Inevitably most artistes simply fade away as the years overtake
them, but I here celebrate three redoubtable old lady troupers of British
origin who are now of advanced age but happily are still with us. They were all
bringers of pleasure in their time and their famous roles are often re-run on
television or available on other media, for the enjoyment of the present
generation.
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| Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marion |
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| Angela Lansbury |
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| Glynis Johns |
Olivia de Havilland
was born in 1916 and is now a truly venerable 101. She was born in Tokyo, where
her father Walter, of Channel Islands (Guernsey) origin, worked first as a
university professor and then as a patent attorney; his brother Geoffrey
founded the famous de Havilland aircraft company. Her RADA-trained mother,
Lilian Fontaine, was an actress and Olivia had a younger sister, who became the
celebrated actress Joan Fontaine. Returning to England, Olivia’s parents
divorced when she was only 3 and she soon moved with her mother and sister to
California, settling in Saratoga, South of San Francisco.
I will not describe her distinguished career in detail but
concentrate on highlights. An apprenticeship in provincial US theatre blossomed
as she was talent-spotted by Warner Brothers and she made her first film with
Errol Flynn, Captain Blood in 1935 –
they were to make nine films together. Their best was The Adventures of Robin Hood of 1938 with Olivia never prettier as
Maid Marion, nor Flynn more athletic as Robin in the Technicolor classic graced
also by Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone, Eugene Palette and Alan Hales. Olivia
then landed the important supporting role of Melanie Hamilton in the 1939 epic
and blockbuster Gone with the Wind.
The film really belonged to Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh and was showered with
honours, but Olivia, though nominated for an Oscar, lost out to her colleague
Hattie McDaniel.
In her career Olivia made 49 films – she acted in
Hollywood’s “Golden Age” of the late 1930s and 40s when the studios churned out
product at an amazing rate and stars were treated as chattels. In 1943 when her
contract with Warner Brothers expired, the studio insisted she worked for them
for another 6 months to cover a period she had been suspended by them. Olivia
sued, a brave decision in the industry climate of the time, and she won in a
landmark case, ushering in what is still known as “the de Havilland clause”,
whereby an artiste’s contract can be no longer than 7 years and studio
suspension time counts towards the term of the contract. Olivia was still
black-listed by the studios until 1946.
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| Olivia in The Heiress |
Olivia made Westerns, notably with Errol Flynn, and some of her most memorable work was in melodrama. In 1946 she made Dark Mirror, a psychological thriller turning on the real nature of two identical twins, which I much enjoyed, and two years later came The Snake Pit an alarming indictment of the poor standards of mental health therapy in the US at that time. Perhaps her best post-war film was The Heiress, based on Henry James’ “Washington Square”, with plain-Jane Olivia beset by her abusive father, Dr Sloper (an excellent Ralph Richardson) and wooed by fortune-hunter Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift). Her final revenge on faithless Morris, locked out by Olivia and screaming her name, is a searing scene. Both Olivia and Richardson won Oscars for their performances.
Olivia appeared in TV series and cameo roles for some years
but her great days were over. While she had her amours, James Stewart and John
Huston for example, (but not Errol Flynn), she married twice, the second to
French writer Pierre Galante. She has lived in Paris since 1955. Just 2 weeks
before her 100th birthday she was honoured as a Dame Commander of
the British Empire – a fine actress indeed.
---------------
By contrast, Angela
Lansbury, born in 1925, is a mere stripling of 92. She was born in Regents Park,
London, the daughter of Edgar Lansbury, a then prosperous timber merchant and
erstwhile Communist councillor for Poplar, East London. Edgar was the son of
George Lansbury, Leader of the Labour Party (1932-35), a street orator,
pacifist and wholly ineffective Leader, rather in the image of today’s Jeremy
Corbyn.
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| George Lansbury |
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| Jeremy Corbyn |
Angela’s mother was the Ulster-born actress Moyna Macgill,
well-known on the London stage, who encouraged her theatrical interests. Edgar
died in 1935 and Moyna’s second husband proved to be a tyrant. In 1942 Moyna
arranged for the family to avoid the dangers of wartime London and they settled
in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.
With her talent and connections, Angela quickly achieved
success in Hollywood. Before she reached the age of 20 she had earned two
Academy Award nominations for supporting roles in Gaslight (1944) and The
Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Contracted to MGM she made many film
appearances, often playing a villainess as in The Court Jester (1955) with Danny Kaye or as a sinister mother as in political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962) with
Lawrence Harvey and Frank Sinatra, one of her best roles.
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| Angela with Lawrence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate |
Angela is a versatile artiste and had much success on the US
stage in Mame, becoming in the
process a gay icon, and later in Gypsy.
In the public mind Angela is much identified with the role of writer/sleuth
Jessica Fletcher in the TV series Murder,
She Wrote (1984-96) whose 264 episodes are endlessly repeated. She had an
earlier hit as a witch in Disney’s Bedknobs
and Broomsticks (1971) and trod the boards as Madame Arcati in Noel
Coward’s Blithe Spirit in both New
York and London.
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| Angela as Great-Aunt Adelaide in Nanny McPhee |
Angela is indefatigable, appearing in cameo roles in Nanny McPhee as great-aunt Adelaide
(2005), filling in with some Shakespeare, then she pops up again as Aunt March
in TV’s Little Women (2017); she even
has a part in Mary Poppins Returns,
already in the can and due for release in 2018. What a dame - indeed she was
made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2014 – Angela is a phenomenon.
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Glynis Johns, now
94, was born in South Africa where her actor father Mervyn Johns and concert
pianist mother Alys Steele were touring. But both were Welsh and Glynis remains
proudly Welsh. Glynis was a child actress and appeared in many minor roles in
the early 1940s. Her breakthrough came with the 1948 film Miranda where she played a coquettish mermaid.
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| Glynis Johns as Miranda |
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| Mervyn Johns as Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol |
Glynis had a notable stage success in 1956 with Major Barbara in London and New York
and in the same year blossomed in The
Court Jester with Danny Kaye and Angela Lansbury.
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| Glynis with Kaye and Lansbury in The Court Jester |
Glynis had a diet of comedies and swashbucklers and was admired
in the Australian-set The Sundowners
(1960) with Robert Mitchum. She
shared in the triumph of Mary Poppins (1964)
as the suffragette Mrs Banks but a more solid achievement was her role as Desirée
Armfeldt in the Sondheim Broadway musical A
Little Night Music in 1973 where the song “Send in the Clowns” was composed
for her. Her husky voice and seductive eyes were always distinctive. She worked
on and one of her last film parts was in the Sandra Bullock – Bill Pullman
vehicle While you were Sleeping in
1995.
Now retired, Glynis brought
glamour and vivacity to stage and screen.
These 3 ladies of the entertainment industry will have
tumultuous memories of their careers and give hope to those following that
success will not burn them out and that longevity brings many opportunities.
SMD
31.12.17
Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2017
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