Margaret Lockwood

For other uses, see Margaret Lockwood (disambiguation).

Margaret Lockwood
Born	Margaret Mary Lockwood Day 15 September 1916(1916-09-15) Karachi, British India (now Karachi, Pakistan)
Died	15 July 1990(1990-07-15) (aged 73) London, England, UK
Years active	1934–1980
Spouse	Rupert Leon (1937-1949; divorced); 1 child

Margaret Lockwood, CBE (15 September 1916^[1] – 15 July 1990) was an English actress, notable for her performances in the 1940s Gainsborough melodramas such as The Man in Grey, Love Story and The Wicked Lady.

Early life

Margaret Mary Lockwood Day was born in Karachi, British India (now Karachi, Pakistan), to an English administrator of a railway company and his Irish wife. Lockwood's family returned to the United Kingdom when she was a child, along with her brother. She attended Sydenham High School for girls, and a ladies school in Kensington, London.^[2]

She began studying for the stage at an early age at the Italia Conti, 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. In December of the following year, she appeared at the Scala Theatre in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood. In 1932, she appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Cavalcade.

Lockwood then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she was seen by a talent scout and signed to a contract. 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.

Film career

Lockwood entered films in 1934, and in 1935 she appeared in the film version of Lorna Doone. In 1938 she starred in her most successful film, Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, in which she first appeared with Michael Redgrave. In 1940, she played the role of Jenny Sunley, the self-centred, frivolous wife of Redgrave's character in The Stars Look Down. In the early 1940s, Lockwood changed her on-screen image to play villainesses in both contemporary and period films, becoming the most successful actress in British films during that period. Her greatest success was in the title role in The Wicked Lady (1945), a film which was controversial in its day and brought her considerable publicity. In 1946 Lockwood gained the Daily Mail National Film Awards First Prize for most popular British film actress.

She made a return to the stage in a record-breaking national tour of Noël Coward's Private Lives in 1949, and also played Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion at the Edinburgh Festival of 1951, and the title role in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in 1949, 1950, and 1957 (the latter with her daughter Julia Lockwood as Wendy). Her subsequent long-running West End hits include an all-star production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1965/66, in which she played the villainous Mrs Cheveley), W. Somerset Maugham's Lady Frederick (1970), Relative Values (Noël Coward revival, 1973), and the thrillers Spider's Web (1955, written for her by Agatha Christie), Signpost to Murder (1962), and Double Edge (1975).

In 1969, she starred as barrister Julia Stanford in the TV play Justice is a Woman. This inspired the Yorkshire Television series Justice, which ran for three seasons (39 episodes) from 1971 to 1974, and featured her real-life partner, John Stone, as fictional boyfriend, Dr Ian Moody. Lockwood's role as the feisty Harriet Peterson won her Best Actress Awards from the TV Times (1971) and The Sun (1973). Her last professional appearance was as Queen Alexandra in Royce Ryton's stage play Motherdear (Ambassadors Theatre, 1980).

Margaret Lockwood was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year's Honours of 1981.

Final years & Death

Margaret Lockwood had married and been divorced from Rupert Leon. She lived her final years in seclusion in Kingston-upon-Thames and died in the Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London^[3] from cirrhosis of the liver, aged 73. She was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium. She was survived by her daughter, actress Julia Clark (née Margaret Julia Leon, born 1941).

Select filmography

• Lorna Doone (1934)
• The Case of Gabriel Perry (1935)
• Man of the Moment (1935)
• Honours Easy (1935)
• Someday (1935)
• Midshipman Easy (1935)
• Jury's Evidence (1936)
• The Amateur Gentleman (1936)
• The Beloved Vagabond (1936)
• Irish for Luck (1936)
• The Street Singer (1937)
• Who's Your Lady Friend? (1937)
• Melody and Romance (1937)
• Doctor Syn (1937)
• Owd Bob (1938)
• Bank Holiday (1938)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938)
• Susannah of the Mounties (1939)
• A Girl Must Live (1939)
• Rulers of the Sea (1939)
• The Stars Look Down (1939)
• Night Train to Munich (1940)
• Girl in the News (1940)
• Quiet Wedding (1941)
• Alibi (1942)
• Dear Octopus (1943)
• The Man in Grey (1943)
• Give Us the Moon (1944)
• Love Story (1944)
• I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945)
• A Place of One's Own (1945)
• The Wicked Lady (1945)
• Bedelia (1946)
• Jassy (1947)
• Hungry Hill (1947)
• The White Unicorn (1947)
• Pygmalion (1948)
• Look Before You Love (1948)
• Cardboard Cavalier (1949)
• Madness of the Heart (1949)
• Highly Dangerous (1950)
• Trent's Last Case (1952)
• Laughing Anne (1953)
• Trouble in the Glen (1954)
• Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
• The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

References

1. ^ Date of birth: Fandango website. Retrieved on 3 March 2008.
2. ^ Obituary from The Times Margaret Lockwood obituary
3. ^ Deaths England and Wales 1984-2006

Further reading

• Parker, John, Who's Who in the Theatre, 10th revised edition, Pitmans, London, 1947, pp. 945-46

External links

Biography portal

• Margaret Lockwood at the Internet Movie Database
• Margaret Lockwood at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Stage performances in University of Bristol Theatre Archive
• Photographs of Margaret Lockwood
• Margaret Lockwood in Cornish Rhapsody which comes from the British War Time Film "Love Story" and starred Margaret as a lady concert pianist. The music was written by Hubert Bath. The pianist is Harriet Cohen.
• Margaret Lockwood at Find a Grave
• Photos of Margaret Lockwood at Silver Sirens

Persondata
Name	Lockwood, Margaret
Alternative names	Day, Margaret Mary Lockwood
Short description	Stage and film actress
Date of birth	15 September 1916
Place of birth	Karachi, British India (now Karachi, Pakistan)
Date of death	15 July 1990
Place of death	London, England, UK