Diane Hart

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Diane Hart
Born
Diane Lavinia Hart

(1926-07-20)20 July 1926
Bedford, Bedfordshire, England
Died7 February 2002(2002-02-07) (aged 75)
London, England
OccupationActress
Years active1942–1999
SpouseKenneth MacLeod (1953–2002) (her death)
Children2

Diane Lavinia Hart (20 July 1926 – 7 February 2002) was an English actress in both films and West End theatre, political campaigner, and inventor.

Early life

Born in 1926, Hart was educated at various convents and then at Abbot's Hill School,

speeches
back to the Germans from the BBC in the UK over their airwaves.

Career

In 1943, Hart started on stage as a feed in a

ENSA
.

Her theatre breakthrough came with her casting in a supporting role in Daughter Janie

William Douglas-Home's early hit The Chiltern Hundreds (Vaudeville Theatre (1946), and Booth Theatre, New York (1949). In this political light comedy, centred round an 'Earl of Lister' and a local by-election, Hart played the comic role of the young housemaid Bessie opposite A. E. Matthews
.

Later career

When Glynis Johns – the original choice – became unavailable for Terence Rattigan's comedy Who Is Sylvia? at the Criterion Theatre (1950), Hart was cast instead. In this production, she had to play three roles, one in each act, as an office girl, an actress and a model. The play opened at the home of Rattigan's first success, French Without Tears, and also co-starred two of its cast, Robert Flemyng and Roland Culver. It ran for just under a year and gained the young Hart positive critical reviews.

In

Lyric Theatre in 1950, Hart was cast for the West End version instead of the American actress who had created the role, Joan Tetzel, taking over opposite Robert Morley, with Peter Brook as director. She also enjoyed a six-month stint as Mollie Ralston in one of the earliest runs of The Mousetrap (Ambassadors Theatre
(1953), and then abandoned the stage for 11 years in favour of television and the cinema.

In March 1963, she translated the Sardou play Divorce A La Carte and appeared in the production of the same with

Phoenix Theatre in London. In 1964, she appeared on the West End stage with her friend, Margaret Lockwood (with whom she had first worked in The Wicked Lady) in Every Other Evening, also at the Phoenix. A long-running engagement came Hart's way with Joyce Rayburn's West End comedy The Man Most Likely To... (Vaudeville Theatre (1968), opposite Leslie Phillips. She had another long vaudeville residency acting with Terence Alexander and replacing Moira Lister in the successful Ray Cooney
/John Chapman farce Move Over, Mrs Markham (1972).

Hart also participated in theatre in

homosexual
relationship with a teacher.

In later years, she often worked in regional theatre, playing, among other parts, the title role in

Somerset Maugham's Mrs Dot (Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, 1974), in The Bank Manager (East Grinstead, 1974), Miss Adams Will Be Waiting (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford, 1975) and The Pleasure Principle (New End, Hampstead
1989) and other plays.

Hart's film career started much earlier, in the 1940s, with a small role as a bridesmaid in the

Britannia Mews (1949), scripted by Ring Lardner Jr., and playing opposite David Niven in the musical Happy Go Lovely
(1951). Hart's then husband, Kenneth MacLeod, was also in the film with a small part.

She made many television appearances, beginning at Alexandra Palace during the war, as well as radio performances for Val Gielgud. Hart played Ted Ray's wife in series 6 of the popular comedy series Ray's a Laugh.[1]

Apart from acting, one of her inventions was the "Beatnix" corselet,

Marks and Spencer. One customer was in the Soviet Union, Mrs Alexei Kosygin, the wife of the Russian premier. She also persuaded the British War Office to adopt another of her inventions, when she suggested they attach harrows to a helicopter to clear landmines during the Falklands campaign
.

In politics, Hart once tried to set up a Women's Party for the UK. She posted an anonymous advertisement in the personal columns of The Times which read: "Ladies. Don't just sit there. If you are sick of castles in the air, sit in the House of Commons. Wanted, 630 ladies willing to gamble £500 each fighting a constituency." "Castles in the air" was a reference to Barbara Castle, MP, who at the time was the only prominent British female politician. Hart hired Caxton Hall in central London for a rally, but only about forty women turned up.

Later, she ran in the general election of 1970 as an Independent candidate for Lewisham South, but lost her deposit. She was criticised by Germaine Greer in a footnote in the last pages of Greer's work The Female Eunuch.

In 1977, Hart led a legal action

Equity, of which she was a longstanding member, to stop a referendum of their members over changes to union rules. Four years later, she also successfully took on the Aga Khan Foundation United Kingdom, conducting the five-day 'plaintiff in person' without legal counsel. She was awarded £750 damages at the High Court[4] to compensate her for the noise and nuisance caused by the construction of the Ismaili Centre opposite her home in London nearby the Victoria and Albert Museum
.

Hart was also

libel damages after a clip was taken from Games That Lovers Play (1971), a film in which she appeared with Joanna Lumley, Richard Wattis, Jeremy Lloyd, Penny Brahms
and Nan Munro. This clip was incorporated illegally into a pornographic film called Electric Blue, 002.

In her last years, Hart spent time at the

King's Road
, on her bicycle in a full-length mink coat.

Personal life and death

For 12 years from 1956, Hart was married to the television broadcaster Kenneth MacLeod, until they separated in 1968. MacLeod was one of the first seen in the early days of Rediffusion, and from 1968 for many years he was the 6 o'clock evening Westward Diary anchorman at Westward Television. They had two daughters.

Hart died on 7 February 2002, aged 75.[6]

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1945 The Wicked Lady Minor Role Uncredited
1947 The Ghosts of Berkeley Square Minette Uncredited
1949
Britannia Mews
 The Blazer
1951 Happy Go Lovely Mae
1951 I'll Never Forget You Dolly Uncredited
1952 Something Money Can't Buy Joan
1952 You're Only Young Twice Ada Shore
1952 Father's Doing Fine Doreen her daughter
1952 The Pickwick Papers Emily Wardle
1955 One Jump Ahead Maxine
1956 Keep It Clean Kitty, Marchioness of Hurlingford
1956 My Wife's Family Stella Gay
1959 The Crowning Touch Tess
1961 Enter Inspector Duval Jackie
1971 Games That Lovers Play Mrs. Hill

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-86369-960-3
    .
  2. ^ "Woman's Briefs, 1959 (Ref:L.C712.1980.602.0)". museums.leics.gov.uk. Leicestershire County Council. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007.
  3. ^ The Times, 25 August 1977
  4. ^ The Times, 16 June 1981
  5. ^ The Times, 12 November 1985
  6. ^ "Diane Hart". The Independent. 4 March 2002. Retrieved 22 January 2024.


External links

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