In 1944, in "A Place of One's Own", she added one further attribute to her armoury: a beauty spot painted high on her left cheek. Lockwood so impressed the studio with her performance particularly Black, who became a champion of hers she signed a three-year contract with Gainsborough Pictures in June 1937. Possibly up to halfof all melanomas start as benign moles. He hopes one day "moles and other individual qualities" will be embraced. Then, in 1972, she married the actor Ernest Clark, best known as the irascible Geoffrey Loftus in Doctor in the House and its TV sequels, and her fellow star in the Ray Cooney farce The Mating Game (Apollo theatre, 1972). The film was a critical and box-office disappointment. "[48], Lockwood returned to the stage in Spider's Web (1954) by Agatha Christie, expressly written for her. Lockwood discusses her upbringing in a Boston area Irish family and her early . She returned with relief to Britain to star in two of Carol Reeds best films, The Stars Look Down, again with Redgrave, and Night Train to Munich, opposite Rex Harrison. Registered charity 287780, Watch Margaret Lockwood films on BFI Player, In praise of 1940s icon and Lady Vanishes star Margaret Lockwood. While Biography stated that no one truly knows if Monroe's beauty mark was real, drawn on, or accentuated with makeup, one thing is for sure: she helped propel the look into mainstream. Margaret Lockwood, in full Margaret Mary Lockwood, (born Sept. 15, 1916, Karachi, India [now Pak. In 1965, she co-starred with her daughter, Julia, in a popular television series, "The Flying Swan", and surprised those who felt she had never been a very good actress by giving a superb comedy performance in the West End revival of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband". Overview Collection Information. Lockwood, born to a Scottish woman and her English railway clerk husband in Karachi on 15 September, was the most glamorous and dynamic of the female stars. She was born on September 15, 1916. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. 1946 10th most popular star in Australia, 1947 4th most popular star and 3rd most popular British star in Britain. This film was a success, launching Lockwoods career, and Gaumont extended her contract from three to six years. Aged four, Julia made her screen debut playing her daughter in Hungry Hill (released in 1947), based on Daphne du Mauriers novel about a feud between two Irish families. Believing she will die, she gives up her lover Kit (Granger) to an actress, Judy (Roc), who is mounting an outdoor production of The Tempest on a rugged Cornwall coastal spot. In 1938, Lockwood's role as a young London nurse in Carol Reed's film, "Bank Holiday", established her as a star, and the enormous success of her next film, "The Lady Vanishes", opposite Michael Redgrave, gave her international status. Lockwoods lips and upper chin tense Joan Crawford-style when her more heinous characters covers are blown, but not at the cost of audience empathy. Lockwood had a small role in The Amateur Gentleman (1936), another with Fairbanks. The turning point in her career came in 1943, when she was cast opposite James Mason in The Man in Grey, as an amoral schemer who steals the husband of her best friend, played by Phyllis Calvert, and then ruthlessly murders her. With the drama picture Bank Holiday, she created a reputation for herself. An unpretentious woman, who disliked the trappings of stardom and dealt brusquely with adulation, she accepted this change in her fortunes with unconcern, and turned to the stage, where she had successes in Peter Pan, Pygmalion, Private Lives and Agatha Christies thriller, Spiders Web, which ran for over a year. 17th-century beauty Barbara Worth starts her career of crime by stealing her best friend's bridegroom. Yet much more than Leigh, especially after Scarlett OHara, Lockwood was the kind of girl youd want to walk home from the pictures in the blackout, or, if you yourself were a girl, walk home with arm-in-arm, dodging puddles and drunkenconscripts. The Leons separated soon after her birth and were divorced in 1950. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Her contract with Rank was dissolved in 1950 and a film deal with Herbert Wilcox, who was married to her principal cinema rival, Anna Neagle, resulted in three disappointing flops. That was natural. Hear, hear! [1] In June 1934 she played Myrtle in House on Fire at the Queen's Theatre, and on 22 August 1934 appeared as Margaret Hamilton in Gertrude Jenning's play Family Affairs when it premiered at the Ambassadors Theatre; Helene Ferber in Repayment at the Arts Theatre in January 1936; Trixie Drew in Henry Bernard's play Miss Smith at the Duke of York's Theatre in July 1936; and back at the Queen's in July 1937 as Ann Harlow in Ann's Lapse. Much of Shakespeare's work features "figures who are, in the perception of age, 'stained,' and yet whose stain is part of their irresistible, disturbing appeal," according to Greenblatt. It was one of the cycle of Gainsborough Melodramas . October 17, 1937 - 1950 (divorced, 1 child), The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella, Karachi, British India [now Karachi, Pakistan]. Mason and Mullen are artificially aged to play the old couple. England British actress Margaret Lockwood is pictured reading the newspapers as she enjoys breakfast in bed. [35], That same year, Lockwood was announced to play Becky Sharp in a film adaptation of Vanity Fair but it was not made. The excitement of "walking on" in Noel Coward's mamouth spectacular, "Cavalcade", at Drury Lane in 1931 came to an abrupt conclusion when her mother removed her from the production after learning that a chorus boy had uttered a forbidden four-letter expletive in front of her. She had a bit part in the Drury Lane production of "Cavalcade" in 1932, before completing her training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Her film career began in 1934 with Lorna Doone (1934) and she was already a seasoned performer when Alfred Hitchcock cast her in his thriller, The Lady Vanishes (1938), opposite relative newcomer Michael Redgrave. Switch to the dark mode that's kinder on your eyes at night time. The perception of beauty marks has come a long way since the 1800s, though, that's not to say it happened overnight. She called it "my first really big picture with a beautifully written script and a wonderful part for me. This was even more daring in its depiction of immorality, and the controversy surrounding the film did no harm at the box office. She had one last film role, as the stepmother with the sobriquet, "wicked", omitted but implied, in Bryan Forbes's Cinderella musical, "The Slipper and the Rose" in 1976. Margaret Lockwood moved to 2 Lunham Rd, London SE19 1AA in 1920. The film was the most successful at the British box office in 1946, and she won the first prize for most popular British film actress at the Daily Mail National Film Awards. She preferred to drink hot chocolate, buying 60 Early Years She returned with relief to Britain to star in two of Carol Reed's best films, "The Stars Look Down", again with Redgrave, and "Night Train to Munich", opposite Rex Harrison. But as the film progressed I found myself working with Carol Reed and Michael Redgrave again and gradually I was fascinated to see what I could put into the part. I dont believe in raising an only child. This last blow, coupled with the sudden death of her trusted agent, Herbert de Leon, and the onset of a viral ear infection, caused her to turn her back gradually on a glittering career. All rights reserved. The sadomasochistic elements ofLeslie Arlisss film in which Lockwoods character is sexually commandeered and eventually raped by Masons lord were 50 shades stronger than 2015s most ballyhooed eroticdrama. These films have not worn particularly well, but. Photograph: Cine Text/Allstar Sat 29 Nov 2008 19.01 EST No 37 Margaret Lockwood, 1916-90 She was born in India, a daughter of the Raj, brought up in England by a cold,. They were going to look after me as no one else had done before. Vascular birthmarks, on the other hand, are formed when "extra blood vessels clump together." "[46], The association began well with Trent's Last Case (1952) with Michael Wilding and Orson Welles which was popular. ]died July 15, 1990, London, Eng. She began studying for the stage at an early age at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, and made her debut in 1928, at the age of 12, at the Holborn Empire where she played a fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's all Marilyn Monroe's fault," singer Kelly Rowland told People. Instead, she played the role of Jenny Sunley, the self-centred, frivolous wife of Michael Redgrave's character in The Stars Look Down for Carol Reed. That year, she was created CBE, but her presence at her investiture at Buckingham Palace, accompanied by her three grandchildren, was her last public appearance. A visit to Hollywood to appear with Shirley Temple in Susannah of the Mounties and with Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr, in Rulers of the Sea was not at all to her liking. She was 73 years old. Lockwood was reunited with James Mason in A Place of One's Own (1945), playing a housekeeper possessed by the spirit of a dead girl, but the film was not a success. Instead she was a murderess in Bedelia (1946), which did not perform as well, although it was popular in Britain.[27]. As such, the shape, color, and even texture can vary. Her profile rose when she appeared opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Beloved Vagabond (1936)[4]. alcohol. The third actress daughter of the Raj - following Merle Oberon and Vivien Leigh - she was born on 15th September, 1916. The amount of cleavage exposed by Lockwoods Restoration gowns caused consternation to the film censors, and apprehension was in the air before the premiere, attended by Queen Mary, who astounded everyone by thoroughly enjoying it. 2023 British Film Institute. Actors: Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc. A first-time star, she gave an intelligent, convincing performance as the curious girl who confronts an elderly lady (May Whitty) who seems to vanish into thin air on a train journey. Access the best of Getty Images with our simple subscription plan. Margaret Lockwood made her screen debut in the drama picture Lorna Doone in 1934. In December of the following year, she appeared at the Scala Theatre in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood. Several kings and queens even succumbed to the disease and, according to History.com, it is thought that 400,000 commoners died each year as a result. Lockwood gained custody of her daughter, but not before Mrs Lockwood had sided with her son-in-law to allege that Margaret was "an unfit mother.". [42] She turned down the female lead in The Browning Version, and a proposed sequel to The Wicked Lady, The Wicked Lady's Daughter, was never made. In 1955, she gave one of her best performances, as a blowsy ex-barmaid in "Cast a Dark Shadow", opposite Dirk Bogarde, but her box office appeal had waned and the British cinema suddenly lost interest in her. Margaret Lockwood John Stone John Bryans See production, box office & company info Add to Watchlist 5 User reviews Episodes 39 Top-rated Fri, Jul 19, 1974 S3.E9 Twice the Legal Limit Justice Bebbington, who has given Harriet trouble with his mean spirited sentencing, asks her to defend him in a case of drunken driving. She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for the 1955 film Cast a Dark Shadow. Margaret Lockwood autographed publicity for Jassy, The Wicked Lady (1945) photograph (48) | Margaret Lockwood, Margaret Lockwoods jumper Bestway knitting leaflet, Jassy (1947) photograph (34) | Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc, Margaret Lockwood photograph (37) | Highly Dangerous 1950, Queen of the Silver Screen Margaret Lockwood biography Spence 2016, Once a Wicked Lady biography of Margaret Lockwood by Hilton Tims, Lucky Star The Autobiography of Margaret Lockwood, My Life and Films autobiography by Margaret Lockwood (1948), 34 Upper Park Rd, Kingston upon Thames KT2 5LD. The sexual privation suffered by women whose men were fighting overseas contributed to Lockwood and Mason, the fiery adulterous lovers of the 1943 Gainsborough gothic classicThe Man in Grey, replacingGracie FieldsandGeorge Formbyas the countrys top box office stars that year. She was in the following years sequel, Heidi Grows Up, by which time she was training at the Arts Educational School in London. An atmospheric ghost story based on the 1940 novel of the same title by Osbert Sitwell, it stars James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price and Dulcie Gray. The actress Margaret Lockwood was one of Britain's biggest 1940s film stars. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. "[31] She later said "I was having fun being a rebel."[32]. A visit to Hollywood to appear with Shirley Temple in "Susannah of the Mounties" and with Douglas Fairbanks Jr in "Rulers of the Sea" was not at all to her liking. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Privacy Policy. The film was a massive hit, one of the biggest in 1943 Britain, and made all four lead actors into top stars at the end of the year, exhibitors voted Lockwood the seventh most popular British star at the box office. Lockwood entered films in 1934, and in 1935 she appeared in the film version of Lorna Doone. It was an uphill battle even for those who survived. The first of these was Hungry Hill (1947), an expensive adaptation of the novel by Daphne du Maurier which was not the expected success at the box office. This was her first opportunity to shine, and she gave an intelligent, convincing performance as the inquisitive girl who suspects a conspiracy when an elderly lady (May Whitty) seemingly disappears into thin air during a train journey. This started filming in November 1939. So much so that, in 1650, they created a bill to prevent "the vice of painting, wearing black patches, and immodest dresses of women.". While its hard to imagine Carey Mulligan or Keira Knightley being asked to offer up a Romantic paean to life within a few minutes, the demand on Lockwood made sense during the live for now atmosphere of World War II and she pulled off the flow with sustainedintensity. In 1938, Lockwoods role as a young London nurse in Carol Reeds film, Bank Holiday, established her as a star, and the enormous success of her next film, Alfred Hitchcocks taut thriller The Lady Vanishes, opposite Michael Redgrave, gave her international status. However she was soon to suffer what has been called "a cold streak of poor films which few other stars have endured. Ive been pretty lonely at times.. Collect, curate and comment on your files. 1948 3rd most popular star and 2nd most popular British star in Britain, 1949 5th most popular British star in Britain, This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 07:39. Lockwood was born on 15 September 1916 in Karachi, British India, to Henry Francis Lockwood, an English administrator of a railway company, and his third wife, Scottish-born Margaret Eveline Waugh. This film also included the final appearance of Edith Evans and one of the later appearances of Kenneth More. Edwards, before she visits Skefko, Vauxhall and Electrolux and two cinemas - the Odeon in Dunstable Road and the Palace in Mill Street, whose manager, Mr S. Davey, had arranged the tour. [26] In 1946, Lockwood gained the Daily Mail National Film Awards First Prize for most popular British film actress. Corrections? In the 1969 television production Justice is a Woman, she played barrister Julia Stanford. That year, she was created CBE, but her appearance at her investiture at Buckingham Palace accompanied by her three grandchildren was her last public appearance. Lockwood married Rupert Leon in 1937 (divorced in 1950). Enjoying our content? Prior to leaving, she bravely performs for the plays audience her welling Cornish Rhapsody (written for the film byHubert Bathand made famous by it) while Kit is having a life-threatening operation to save his sight and because Judy is too distraught to go on. It is not too much to expect that, in Margaret Lockwood, the British picture industry has a possibility of developing a star of hitherto un-anticipated possibilities. A report published by theJournal of the American Academy of Dermatology(via NCBI) highlighted the "disfiguring scars" left in the disease's wake. Her first moment on stage came at the age of 12, when she played a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1928. Her likeable core personality made her characters, whether good or evil, easy for women to identify with. She was the female love interest in Midshipman Easy (1935), directed by Carol Reed, who would become crucial to Lockwood's career. Seven ingenue screen roles followed before she played opposite Maurice Chevalier in the 1936 remake of "The Beloved Vagabond". [13] According to Filmink Lockwood's "speciality [now] was playing a bright young thing who got up to mischief, usually by accident rather than design, and she often got to drive the action. According toBBC,stars, hearts, and half moons were all popular choices back in the day. When the author Hilton Tims was preparing his biography, Once a Wicked Lady, a stall holder from whom he was buying some flowers for her, snatched up a second bunch and said, Give her these from me. Back at Gainsborough, producer Edward Black had planned to pair Lockwood and Redgrave much the same way William Powell and Myrna Loy had been teamed up in the "Thin Man" films in America, but the war intervened and the two were only to appear together in the Carol Reed-directed The Stars Look Down (1940). Sign up for BFI news, features, videos and podcasts. She lived her final years in seclusion in Kingston upon Thames, London. Here you'll find all collections you've created before. She was known for her stunning looks, artistry and versatility. An unpretentious woman, who disliked the trappings of stardom and dealt brusquely with adulation, she accepted this change in her fortunes with unconcern, and turned to the stage where she had a success in "Peter Pan", "Pygmalion", "Private Lives", and Agatha Christie's thriller "Spider's Web", which ran for over a year. In contrast, even natural moles were looked at as "a mark of disgrace," Madeleine Marsh, author of The Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty from Victorian Times to the Present Day, explained toBBC. Lockwood had the most significant success of her career to date with the title role in The Wicked Lady (1945). While vascular birthmarks like stork bites and strawberry marks are always something a person is born with, and therefore a real-deal birthmark, pigmented spots like moles are a bit more nuanced. "All beauty marks are moles,"Neal Schultz, a New York City-based cosmetic and medical dermatologist and host of DermTV, explained. She was born on September 15, 1916. ]died July 15, 1990, London, Eng. Salmon patches (sometimes known as "stork bites"), hemangioma (what some people call "strawberry marks"), and port wine stains, are some common forms of vascular birthmarks. It was nerve wracking to have to find that now that I live in Fullerton. The immense popularity of womens melodramas produced byGainsborough Picturesmade Lime Grove Studios (which became the companys wartime berth after production at Islington Studios was suspended) stardoms epicentre: it was the workplace ofPhyllis Calvert,Stewart Granger,Jean Kent,Margaret Lockwood,James Mason,Michael RennieandPatriciaRoc. In 1933, she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she was seen in Leontine Sagan's production of "Hannele" by a leading London agent, Herbert de Leon, who at once signed her as a client and arranged a screen test which impressed the director, Basil Dean, into giving her the second lead in his film, "Lorna Doone" when Dorothy Hyson fell ill. When a proposed film about Elisabeth of Austria was cancelled,[37] she returned to the stage in a record-breaking national tour of Nol Coward's Private Lives (1949)[38] and then played the title role in productions of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in 1949 and 1950. From her mid-20s Lockwood was seen on the West End stage in Arsenic and Old Lace (Vaudeville theatre, 1966), The Servant of Two Masters (Queens theatre, 1968), Charlie Girl (Adelphi theatre, 1969), Birds on the Wing (Piccadilly theatre, 1969), alongside Bruce Forsyth making his debut as a straight actor, and The Jockey Club Stakes (Vaudeville theatre, 1970). It was one of the Gainsborough melodramas, a sequence of very popular films made during the 1940s. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. Her gentle beauty was heightened by different degrees of melancholy inBank Holiday(1938) andThe Lady Vanishes(1938), undimmed by her playing an indolent, pouting trollop inThe Stars Look Down(1939), and coarsened by the twisted thoughts of her Regency-era social climber Hesther in The Man in Grey (1943), her highwaywoman Barbara Worth inThe Wicked Lady(1945), her psychopathic title characterinBedelia(1946). In 1938, she gave her best performance in the movie Bank Holiday; the film launched Lockwoods career. Long live the mouches! One of Britain's most popular film stars of the 1930s and 1940s, her film appearances included The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), The Man in Grey (1943), and The Wicked Lady (1945). Her RADA-trained voice was posh, of course, but not supercilious.Her gentle beauty was heightened by different degrees of melancholy in Bank Holiday (1938) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), undimmed by her playing an indolent, pouting trollop in The Stars Look Down (1939), and coarsened . Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. "[22], In September 1943 Variety estimated her salary at being US$24,000 per picture (equivalent to $305,000 in 2021).[23]. Miss Margaret Lockwood, CBE, film, stage and television actress who became Britain's leading box-office star in the 1940s, died of cirrhosis of the liver in London on 15th July, 1990 aged 73. Here's the unadulterated truth. She had the lead in Someday (1935), a quota quickie directed by Michael Powell and in Jury's Evidence (1936), directed by Ralph Ince. Rank wanted to star her in a film about Mary Magdalene but Lockwood was unhappy with the script. 3.7 Stars and 24 reviews of Lisa Family Salon "For being in So Cal for only 6 months, I have only gotten my hair cut once and that was back in Nor Cal when I went home to visit family. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. I used to love her films. [5][6][7] This was at 4,000 a year.[8]. The film inaugurated a series of hothouse melodramas that came to be known as Gainsborough Gothic and had film fans queuing outside cinemas all over Britain. She complained to the head of her studio, J. Arthur Rank, that she was "sick of sinning", but paradoxically, as her roles grew nicer, her popularity declined.