Sybil Thorndike
Dame Sybil Thorndike DBE | |
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Born | Agnes Sybil Thorndike 24 October 1882 Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England |
Died | 9 June 1976 Chelsea, London, England | (aged 93)
Resting place | Westminster Abbey, London |
Occupation | Actress |
Spouse | |
Children |
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Relatives |
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Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson,
Trained in her youth as a concert pianist, Thorndike turned to the stage when a medical problem with her hands ruled out a musical career. She began her professional acting career with the company of the actor-manager
During the
Thorndike was mainly known as a stage actress, but made several films from the 1920s to the 1960s, among them The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and Uncle Vanya (1963), both with Olivier. She also broadcast from time to time on radio and television. Her last stage appearances were in 1969 at the theatre named in her honour, the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead.
Early years
Thorndike was born on 24 October 1882 in
In May 1899 Thorndike gave her first solo piano recital, but shortly afterwards she developed recurrent pianist's cramp, and although she performed in leading concert venues in London – the Bechstein, Steinway and St James's halls – by 1902 it was clear that a musical career would be impossible.[4] She studied for the stage at the drama school run by Ben Greet, who engaged her for an American tour beginning in August 1904, in advance of which she made her professional début at Cambridge in June, as Palmis in W. S. Gilbert's The Palace of Truth.[5] She remained in Greet's company for three years playing in Shakespearean repertory throughout the US.[6]
On her return to England, Thorndike was spotted by Bernard Shaw in a one-off Sunday night performance at the Scala Theatre in London; he invited her to join the company for a revival of his Candida to be given in Belfast by Annie Horniman's players. The company was based at the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, where she first appeared in September 1908 as Bessie Carter in Basil Dean's Marriages are Made in Heaven. She played parts in nine other plays by authors ranging from Euripides to John Galsworthy.[7] In the company she met, and formed a lifelong partnership with, the actor Lewis Casson.[5] They married in December 1908 at her father's church. They had two daughters and two sons, all of whom went on the stage for some or all of their careers.[n 1]
Thorndike appeared at the Coronet Theatre, London, in June 1909 with the Horniman company, and at the Duke of York's Theatre in March 1910 with Charles Frohman's repertory company, appearing there as Winifred in The Sentimentalists, Emma Huxtable in The Madras House, Romp in Prunella and Maggie Massey in Chains. She then went to New York, where she appeared at the Empire Theatre in September 1910, as Emily Chapman in Smith opposite John Drew.[6]
Between her return to Britain and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Thorndike appeared in the West End at the Aldwych Theatre in June 1912 as Beatrice Farrar in Hindle Wakes, and at the Playhouse Theatre in July 1912 in the same role. She returned to Manchester for a second season at the Gaiety later in the year, playing a range of roles in nine plays.[6] At the Court Theatre in London in May 1913 she played the title role in St John Ervine's Jane Clegg, and in October she appeared in both Manchester and London as Hester in Eden Phillpotts' The Shadow.[6][8]
1914–1919
Between November 1914 and May 1918 Thorndike played in four seasons at the
After leaving the Old Vic company Thorndike was engaged by
1920s
In early 1920 Thorndike successfully repeated her Hecuba and played the title roles in Shaw's Candida and in another Euripides play, Medea. The critic J. T. Grein wrote of the latter, "It is a great example of tragic acting, and a magnificent achievement".[15] Later in the year Thorndike joined her brother and her husband in a two-year run of Grand Guignol melodramas at the Little Theatre.[5]
The vogue for theatrical horror began to wane and Casson and Thorndike joined Bronson Albery and Lady Wyndham in the management of the New Theatre in 1922. They opened with Shelley's verse tragedy The Cenci. Shaw saw a performance, and told his wife, "I have found my Joan".[16] He was planning a play about Joan of Arc, which he completed in 1923.[17] It was his custom to open his plays on Broadway before their West End premieres,[n 4] and the first actress to play his Joan was Winifred Lenihan, but the part was written with Thorndike in mind.[18]
In 1927−28 Thorndike was again a member of the Old Vic company, for a season at the
In the 1920s Thorndike entered films, appearing in four: as Mrs Brand in Moth and Rust (1921), various parts in Tense Moments from Great Plays (1922),[n 5] Edith Cavell in Dawn (1928) and the Mother in To What Red Hell (1929).[9] In 1923 she made her first radio broadcasts for the BBC; during the decade these included two of her best-known stage roles: Medea and Saint Joan.[25]
1930s
Thorndike's roles of the early 1930s included the title part in Racine's Phèdre, Mrs Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts, and Emilia in a celebrated production of Othello at the Savoy Theatre with Paul Robeson and Peggy Ashcroft as Othello and Desdemona.[26] In 1931 she was appointed DBE, the fifth actress to be made a Dame.[27][n 6] She appeared in a wide range of plays, both classical and modern, often under Casson's direction.[1]
From April 1932 to April 1933 Thorndike and Casson made a tour of Egypt, Palestine, Australia and New Zealand, in which she appeared in the satirical comedy Advertising April; Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion; Ghosts; Clemence Dane's Granite; Macbeth; a romantic comedy, Madame Plays Nap; Milestones; The Painted Veil; Saint Joan and Sidney Howard's domestic drama The Silver Chord.[28]
In the West End in September 1933 Thorndike appeared in The Distaff Side, by
In 1938 Thorndike appeared in New York as Mrs Conway in
Thorndike made three films during the decade, appearing as Madam Duval in A Gentleman of Paris (1931), Mrs Hawthorn in Hindle Wakes (1931) and Ellen in Tudor Rose (1936).[36] She made her television début in 1939 as the Widow Cagle in a melodrama, Sun Up.[37]
Second World War
When the
When Ralph Richardson, Olivier and John Burrell were appointed to re-establish the Old Vic as a leading London company in 1944 they recruited Thorndike, who played Aase in Peer Gynt, Catherine Petkoff in Arms and the Man, Queen Margaret in Richard III, Marina in Uncle Vanya, Mistress Quickly in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and the Justice's Lady in The Critic. Between August 1944 and April 1946 the company played in London and toured for the armed forces in Belgium, Germany and France.[39]
After the defeat of Germany in 1945 a Nazi blacklist was found in Berlin, naming eminent people to be arrested after an invasion of Britain. Among them was Thorndike, as a prominent member of the
Post-war and 1950s
When the Old Vic company played a season in New York in 1946 Thorndike chose to remain in England to appear with Casson.
During the mid- and late-1950s Thorndike and Casson were seen more abroad than at home. They toured the Far East, New Zealand and India in 1954, giving dramatic recitals.[33] Together with Richardson they toured Australia and New Zealand in 1955, presenting The Sleeping Prince and Separate Tables.[46] The couple toured southern Africa, Kenya, Israel, and Turkey in 1956, giving dramatic recitals.[46] In the West End in June 1956 Thorndike played Amy, Lady Monchensey in The Family Reunion, with Casson, Paul Scofield and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies.[47] In New York the couple appeared in the world premiere of Graham Greene's The Potting Shed, which ran on Broadway for 143 performances in 1957,[48] after which they revisited Australia and New Zealand, touring in The Chalk Garden.[49]
During the 1950s Thorndike appeared in eleven films: Stage Fright (as Mrs Gill, 1950), Gone to Earth (Mrs Marston, 1951), The Lady with a Lamp (Miss Bosanquet, 1951), The Magic Box (the Aristocratic Client, 1951), Melba (Queen Victoria, 1953), The Weak and the Wicked (Mabel, 1953), The Prince and the Showgirl (The Queen Dowager, 1957), Alive and Kicking (Dora, 1958), Smiley Gets a Gun (Granny, 1958), Shake Hands with the Devil (Lady Fitzhugh, 1959) and Jet Storm (Emma Morgan, 1959).[50] Among her television appearances was a studio production of Waters of the Moon with Evans, Casson and Kathleen Harrison.[51]
Later years, 1960–1976
Thorndike's first stage role of the 1960s was Lotta Bainbridge in Coward's
In 1962 Olivier, as director of the
Olivier moved from Chichester to become the founding director of the
After appearing in two successive box-office failures – Arthur Marshall's Season of Goodwill (1964) and William Corlett's Return Ticket (1965) – Thorndike rejoined Casson in what turned out to be their last West End production together, a revival of the classic black comedy Arsenic and Old Lace. With Athene Seyler co-starring as her equally well-meaning and homicidally lunatic sister, Thorndike enjoyed herself, the critics were enthusiastic, and the play ran from February to November 1966.[63]
Thorndike appeared no more on the London stage after that. At the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, in January 1967 she played Claire Ragond in The Viaduct, and at the same theatre in February 1968 she appeared as Mrs Basil in Call Me Jacky. Later in that year she toured as Mrs Bramson in Emlyn Williams's thriller Night Must Fall.[49]
During the 1960s Thorndike appeared in three films, as Lady Caroline in Hand in Hand (1960), Aunt Cathleen in The Big Gamble (1961), and as Marina in a film adaptation of Olivier's Chichester production of Uncle Vanya (1963).[64] The television was not her favourite medium – she found it restricting – although she had a success in 1965 as Mrs Moore in a BBC adaptation of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India. Forster congratulated her on her performance, but she replied, "I loved Mrs Moore, but I am not wild about TV as a medium to express her! She's bigger than that".[65]
Casson died in May 1969, and Thorndike's only stage role after that was in the inaugural performance of the theatre named in her honour, the
Brian Harrison recorded an oral history interview with Thorndike, in December 1975, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.[67] In it she talks about the progressive nature of the theatre, and her freedom as an actress as well as her support for women's suffrage.
Thorndike and Casson had long lived at Swan Court, Chelsea, where she died on 9 June 1976, aged 93.[16] Her ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey the following month, after a memorial service there.[68]
Reputation
Thorndike described herself as "an old-fashioned socialist, an Anglican and a pacifist – a mixture of which Mr Marx might disapprove".[69] Corin Redgrave recalled, "Her shining spirit came through almost everything she did. She never wavered in her humanitarian Christian socialist beliefs".[70] Giving the address at her memorial service, Gielgud called Thorndike "the most loved actress since Ellen Terry".[16] Her obituarist in The Times said the same.[35] Croall and many others have concurred.[71]
Opinion is more divided about Thorndike's qualities as an actress. Sheridan Morley enlarged on Gielgud's comment, writing that she was not only the most loved actress but "one might add also the best".[16] Gielgud thought her very fine in her playing of tragedy − "she was one of the few actresses of her generation who dared even to attempt it [and] riveted her audiences with her superb authority and vocal power" − but he thought her inclined to "hit too hard" in comedy.[72] Hallam Tennyson felt "she over-elocuted: she was the last trace of the Irving-Terry era in which the important thing was to speak beautifully and clearly and be heard throughout the auditorium".[73] Paul Scofield thought her "a glorious actress who suggested immense power. She aimed at the big targets, and used every ounce of her being to do justice to great classical themes".[74]
Notes, references and sources
Notes
- ^ The four were John Casson, Christopher Casson, Mary Casson and Ann Casson.[1]
- ^ Thorndike was not the only actress in the company to take on men's roles: in Henry IV, Part 1, fourteen of the male parts were played by women.[10]
- ^ The adaptation was co-written with Eric Ross.[11]
- ^ The world premieres of all Shaw's plays between 1920 and 1935 were in New York, with the single exception of The Apple Cart.[18]
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Esmeralda) and The Scarlet Letter (Hester).[23] The British Film Institute also lists a scene from Oliver Twist with Thorndike as Nancy.[24]
- ^ The four earlier theatrical Dames were May Whitty (1918), Geneviève Ward (1921), Ellen Terry (1925), and Madge Kendal (1926).[27]
- ^ While the piece was in rehearsal Gielgud was arrested and fined for homosexual activity, and he was fearful of his reception by the first night audience. Unlike some in the profession Thorndike had no patience with homophobia. (Among those less sympathetic or helpful to Gielgud than Thorndike were Olivier[44] and Edith Evans.[45]) On the opening night Thorndike took the apprehensive Gielgud by the hand and whispered, "Come along, John darling, they won't boo me", and led him onstage − to applause and cheering from the audience.[45]
- ^ Coward wrote the play with Thorndike and Gladys Cooper in mind for the two main roles, but the original producer, Binkie Beaumont, did not send Cooper the script and mendaciously told Coward she had turned it down.[52]
References
- ^ a b c d e Morley, Sheridan. "Thorndike (married name Casson), Dame (Agnes) Sybil", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2011 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Croall, pp. 14−15
- ^ Croall, pp. 11–12
- ^ Croall, pp. 28 and 33–34
- ^ a b c Morley (1986), p. 384
- ^ a b c d e Herbert, p. 1476
- ^ Croall, pp. 524−525
- ^ "The Shadow", The Era, 8 October 1913, p. 17
- ^ a b c Croall, pp. 526–527
- ^ Croall, p. 117
- ^ "Oliver Twist at The Old Vic", Justice, 31 May 1917, p. 7
- ^ "A great tragedienne: Sybil Thorndike as Hecuba", The Sketch, 25 February 1920, p. 309
- ^ "A New Leading Lady", The Times, 29 April 1919, p. 14
- ^ Herbert, pp. 1476−1478
- ^ "A great tragic actress: Miss Sybil Thorndike as Medea", Illustrated London News, 13 March 1920, p. 395
- ^ a b c d e f Morley (1986), p. 385
- ^ Holroyd, p. 523
- ^ a b Tyson, pp. 82 and 90
- ^ a b Herbert, p. 1477
- ^ Quoted in Tyson, p. 95
- ^ Robinson, Lennox, "At the Play", The Observer, 31 March 1924, p. 11
- ^ Croall, pp. 529–532
- ^ Gifford, listings 07439–07447
- ^ "Nancy", British Film Institute. Retrieved 1 December 2022
- ^ Croall, pp. 537−538
- ^ Croall, pp. 233, 234 and 237
- ^ a b Gaye, p. 1579
- ^ Herbert, p. 1478; and Croall, p. 532
- ^ Croall, p. 531
- ^ "Five Hours of Hamlet", The Era, 25 April 1934, p. 14
- ^ Croall, p. 229
- ^ Quoted in Croall, p. 387
- ^ a b c d e Herbert, p. 1478
- ^ Holden, p. 135
- ^ a b c d e "Obituary: Dame Sybil Thorndike", The Times, 10 June 1976, p. 18
- ^ a b Croall, p. 536
- ^ Croall, pp. 297–298
- ^ Croall, p. 312
- ^ Croall, p. 533
- ^ Oldfield, pp. 71−72 and 100; and Croall, p. 356
- ^ Gaye, p. 1540
- ^ Croall, pp. 394–395
- ^ Gaye, p. 1530
- ^ Morley (2001), p. 298
- ^ a b Croall, p. 394
- ^ a b Gaye, p. 443
- ^ The Times, 8 June 1956, p. 3
- ^ "The Potting Shed", Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 3 December 2022
- ^ a b Herbert, p. 1479
- ^ Croall, pp. 536−537
- ^ "Waters of the Moon", BBC Genome. Retrieved 3 December 2022
- ^ Coward, p. 437
- ^ Castle, p. 235
- ^ Mander and Mitchenson, p. 481
- ^ a b Croall, pp. 449–452
- ^ "Brilliance of Uncle Vanya", The Stage, 4 July 1963, p. 13
- ^ "The World of the Theatre", Illustrated London News, 13 July 1963, p. 66
- ^ Darlington, W. A. "Uncle Vanya starts off gloriously", The Daily Telegraph, 20 November 1963, p. 16
- ^ Review, The Guardian, 28 November 1962, p. 7
- ^ "Musical Ignores the Novel's Satire", The Times, 28 November 1962, p. 13
- ^ Croall, p. 460
- ^ Croall, pp. 472–473
- ^ Croall, pp. 473–480
- ^ Croall, p. 537
- ^ Croall, p. 482
- ^ Gielgud, p. 55
- ^ London School of Economics and Political Science. "The Suffrage Interviews". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
- ^ Croall, p. 519
- ^ Croall, p. 476
- ^ Quoted in Croall, p. 522
- ^ Croall, pp. 520−523
- ^ Gielgud, pp. 53–54
- ^ Quoted in Croall, p. 521
- ^ Quoted in Croall, p. 520
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-491-00534-0.
- ISBN 978-0-297-78142-4.
- ISBN 978-1-905791-92-7.
- Gaye, Freda, ed. (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224.
- ISBN 978-0-283-98573-7.
- ISBN 978-0-297-79089-1.
- ISBN 978-0-7153-8835-8.
- Herbert, Ian, ed. (1972). Who's Who in the Theatre (fifteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. ISBN 978-0-273-31528-5.
- ISBN 978-0-7011-6279-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84002-054-0.
- ISBN 978-0-207-14970-2.
- Morley, Sheridan (2001). John G – The Authorised Biography of John Gielgud. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-36803-9.
- Oldfield, Sybil (2022). The Black Book: The Britons on the Nazi Hit List. London: Profile. ISBN 978-1-78816-509-9.
- Tyson, Brian (1982). The Story of Shaw's Saint Joan. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. OCLC 1195025254.
External links
- The Sybil Thorndike Scrapbook
- Performances listed at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection archive
- Sybil Thorndike at the Internet Broadway Database
- Sybil Thorndike at IMDb
- Works by Sybil Thorndike at Open Library
- The Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson Archive at the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre and Performance Department.