long-term contract with MGM and was its top child star. She made no films in 1945, but returned in 1946 in Courage of Lassie (1946), another success. In 1947, when she was 15, she starred in Life with Father (1947) with such heavyweights as William Powell, Irene Dunne and Zasu Pitts, which was one of the biggest box office hits of the year. She also co-starred in the ensemble film Little Women (1949), which was also a box office huge success.
Throughout the 1950s, Elizabeth appeared in film after film with mostly good results, starting with her role in the George Stevens film A Place in the Sun (1951), co-starring her good friend Montgomery Clift. The following year, she co-starred in Ivanhoe (1952), one of the biggest box office hits of the year. Her busiest year was 1954. She had a supporting role in the box office flop Beau Brummell (1954), but later that year starred in the hits The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) and Elephant Walk (1954). She was 22 now, and even at that young age was considered one of the world's great beauties. In 1955 she appeared in the hit Giant (1956) with James Dean.
Sadly, Dean never saw the release of the film, as he died in a car accident in 1955. The next year saw Elizabeth co-star with Montgomery Clift in Raintree County (1957), an overblown epic made, partially, in Kentucky. Critics called it dry as dust. In addition, Clift was seriously injured during the film, with Taylor helping save his life. Despite the film's shortcomings and off-camera tragedy, Elizabeth was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Southern belle Susanna Drake. However, on Oscar night the honor went to Joanne Woodward for The Three Faces of Eve (1957).
In 1958 Elizabeth starred as Maggie Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The film received rave reviews from the critics and Elizabeth was nominated again for an Academy Award for best actress, but this time she lost to Susan Hayward in I Want to Live! (1958). She was still a hot commodity in the film world, though. In 1959 she appeared in another mega-hit and received yet another Oscar nomination for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Once again, however, she lost out, this time to Simone Signoret for Room at the Top (1958). Her Oscar drought ended in 1960 when she brought home the coveted statue for her performance in BUtterfield 8 (1960) as Gloria Wandrous, a call girl who is involved with a married man. Some critics blasted the movie but they couldn't ignore her performance. There were no more films for Elizabeth for three years. She left MGM after her contract ran out, but would do projects for the studio later down the road. In 1963 she starred in Cleopatra (1963), which was one of the most expensive productions up to that time--as was her salary, a whopping $1,000,000. The film took years to complete, due in part to a serious illness during which she nearly died.
This was the film where she met her future and fifth husband, Richard Burton (the previous four were Conrad Hilton, Michael Wilding, Mike Todd--who died in a plane crash--and Eddie Fisher). Her next films, The V.I.P.s (1963) and The Sandpiper (1965), were lackluster at best. Elizabeth was to return to fine form, however, with the role of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Her performance as the loudmouthed, shrewish, unkempt, yet still alluring Martha was easily her finest to date. For this she would win her second Oscar and one that was more than well-deserved. The following year, she and Burton co-starred in The Taming of The Shrew (1967), again giving winning performances. However, her films afterward were box office failures, including Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), The Comedians (1967), Boom! (1968) (again co-starring with Burton), Secret Ceremony (1968), The Only Game in Town (1970), X, Y & Zee (1972), Hammersmith Is Out (1972) (with Burton again), Ash Wednesday (1973), Night Watch (1973), The Driver's Seat (1974), The Blue Bird (1976) (considered by many to be her worst), A Little Night Music (1977), and Winter Kills (1979) (a controversial film which was never given a full release and in which she only had a small role). She later appeared in some movies, both theatrical and made-for-television, and a number of television programs. In February 1997, Elizabeth entered the hospital for the removal of a brain tumor. The operation was successful. As for her private life, she divorced Burton in 1974, only to remarry him in 1975 and divorce him, permanently, in 1976. She had two more husbands, U.S. Senator John Warner and construction worker Larry Fortensky, whom she met in rehab.
In 1959, Taylor converted to Judaism, and continued to identify herself as Jewish throughout her life, being active in Jewish causes. Upon the death of her friend, actor Rock Hudson, in 1985, she began her crusade on behalf of AIDS sufferers. In the 1990s, she also developed a successful series of scents. In her later years, her acting career was relegated to the occasional TV-movie or TV guest appearance.
Elizabeth Taylor died on March 23, 2011 in Los Angeles, from congestive heart failure. Her final resting place is Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California.- Actress
- Writer
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Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her mother, Barbara Ward (Morris), and stepfather, both vaudeville performers, discovered her freakish but undeniably lovely four-octave singing voice and immediately got her a singing career. She performed in music halls throughout her childhood and teens, and at age 20, she launched her stage career in a London Palladium production of "Cinderella".
Andrews came to Broadway in 1954 with "The Boy Friend", and became a bona fide star two years later in 1956, in the role of Eliza Doolittle in the unprecedented hit "My Fair Lady". Her star status continued in 1957, when she starred in the TV-production of Cinderella (1957) and through 1960, when she played "Guenevere" in "Camelot".
In 1963, Walt Disney asked Andrews if she would like to star in his upcoming production, a lavish musical fantasy that combined live-action and animation. She agreed on the condition if she didn't get the role of Doolittle in the pending film production of My Fair Lady (1964). After Audrey Hepburn was cast in My Fair Lady, Andrews made an auspicious film debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Andrews continued to work on Broadway, until the release of The Sound of Music (1965), the highest-grossing movie of its day and one of the highest-grossing of all time. She soon found that audiences identified her only with singing, sugary-sweet nannies and governesses, and were reluctant to accept her in dramatic roles in The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Torn Curtain (1966). In addition, the box-office showings of the musicals Julie subsequently made increasingly reflected the negative effects of the musical-film boom that she helped to create. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) was for a time the most successful film Universal had released, but it still couldn't compete with Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music for worldwide acclaim and recognition. Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1970) also bombed at the box office.
Fortunately, Andrews did not let this keep her down. She worked in nightclubs and hosted a TV variety series in the 1970s. In 1979, Andrews returned to the big screen, appearing in films directed by her husband Blake Edwards, with roles that were entirely different from anything she had been seen in before. Andrews starred in 10 (1979), S.O.B. (1981) and Victor/Victoria (1982), which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
She continued acting throughout the 1980s and 1990s in movies and TV, hosting several specials and starring in a short-lived sitcom. In 2001, she starred in The Princess Diaries (2001), alongside then-newcomer Anne Hathaway. The family film was one of the most successful G-Rated films of that year, and Andrews reprised her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). In recent years, Andrews appeared in Tooth Fairy (2010), as well as a number of voice roles in Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Enchanted (2007), Shrek Forever After (2010), and Despicable Me (2010).- Actress
- Writer
Beryl Grey was born on 11 June 1927 in Highgate, London, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for Producers' Showcase (1954), This Is the BBC (1959) and Chelsea at Nine (1957). She was married to Sven Svensson. She died on 10 December 2022 in England, UK.- Actress
- Writer
Beryl Bainbridge was born on 21 November 1932 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for Rookery Nook (1953), Sweet William (1980) and An Awfully Big Adventure (1995). She was married to Austin Howard Davies. She died on 2 July 2010 in London, England, UK.- Writer
- Actress
Iris Murdoch was born on 15 July 1919 in Dublin, Ireland. She was a writer and actress, known for The Italian Girl, A Severed Head (1971) and Television Theater (1953). She was married to John Bayley. She died on 8 February 1999 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK.- Additional Crew
Daphne Sheldrick was born on 4 June 1934 in Kenya. She is known for The Flame Trees of Thika (1981), Bloody Ivory (1978) and For the Love of Elephants (2010). She was married to Bill Woodley and David Sheldrick. She died on 12 April 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya.- Music Department
- Actress
- Composer
Shirley Bassey was born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales, and raised in the nearby working class neighborhood of Splott. Her mother was originally from Yorkshire, and her father was a Nigerian seaman who left the family when she was less than two. She later helped to support her family by working in an Enamelware factory. She made her professional debut at 16 appearing in a touring revue "Memories of Al Jolson". Her first major hit was "The Banana Boat Song," and she later sang "Goldfinger" in the James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964). Her younger daughter died of drowning in 1985. She currently lives in Monte Carlo.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Cleo Laine was born on 28 October 1927 in Southall, Middlesex, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Third Alibi (1961), The Concrete Jungle (1960) and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She was previously married to John Dankworth and George Langridge.- Academy Award-winning, legendary English actress - who maintained her status in the British acting elite for decades. Made a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956. Almost always on stage, she appeared rarely in film, her first being The Wandering Jew (1933). On stage she was cast in many a Shakespearean role, but in film she usually played sympathetic characters. She won an Oscar for A Passage to India (1984), and her last TV film was She's Been Away (1989). She died from a stroke.
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- Soundtrack
Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Her notable stage works included the role of Lady Macbeth, which she played first in the 1920s, and gave an Emmy Award-winning television performance in Macbeth (1960). Anderson's long association with Euripides' "Medea" began with her acclaimed Tony Award-winning 1948 stage performance in the title role. She appeared in the television version of Medea (1983) in the supporting character of the Nurse.
Anderson made her Hollywood film debut under director Rowland Brown in a supporting role in Blood Money (1933). Her striking, not conventionally attractive features were complemented with her powerful presence, mastery of timing and an effortless style. Anderson made a film career as a supporting character actress in several significant films including Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), for which she was Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She worked with director Otto Preminger in Laura (1944), then with René Clair in And Then There Were None (1945). Her remarkable performance in a supporting role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) fit in a stellar acting ensemble under director Richard Brooks.
Anderson was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1960 Queen's New Year's Honours List for her services to the performing arts. Living in Santa Barbara in her later years, she also had a successful stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara (1984) and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1984. In the same year, at age 87, she appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) as the High Priestess, and was nominated for a Saturn Award for that role. She was awarded Companion of the Order of Australia in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to the performing arts. Anderson died at age 94 of pneumonia on January 3, 1992 in Santa Barbara, California.- Actress
- Writer
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Eileen Atkins was born in a Salvation Army Women's Hostel in north London. Her father was a gas meter reader; her mother, a seamstress and barmaid. A drama teacher taught her how to drop her Cockney accent, and she studied Shakespeare and Greek tragedies. Her breakthrough role in "The Killing of Sister George" took her to Broadway.- Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally Hardcastle in Love on the Dole. She toured extensively, playing in London and New York. She took leading parts in Pygmalion and Saint Joan at the Malvern Festival in 1936.
- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Vera Lynn was born on 20 March 1917 in East Ham, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Hellboy (2004), Lolita (1997) and Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982). She was married to Harry Lewis. She died on 18 June 2020 in Ditchling, East Sussex, England, UK.- Celia Johnson was an English actress, once nominated for an Academy Award. Johnson was born in the town of Richmond, Surrey in 1908. Richmond was incorporated into Greater London in 1965, as part of an administrative reform. Celia's parents were John Robert Johnson and Ethel Griffiths. Neither of them was involved in show business.
In 1916, 8-year-old Johnson made her theatrical debut, at a performance of the play "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid". It was a charity performance, to help raise funds for then-ongoing World War I. Nobody intended for her to become a professional actress, but she liked the stage experience.
Johnson attended St Paul's Girls' School in West London, from 1919 to 1926. She graduated at the age of 18. During her school years, Johnson often had acting parts in school plays, and played music in the school's orchestra. Her music teacher at the school was Gustav Holst (1874-1934), a relatively well-known classical composer.
In the late 1920s, Johnson studied acting at both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and the Comédie-Française in Paris. One of her teachers was French actor Pierre Fresnay (1897-1975). One of her classmates in London was Margaretta Scott (1912-2005)
In 1928, Johnson made her professional debut, cast in a performance of the play "Major Barbara" (1905) by George Bernard Shaw. In 1929, she first performed in London, and in 1931 she first performed in New York City. She made a name for herself as a theatrical actress throughout the 1930s, and married journalist Peter Fleming (1907-1971).
Johnson's career and personal life were derailed by World War II. A hit role as the second Mrs. Winter in a 1940 theatrical adaptation of "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier, was cut short. The theatre where Johnson was performing was damaged through London's bombing by the Luftwaffe. Johnson's widowed sister and sister-in-law moved in with her, bringing their kids with. Having to care for 7 kids (both her own children and her nephews), left Johnson with no time to spare for theatrical tours.
Seeking a way to supplement her income during the War, Johnson started appearing in theatrical films. She started with small parts, but got her first major hit with the family drama "The Happy Breed" (1944), which followed the ups-and-downs in the life of a (fictional) family over a period of several decades. For this role, Johnson received a National Board of Review Award for Best Actress.
In 1945, Johnson was starring in another hit film, the romantic drama "Brief Encounter". It featured her in the role of Laura Jesson, a housewife trapped in a dull and monotonous marriage. Laura falls in love with a new man in her life, Dr. Alec Harvey, and he falls in love with her. With circumstances keep this relationship platonic, until Harvey leaves the country to work abroad. Laura contemplates suicide, but is forced to return to her monotonous life. The role gained Johnson a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
For most of the late 1940s, Johnson was in semi-retirement. She had given birth to two daughters and felt that she needed to devote more time to her family. From the 1950s to her death, Johnson was primarily appearing in theatrical plays and television roles. Her film roles were few, but critically well-received.
In 1982, the 76-year-old Johnson was busy with another theatrical tour. During a day-off from the tour, Johnson returned to her home in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire. She invited friends over to play bridge, but suffered a stroke during the game. She died a few hours later, while still in her home. She left an estate worth £150,557. She was survived by three children.
Johnson's fame as a theatrical actress faded away following her death, as there were few filmed versions of her performances. However, her film roles became available on the home video market, and they have helped introduce Johnson to new generations of fans. - Actress
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This alert and classy actress seemed poised for Hollywood stardom in the early 1970s. Although it wasn't meant to be, Janet Suzman has remained one of the more respected classical stage players of her time. Born in 1939, she was raised in a staunchly liberal household in South Africa at a time when the country was moving toward the formal racial discrimination of apartheid. Suzman studied languages at the multi-racial Witwatersrand University in the late 1950s and was an active member of the drama society. She left South Africa during the height of her country's oppression, and moved to England in 1959.
Making her professional stage debut with "Billy Liar" in 1962, she almost immediately joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and received rave notices for her Joan of Arc in "The War of the Roses." She made her official London debut in a production of "A Comedy of Errors" in 1963. In the ensuing years Janet built up an impressive classical resumé portraying most of Shakespeare's illustrious heroines including Rosalind, Portia, Ophelia, Beatrice and the shrewish Kate. She also appeared in several BBC-TV versions of the classics.
In 1969 she married director Trevor Nunn and together they collaborated on some of England's finest stage productions during the early 1970s, notably "Antony and Cleopatra" (1972), "Titus Andronicus" (1972) and "Hello and Goodbye" (1973), which won Suzman the Evening Standard award. She won a second for her role of Masha in the 1976 production of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters." They had a son, Joshua, before they divorced in the 1980s. Later work included notable roles in "She Stoops to Conquer," "The Good Woman of Setzuan" and her "Hedda Gabler."
In the early 1970s she branched out into films. Following an auspicious turn in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972), she won the coveted role of Czarina Alexandra in the florid historical piece Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) co-starring Michael Jayston, in which she enjoyed a sterling British cast in support - including Harry Andrews, Jack Hawkins, Ian Holm, John McEnery, Laurence Olivier and Michael Redgrave. Suzman received an Oscar nomination for her performance, and bigger things seemed inevitable. She went on to grace a number of films, including Voyage of the Damned (1976), Nijinsky (1980) and Priest of Love (1981).
In a reprise of her real life family's activism, Suzman co-starred in the anti-apartheid film A Dry White Season (1989) portraying the wife of the Donald Sutherland character. The cast included other progressive activists such as Susan Sarandon and Marlon Brando (who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor). In a change-of-pace role, she played a Mother Superior in the hysterical farce Nuns on the Run (1990).
In the 1980s Suzman was inspired to direct and coach. She was a visiting professor of drama at Westfield College, London, and later returned to South Africa to provide multi-ethnic castings in versions of Shakespearean plays. Making her directing bow in a production of "Othello" at the Market Theatre in 1987, some of her more notable assignments included "Death of a Salesman" (1992) and a reworked politicized version of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" set in South Africa, titled "The Free State" (1997). In 2002 she returned to the RSC to perform in "The Hollow Crown," and most recently appeared in a London production of "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" (2005) starring Kim Cattrall.
Into the millennium, other than a couple of films such as Max (2002) and Felix (2013), Suzman appeared primarily on the smaller screen in such TV series as Tinga Tinga Tales (2010) (as the voice of the Ostrich) and Sinbad (2012), and a role in the mini-series Labyrinth (2012).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dame Harriet Mary Walter DBE is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.- Writer
- Additional Crew
Rosamunde Pilcher was born on 22 September 1924 in Lelant, Cornwall, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Rosamunde Pilcher (1993), September (1996) and Another View (1995). She was married to Graham Pilcher. She died on 6 February 2019 in Scotland, UK.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rare is the reference to Margaret Rutherford that doesn't characterize her as either jut-chinned, eccentric, or both. The combination of those most mundane of attributes has led some to suggest that she was made for the role of Agatha Christie's indomitable sleuth, Jane Marple, whom Rutherford portrayed in four films between 1961 and 1964 plus in an uncredited film cameo in The Alphabet Murders (1965). Rutherford began her acting career first as a student at London's Old Vic, debuting on stage in 1925. In 1933, she first appeared in the West End at the not-so-tender age of 41. She had made her screen debut in 1936 portraying Miss Butterby in the Twickenham-Wardour production of Hideout in the Alps (1936).
In summer 1941, Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit opened on the London stage, with Coward himself directing. Appearing as Madame Arcati, the genuine psychic, was Rutherford, in a role in which Coward had earlier envisaged her and which he then especially shaped for her. She would carry her portrayal of Madame Arcati to the screen adaptation, David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945). Not only would this become one of Rutherford's most memorable screen performances - with her bicycling about the Kentish countryside, cape fluttering behind her - but it would establish the model for portraying that pseudo-soothsayer forever thereafter. Despite Rutherford's appearances in more than 40 films, it is as Madame Arcati and Miss Jane Marple that she will best be remembered.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dame Dorothy Tutin's esteemed company of peers included other remarkable dames, including Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. Unlike these others, Dorothy had limited screen time over the years and would develop the respect but not the stardom afforded the other two outside the realm of the theatre. Dorothy was born in London on April 8, 1930, the daughter of John and Adie Evelyne (Fryers) Tutin. Educated at St. Catherine's, she studied for the stage at PARADA and RADA, making her debut performance as "Princess Margaret" in "The Thistle and the Rose" on September 6, 1949. In the early 1950s, she joined both the Bristol and London Old Vic companies where she rose in stature with secondary roles in "As You Like It", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Henry V" and "Much Ado About Nothing". She later demonstrated her versatility outside the classics when she originated the role of "Sally Bowles" in "I Am a Camera" in 1954 and later played "Jean Rice" in "The Entertainer" in 1957.
Great promise was held for Dorothy after an auspicious film debut as "Cecily Cardew" in the classic Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). Despite sterling film portrayals of "Polly Peachum" opposite Laurence Olivier's "Macheath" in The Beggar's Opera (1953) and "Lucie Manette" in a remake of A Tale of Two Cities (1958) with Dirk Bogarde, Dorothy abruptly left the cinema to return to the comforts of a live stage. She continued to play all the illustrious Shakespearean femmes (Juliet, Desdemona, Rosalind, Ophelia, Portia, Cressida) during her excursions with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and Royal Shakespeare companies, and won the coveted Evening Standard award for her "Viola" in "Twelfth Night" in 1960. During this time, she returned to the role of "Polly Peachum", this time on stage, in 1963, and won acclaim for her "Queen Victoria" in "Portrait of a Queen" in 1965. She took the role to Broadway in 1968 and won a Tony nomination. In the 1970s, she appeared in everything from Harold Pinter plays to "Peter Pan".
Though her film and TV output was limited, the performances Dorothy gave during these sporadic occasions were nothing less than astonishing. Included among these triumphs has to be her "Anne Boleyn" opposite Keith Michell as one of The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), and "Goneril" in Laurence Olivier's heralded adaptation of King Lear (1983). In a rare and rather bizarre moment on film, she top-lined one of Ken Russell's quirky biopics of the 1970s, the flop-turned-cult classic Savage Messiah (1972), in which she played a Polish noblewoman married to the much younger sculptor, "Henri Gaudier-Brzeska".
In later years, Dorothy enhanced several costumed TV movies with an always fascinating grande dame eloquence. An intriguing "Desiree Armfeldt" in "A Little Night Music" in 1989 and both an Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier Award winner for her superlative work in "A Month in the Country", Dorothy took her final curtain in a revival of "The Gin Game" opposite Joss Ackland in 1999. Honored with the title "Commander of the British Empire" in 1967, she was made a "Dame" for her services to the theatre in the 2000 New Year Honors.
Diagnosed with leukemia, Dame Dorothy died on August 6, 2001, at the Edward VII Hospital in London. She was survived by her actor husband (since 1963) Derek Waring and their two children, Amanda Waring and Nick Waring, both of whom are actors. Daughter Amanda, in fact, occasionally appeared as younger versions of her mother on TV during the 1990s and went on to gain a bit of fame for herself as a musical "Gigi". Her husband died in 2007.- Born Mary Whitty on June 19, 1865, to a Liverpool newspaper editor and his wife, she became known as May Whitty to the world. She first stepped onto the London stage in 1882 at which she worked as an understudy at the St. James Theatre and then began playing leading roles when she joined a traveling stock company. After nearly 25 years as one of Britain's leading stage actresses, she appeared in her first film, Enoch Arden (1914), in Great Britain. She did not care much for the experience and appeared in only a few silent films afterward.
In 1918, based on her service to the arts and for performing for the troops during World War I, she was named as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by King George V.
After a string of 1930s Broadway successes, she went to Hollywood, following the example of many of her British contemporaries. She found herself usually cast in highborn roles, sometimes crotchety, sometimes imperious, however often warmhearted. Classic examples of these were the crotchety Mrs. Bramson, an invalid who falls for the homicidal Robert Montgomery, in Night Must Fall (1937); Miss Froy\ in The Lady Vanishes (1938), wherein she plays the title character, enduring great physical exertion while maintaining her poise and dignity; and Lady Beldon in Mrs. Miniver (1942), a role which garnered her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She proved herself equally capable of playing working-class roles, such as the dowdy phony psychic in The Thirteenth Chair (1937). Besides two Oscar nominations, she also won the National Board of Review best acting award for the 1937 film Night Must Fall (1937).
In 1892, she married London producer Ben Webster. They were the parents of a daughter, Margaret Webster, who became a playwright and actress in her own right. Margaret penned her mother's biography, The Same Only Different, published in 1969.
Whitty died at the age of 82 as the result of cancer in Beverly Hills shortly after completing her scenes in the film The Sign of the Ram (1948).
She once said, "I've got everything Betty Grable has ... only I've had it longer." - Actress
- Soundtrack
Flora Robson knew she was no beauty, but her wise and sympathetic face would become a familiar - indeed, shining - ornament of the 1930s and '40s silver screen. Though not sure of acting as a career in her early years, she first appeared on stage when 5 years old. She was educated at Palmer's Green High School and went on still in her teens to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, winning a Bronze Medal in 1921. Between 1921-23 she performed in London and Oxford, but both uncertainty and the unstable income of acting convinced her to spend the next few years working at a factory welfare officer in east London.
Still, her versatility, even in her youth, as a budding character actress of the first water, was noticed. In 1929 a friend urged her to join the Cambridge Festival Theatre where she remained two years.
By 1931 she was in residence at the Old Vic with as varied roles as Herodias in "Salome" (1931), a drunken prostitute in Bridie's "The Anatomist", Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth", and Gwendolen in "The Importance of Being Earnest" (both in 1933).
She stayed with the Old Vic until 1934, but she was already turning to the film with her debut in A Gentleman of Paris (1931).
Her dexterity as screen monarchs began shortly thereafter as Russian Empress Elisabeth in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934). Flora even had a place in television history in the pre-WWII British TV production of Anna Christie (1937).
She was a forceful Livia in Josef von Sternberg's ill-fated and unfinished I, Claudius (1937), but gave a hint of her future potential with her rousing Queen Elizabeth I in Alexander Korda's Fire Over England (1937) with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
The year 1939 was extremely busy for Robson. It marked her first association with British director Michael Powell in his The Lion Has Wings (1939) and Smith (1939) and the unsurprising call from Hollywood.
There she was lauded quickly for 2 roles that year: as the domineering wife of Paul Muni in We Are Not Alone (1939) and opposite fellow British stars Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, and David Niven as narrator and housekeeper Ellen Dean in the haunting Wuthering Heights (1939). Her compelling Elizabeth marked her for a reprise of the role in the Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Sea Hawk (1940) in which she played the role to the hilt.
Among early screen Elizabeth standouts, Florence Eldridge in Mary of Scotland (1936) resembled the historical queen and the more famous Bette Davis displayed the manner and temperament with her usual command (though it is hard not to feel it's Bette playing her - albeit - brilliant self and not Elizabeth) in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), but Robson seemed to best personify the total person and spirit of 'good Queen Bess'.
Flora's film career was marked with a character versatility which had and continued to mark precious time for stage work (as in her murderess Ellen Creed in "Ladies in Retirement" (Broadway, 1950). In 1941, she returned to war-torn London to boldly continue theater performances to a grateful country. After the war, it was a full life of crisscrossing the Atlantic. Though some British critics were not impressed with her return to Hollywood to play the overly protective mulatto servant of Ingrid Bergman in Saratoga Trunk (1945), it was an outstanding tour-de-force character performance honored with an Oscar nomination.
Among other memorable roles in the late 1940s, even her reflective Anglican Sister Philippa in Powell's visually stunning and provocative Black Narcissus (1947) displays her depth as a solid character actress. Another quarter of a century of roles was accented with memorable theatrical performances as Lady Macbeth on Broadway (1949) and as Paulina in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" (1951), production by John Gielgud, to add to a kaleidoscope mix of movies from 1948 to 1981 and a sprinkling of character pieces on British TV, when she retired from the stage in 1969.
The material success of Hollywood played a part in her much deserved honor as Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1952 and her ascension as Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1960. Kenneth Barrow wrote a biography Flora: The Life of Dame Flora Robson (1981). Flora had the further honor of rating 2 portraits in London's National Portrait Gallery for her full and distinguished life.- Muriel Spark was born on 1 February 1918 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. She was a writer, known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), The Driver's Seat (1974) and Teletale (1963). She was married to Sidney Oswald Spark. She died on 13 April 2006 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.
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After her school education, she initially attended a school for secretaries, but in 1957, at the invitation of a former schoolmate, she realized her long-held dream of getting to know Africa and traveled to Kenya. She found a job at the Kenya National Museum and came into contact with its director Louis Leakey. Although Goodall had no academic training at the time, Leakey suggested that she participate in a field study of wild chimpanzees. She then began working as an assistant for Leakey. In 1960, Goodall, accompanied by her mother, traveled to Lake Tanganyika in what is now Gombe National Park. There she began researching primates, which are genetically closely related to humans. Through her "participatory observation method" she was able to gain new insights into the animals. Goodall discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools. Their work also helped to differentiate bonobos from chimpanzees.
In 1965, the researcher temporarily interrupted her studies to do her doctorate at the University of Cambridge. She received an exemption and was therefore able to do a doctorate even though she had never studied. As Dr. Jane Goodall returned to Tanzania, where she founded the "Gombe Stream Research Center" in Gombe in 1967. With funding from the American National Geographic Society, the first texts and images from her studies appeared. Goodall gained worldwide fame with the publication of her book "Wild Chimpanzees". From 1971 to 1975 she taught as a visiting professor at Stanford University in California. In 1977, the researcher founded the "Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation" in the USA to ensure the protection of the chimpanzees in Gombe and her research activities. In 1987 Goodall retired from field research. Since then she has been committed to protecting chimpanzees.
As an "ambassador for chimpanzees" she travels around the world, giving lectures on environmental pollution and climate change. She also campaigns against the illegal animal trade. Goodall also coordinates various scientific projects carried out in Gombe. In her published autobiography "Reason for Hope" she writes about the motives of her work and the leitmotif of her life. For Jane Goodall, there seems to be no contradiction between belief in God and the Darwinian theory of evolution. Goodall has since moved back to England, to her childhood home. In 2002 she was appointed UN Messenger of Peace. Jane Goodall is also committed to environmental projects with young people, for which purpose she launched the "Roots & Shoots" project. In 2005 she became an officer of the French Legion of Honor. In 2018, the documentary "Jane" by American director Brett Morgan was released in cinemas. In 2020 she received the Tang Prize in the "Sustainable Development" category.- Whina Cooper was born on 9 December 1895 in Te Karaka, New Zealand. She was married to William Cooper and Richard Gilbert. She died on 26 March 1994 in Hokianga, New Zealand.
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Myra Hess was born on 25 February 1890 in London, England, UK. She was a composer, known for Lucky Bastard (2014), These Two Hands (1949) and Myra Hess (1945). She died on 26 November 1965 in London, England, UK.- Dame Susan Devoy was born on 1 January 1964 in Rotorua, New Zealand.
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Gwyneth Jones was born on 7 November 1936 in Pontnewynydd, Wales, UK. She is an actress, known for Quartet (2012), Der Ring des Nibelungen (1980) and Fidelio (1970).- Actress
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Felicity Lott was born on 8 May 1947 in Cheltenham, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Der Rosenkavalier (1994), Anna Karenina (1977) and Mozart's The Magic Flute (1978). She is married to Gabriel Woolf. They have one child.- Composer
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Dame Evelyn Glennie, who was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 New Year Honours List, is one of the best-known figures in contemporary British music. An extraordinarily virtuosic percussionist as well as an engaging personality, she has long been subject to considerable media interest.
Touring internationally with her huge array of instruments (the world's first full-time classical percussion soloist), she has played with all the world's major orchestras, consistently winning massive critical acclaim. Her sixteen solo albums (including twelve on the RCA/BMG label) have reached a remarkably diverse public, as have her numerous collaborations with musicians from the non-classical world.
She has performed with Indian, Indonesian and South American traditional musicians, and in the mid-'90s co-wrote and recorded several songs with the Icelandic singer Björk, including the hit single My Spine. Her 2000 solo album Shadow Behind the Iron Sun, produced by acclaimed rock music producer Michael Brauer, entirely comprises studio improvisations by Evelyn.
In addition to her life as a performer and recording artist, Evelyn has established for herself a considerable reputation as a composer for film and television. One of her earliest credits was her music for a series of Tony Kaye-directed TV commercials for Mazda Cars in the mid-'90s - which was so original that it spawned a host of imitations. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her music for the first series of Lynda La Plante's ground-breaking crime drama Trial & Retribution (La Plante Productions for ITV), and has gone on to record many subsequent series of the show. Other drama credits include two four-hour versions of Bramwell (Whitby Davison Productions for ITV); and Blind Ambition (Coastal Productions/Yorkshire Television).
Documentary credits include 3BM TV's 4-part study of the history of terrorism, The Age of Terror, produced by Oscar-winning producer Jon Blair and transmitted on the Discovery Channel to coincide with the first anniversary of the September 11th outrage. She also composed the title music for two series of the BBC's Soundbites, which she herself presented.
In 1999 Evelyn scored her first feature film, The Trench, a First World War drama written and directed by the novelist William Boyd. In 2004 Evelyn collaborated with the film-maker Thomas Riedelsheimer on his film Touch the Sound. Described as "A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie", the film explores the phenomenon of sound as Evelyn experiences it, in her life and work, and contains much original music by Evelyn, some co-written with the renowned guitarist Fred Frith. The soundtrack has been released by Normal Records.
Evelyn has created a number of tracks for the library music company Audio Network PLC- Tanni Grey-Thompson was born on 26 July 1969 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. She is an actress, known for Twenty Twelve (2011), Absolutely Fabulous (1992) and Game On: The Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport (2023). She has been married to Ian Thompson since 1999. They have one child.
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Jenni Murray was born on 12 May 1950 in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for W1A (2014), Muse (2019) and Rides (1992). She is married to David Forgham-Bailey. They have two children. She was previously married to Brian Murray.- Costume and Wardrobe Department
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Vivienne Westwood was born on 8 April 1941 in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, UK. She was a costume designer and writer, known for Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Shadowboxer (2005) and Twenty-One (1991). She was married to Andreas Kronthaler and Derek Westwood. She died on 29 December 2022 in Clapham, South London, England, UK.- Actress
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Kiri Te Kanawa studied voice in New Zealand, where she was a popular singer as a teenager. She enrolled in the London Opera Center in 1966, and had her Covent Garden debut 1 December 1971. Although her acting ability is highly regarded on the operatic stage, she has made few theatrical films.- Ellen MacArthur was born on 8 July 1976 in Derbyshire, England, UK.
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A pioneer figure in British ballet since the 1920's. Marie was recruited by Diaghilev to assist Nijinsky with his choreography for The Rite of Spring. She settled in London and formed her own company, The Ballet Rambert. Based at the tiny Mercury Theatre she managed to create many notable ballets and to bring on some notable dancers and choreographers such as Sir Frederick Ashton. In 1966 she led the London modern dance movement.Plot: Rose, Cloister Walk B.- Merle Park was born on 8 October 1937 in Salisbury, Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]. She is an actress, known for Pineapple Poll (1959), The Nutcracker (1968) and Producers' Showcase (1954). She was previously married to Sidney Bloch and James Monahan.
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A comedienne and singer in the British Music Halls, she was the top box-office draw and the highest paid actress in Britain in the 1930's. Her Northern, working-class girl character was a favourite during the inter-war years.- Mary Durack was born on 20 February 1913 in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. She was a writer, known for Kings in Grass Castles (1998) and A Life (1992). She was married to H.C. Miller. She died on 16 December 1994 in Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
- Lilian Braithwaite was born on 9 March 1873 in Ramsgate, Kent, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Gay Lord Quex (1917), Because (1918) and The Woman Who Was Nothing (1917). She was married to Gerald Lawrence. She died on 17 September 1948 in London, England, UK.
- Laurentia McLachlan was born on 11 January 1866 in Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK. Laurentia was a writer, known for The Best of Friends (1991). Laurentia died in 1953.
- Penelope Lively was born on 17 March 1933 in Cairo, Egypt. She is a writer, known for Shadows (1975), Jackanory (1965) and Late Night Drama (1974).
- Marie Tempest was born on 15 July 1862 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Mrs. Plum's Pudding (1915), Yellow Sands (1938) and English Nell (1900). She was married to W. Graham Brown, Cosmo Gordon Lennox and Alfred E. Izard. She died on 15 October 1942 in London, England, UK.
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P.D. James was born on 3 August 1920 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. She was a writer and producer, known for Children of Men (2006), Death in Holy Orders (2003) and Dalgliesh (2021). She was married to Ernest Connor Bantry White. She died on 27 November 2014 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK.- Actress
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Felicity Palmer was born on 6 April 1944 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for BBC Proms (2012), The Mikado or the Town of Titipu (1987) and The Gondoliers (1997).- Irene Vanbrugh was born on 2 December 1872 in Exeter, Devon, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Gay Lord Quex (1917), Knight Without Armor (1937) and Youthful Folly (1934). She was married to Dion Boucicault Jr.. She died on 30 November 1949 in London, England, UK.
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Dame Anna Neagle, the endearingly popular British star during WWII, was born Florence Marjorie Robertson and began dancing as a professional in chorus lines at age 14. She starred with actor Jack Buchanan in the musical "Stand Up and Sing" in the West End and earned her big break when producer/director Herbert Wilcox, who had caught the show purposely to consider Buchanan for an upcoming film, was also taken (and smitten) by Anna, casting her as well in the process. Thus began one of the most exclusive and successful partnerships in the British cinema.
Under Wilcox's guidance (they married in 1943), Anna became one of the biggest and brightest celebrities of her time. Always considered an actress of limited abilities, the lovely Anna nevertheless would prove to be a sensational box-office commodity for nearly two decades. She added glamour and sophistication for war-torn London audiences and her lightweight musicals, comedies and even costumed historical dramas provided a nicely balanced escape route. The tasteful, ladylike heroines she portrayed included nurses Edith Cavell and Florence Nightingale, flyer Amy Johnson and undercover spy Odette; Nell Gwyn and Queen Victoria also fell within her grasp. She appeared in a number of frothy post-war retreads co-starring Michael Wilding that the critics turned their noses on but the audiences ate up - including They Met at Midnight (1946), Katy's Love Affair (1947), Spring in Park Lane (1948) and The Lady with a Lamp (1951). She tried to extend her fame to Hollywood and briefly appeared there in three musicals in the early 40s, but failed to make a dent. Anna's appeal faded somewhat in the late 50s and, after producing a few film efforts, retired altogether from the screen.
She returned to her theatre roots, which culminated in the long-running "Charlie Girl", a 1965 production that ran with Anna for nearly six years. She was bestowed with the honor of Dame of the British Empire in 1969 for her contributions to the theatre. Anna continued to perform after her husband's death in 1977, later developing Parkinson's disease in her final years. She died in 1986 of complications.- Writer
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Rebecca West was born on 21 December 1892 in London, England, UK. She was a writer and actress, known for Reds (1981), They Forgot to Read the Directions (1924) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962). She was married to Henry Maxwell Andrews. She died on 15 March 1983 in London, England, UK.- Daphne Du Maurier was one of the most popular English writers of the 20th Century, when middle-brow genre fiction was accorded a higher level of respect in a more broadly literate age. For her services to literature, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1969, the female equivalent of a knighthood. Thus, she achieved a trifecta of sorts, as her father and her husband were both knights.
She was born on May 13, 1907 in London, the second daughter of the famous actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, who himself was knighted in 1922, and the actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was the famous anglo-French writer George L. Du Maurier, the creator of Svengali in his 1894 novel "Trilby". (She was also cousin to the Llewelyn Davies boys, through her grandfather Gerald. The boys were the inspiration for the boys in J.M. Barrie' Peter Pan (1924) and his Neverland works.) Her husband was also famous: Frederick A. M. Browning, the WWII Commander "Boy" Browning renowned as the "father of the British airborne forces." He helped plan and execute Operation Market Garden, an airborne operation that put Allied troops into Germany and the Netherlands, an ultimately unsuccessful venture chronicled in Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far (1977). During the Second World War, Boy Browning achieved the rank of Lieutenant General and a knighthood. Browning's quote that Arnheim was a bridge too far later became famous as a book title and ultimately a movie title. Daphne published her first short story in 1928; her first novel, "The Loving Spirit", was published in 1931, and her last, "Rule Britannia", forty-one year later. In between, she achieved her greatest success with the novel Rebecca (1940), which was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into a classic film that won the Best Picture Oscar for 1940. Another novel, Don't Look Now (1973), adapted by Nicolas Roeg, is also considered a classic film in Britain.
Along with "Rebecca", she had great successes with her novels Jamaica Inn (1939) and Frenchman's Creek (1944), both of which were adapted into movies. The three novels were set in Cornwall, where she lived. In addition to multiple non-fiction books, Daphne Du Maurier also wrote three plays (including an adaptation of "Rebecca").
She died on April 19, 1989, in Par in her beloved Cornwall, five weeks shy of her 82nd birthday. - Writer
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Antonia Fraser was born on 27 August 1932 in London, England, UK. She is a writer and actress, known for Jemima Shore Investigates (1983), Tales of the Unexpected (1979) and Armchair Thriller (1978). She was previously married to Harold Pinter and Hugh Charles Patrick Joseph Fraser.- Actress
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Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was born on 9 December 1915 in Jarotschin, Prussia, Germany [now Jarocin, Wielkopolskie, Poland]. She was an actress, known for Closer (2004), Der Rosenkavalier (1961) and Nacht ohne Abschied (1943). She was married to Walter Legge. She died on 3 August 2006 in Schruns, Vorarlberg, Austria.- Soundtrack
Nellie Melba was born on 19 May 1861 in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. She was married to Charles Frederick Nisbett Armstrong. She died on 23 February 1931 in Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.- Actress
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Alicia Markova was born on 1 December 1910 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Giselle (1952), A Song for Miss Julie (1945) and Dr. Coppelius (1966). She died on 2 December 2004 in Bath, Somerset, England, UK.- Executive
- Miriam Rothschild was born on 5 August 1908 in Ashton Wold, Northamptonshire, England, UK. She was married to George Henry Lane. She died on 20 January 2005 in Ashton Wold, Northamptonshire, England, UK.
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Peggy Van Praagh was born on 1 September 1910 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Music for You (1951), BP Super Show (1959) and Table d'Hote (1939). She died on 15 January 1990 in Melbourne, Australia.- Margot Turner was born on 10 May 1910. She died on 2 October 1993.
- Marion Roe is married to Roe.
- Dame Frances Campbell-Preston was born on 2 September 1918 in the UK. She was married to Patrick Campbell-Preston. She died on 22 November 2022 in the UK.
- Elizabeth Hoodless is married to Hoodless.
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Bridget D'Oyly Carte was born on 25 March 1908 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Three Men in a Boat (1956), Patience (1965) and Omnibus (1952). She died on 2 May 1985 in Chalfont St. Giles, England, UK.- Anne Evans was born on 20 August 1941 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Siegfried (1993), Götterdämmerung (1992) and Die Walküre (1993).
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Joan Bakewell was born on 16 April 1933 in Stockport, Cheshire, England, UK. She is a writer and actress, known for Iris (2001), The Touchables (1968) and Screen One (1985). She was previously married to Jack Emery and Michael Bakewell.- Nancy Astor was born on 19 May 1879 in Danville, Virginia, USA. She was married to Waldorf Astor and Robert Gould Shaw II. She died on 2 May 1964 in Grimsthorpe Castle, Bourne, Lincolnshire, England, UK.