Wendy Hiller
DBE | |
---|---|
Born | Wendy Margaret Hiller 15 August 1912 |
Died | 14 May 2003 Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England | (aged 90)
Resting place | St Mary Churchyard, Radnage, Buckinghamshire, England |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1935–1993 |
Spouse |
Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller,
Hiller won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Separate Tables (1958).[1] Her performance as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (1938) earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Early life
Born in Bramhall, Cheshire, the daughter of Frank Watkin Hiller, a Manchester cotton manufacturer, and Marie Stone, she was educated at Winceby House School and Oriel Bank High School and at age 18 joined the Manchester Repertory Company, for which she acted and stage-managed for several years.[2] She first found success as slum dweller Sally Hardcastle in the stage version of Love on the Dole in 1934. The play was an enormous success and toured the regional stages of Britain, including Hiller's West End debut in 1935 at the Garrick Theatre. In 1937, she married the play's author Ronald Gow, 15 years her senior. That same year, she made her film debut in Lancashire Luck, scripted by Gow.
Career
Stage
The huge popularity of Love on the Dole took the production to
In the course of her stage career, Hiller won popular and critical acclaim in both London and New York. She excelled at rather plain but strong-willed characters. After touring Britain as Viola in
In 1947, Hiller originated the role of Catherine Sloper, the painfully shy, vulnerable spinster in The Heiress on Broadway. The play, based on the Henry James novel Washington Square, also featured Basil Rathbone as her emotionally abusive father. The production enjoyed a year-long run at the Biltmore Theatre in New York and would prove to be her greatest triumph on Broadway. On returning to London, Hiller again played the role in the West End production in 1950.
Her stage work remained a priority and continued with Ann Veronica (Piccadilly, 1949), which was adapted by Gow from
In 1957, Hiller returned to New York to star as Josie Hogan in
As Hiller matured, she demonstrated a strong affinity for the plays of Henrik Ibsen, as Irene in When We Dead Awaken (Cambridge, 1968), as Mrs. Alving in Ghosts (Edinburgh, 1972), Ase in Peer Gynt (BBC, 1972) and as Gunhild in John Gabriel Borkman (National Theatre Company, Old Vic, 1975), in which she appeared with Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft. Later West End successes such as Queen Mary in Crown Matrimonial (Haymarket, 1972) proved that she was not limited to playing dejected, emotionally deprived women. She later revisited some earlier plays playing older characters, as in West End revivals of Waters of the Moon (Chichester, 1977, Haymarket, 1978) with Ingrid Bergman and The Aspern Papers (Haymarket, 1984) with Vanessa Redgrave. She was scheduled to return to the American stage in a 1982 revival of Anastasia with Natalie Wood, but Wood died just weeks before rehearsals. Hiller made her final West End performance in the title role in Driving Miss Daisy (Apollo, 1988).
Film
At Shaw's insistence, she starred as
Hiller followed up this success with another Shaw adaptation, Major Barbara (1941) with Rex Harrison and Robert Morley. Powell and Pressburger signed her for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), but her second pregnancy forced her to bow out in favor of Deborah Kerr. Determined to work with Hiller, the filmmakers later cast her with Roger Livesey again for I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), another classic of British cinema.
Despite her early film success and offers from Hollywood, she returned to the stage full-time after 1945 and only occasionally accepted film roles. With her return to film in the 1950s, she portrayed an abused colonial wife in
Hiller received a third Oscar nomination for her performance as the simple, unrefined but dignified Lady Alice More, opposite
Television
Hiller made numerous television appearances, in both Britain and the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, she performed in episodes of American drama series such as
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she appeared in many television films including a memorable Duchess of York in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Richard II (1978), the irascible Edwardian Oxford academic in Miss Morison's Ghosts (1981) and the BBC dramatisations of Julian Gloag's Only Yesterday (1986) and the Vita Sackville-West novel All Passion Spent (1986), in which she was the quietly defiant Lady Slane. This performance earned her a BAFTA nomination as Best Actress. Her last appearance, before retiring from acting, was the title role in The Countess Alice (1992), a BBC/WGBH-Boston television film with Zoë Wanamaker.
Personal life
In the early 1940s, Hiller and husband Ronald Gow moved to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where they brought up two children, Ann (1939–2006) and Anthony (b. 1942), and lived together in the house called "Spindles" (now demolished). Ronald Gow died in 1993, but Hiller continued living at their home until her death a decade later. When not performing on stage or screen, she lived a completely private domestic life, insisting on being referred to as Mrs. Gow rather than by her stage name.
Regarded as one of Britain's great dramatic talents, she was made an
In 1984 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester. In 1996, Hiller was honoured by the
Despite a busy professional career, throughout her life she continually took an active interest in aspiring young actors by supporting local amateur drama societies,
Filmography
Film
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1937 | Lancashire Luck | Betty Lovejoy | |
1938 | Pygmalion | Eliza Doolittle | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress |
1941 | Major Barbara | Major Barbara | |
1945 | I Know Where I'm Going! | Joan Webster | |
1952 | Outcast of the Islands | Mrs. Almayer | |
1953 | Sailor of the King | Lucinda Bentley | also known as Single-Handed |
1957 | Something of Value | Elizabeth McKenzie Newton | |
How to Murder a Rich Uncle | Edith Clitterburn | ||
1958 | Separate Tables | Pat Cooper |
|
1960 | Sons and Lovers | Gertrude Morel | Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role |
1963 | Toys in the Attic | Anna Berniers | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture |
1966 | A Man for All Seasons | Alice More
|
|
1974 | Murder on the Orient Express | Princess Dragomiroff | Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress |
1976 | Voyage of the Damned | Rebecca Weiler | |
1979 | The Cat and the Canary
|
Allison Crosby | |
1980 | The Elephant Man | Mothershead | |
1981 | Miss Morison's Ghosts | Miss Elizabeth Morison | |
1982 | Making Love | Winnie Bates | |
1983 | Attracta | Attracta | |
1987 | The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne | Aunt D'Arcy | |
1992 | The Countess Alice | Countess Alice von Holzendorf | (final film role) |
Television
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1959 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Laura Siddons | Season 5 Episode 14: "Graduating Class" (aired December 27) |
1969 | David Copperfield | Mrs. Micawber | |
1969 | The Growing Summer | Aunt Dymphna | Silver medal at 1969 Venice Film Festival |
1972 | Clochemerle | Justine Putet | |
1978 | Richard II | Duchess of York | |
1979 | Edward the Conqueror | Louisa | episode of Tales of the Unexpected |
1980 | The Curse of King Tut's Tomb | Princess Vilma | |
1981 | Country | Lady Carlion | episode of Play for Today |
1982 | The Kingfisher | Evelyn | |
1982 | Witness for the Prosecution
|
Janet Mackenzie | |
1985 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Lady Bracknell | |
1985 | The Death of the Heart | Matchett | from the novel by Elizabeth Bowen |
1986 | Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy | Princess Victoria | as Dame Wendy Hiller |
1986 | Only Yesterday | May Darley | from the novel by Julian Gloag |
1986 | All Passion Spent | Lady Slane | Nominated – British Academy Television Award for Best Actress |
1987 | Anne of Avonlea
|
Mrs. Harris | as Dame Wendy Hiller |
1988 | A Taste for Death | Lady Ursula Berowne | from the novel by P.D. James |
1989 | Ending Up | Adela | from the novel by Kingsley Amis |
1991 | The Best of Friends | Laurentia McLachlan | as Dame Wendy Hiller |
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards
Year | Category | Work | Result | Winner |
---|---|---|---|---|
1967 | Best Supporting Actress | A Man for all Seasons | Nominated | Sandy Dennis (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) |
1959 | Separate Tables | Won | — | |
1939 | Best Actress | Pygmalion | Nominated | Bette Davis (Jezebel) |
References
- ^ "Awards for Separate Tables". Turner Classic Movies.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/89982. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Ronald Gow (1897–1993)", doollee.com Gow is also co-credited with the book for the 1969 musical.
- ^ "That Honor, That Cash". Time. 20 April 1959. Archived from the original on 16 February 2008.
- ^ "BAFTA Awards". BAFTA.
- ^ "Wendy Hiller". Golden Globes.com.
- ^ Webber, Jim (21 November 1964). "Brian Blessed and Wendy Hiller Can Take Top Marks". Bristol Evening Post. Bristol, UK. Retrieved 28 January 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
All praise to Wendy Hiller for a memorable performance that would have done credit to a stage production, let alone a television 'once only' presentation. How well it demonstrated Miss Hiller's long dramatic experience, both on the stage and in the film studio. Her talent was exploited the full in this episode of Z Cars
- ^ "Dame Wendy Hiller". The Daily Telegraph. London. 16 May 2003. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
- ^ "The Young Theatre Archive: The Patrons of The Young Theatre". Archived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine The Young Theatre Archive.
- ^ "Wendy Hiller Spirited Actress, Dies at 90". The New York Times. 17 May 2003.