- Angela Baddeley
Infobox actor
name = Angela Baddeley
bgcolour = silver
imagesize =
caption =
birthname = Madeline Angela Clinton-Baddeley
birthdate = birth date|1904|7|4|df=y
location =London ,England
deathdate = death date and age|1976|2|22|1904|7|4|df=y
deathplace =London ,England
height =
othername =
homepage =
notable role = Mrs Bridges in "Upstairs, Downstairs "Angela Baddeley, CBE (born Madeline Angela Clinton-Baddeley;
4 July 1904 –22 February 1976 ) was an English actress best remembered for her role as Mrs Bridges in the period drama "Upstairs, Downstairs ". Baddeley also had a long and distinguished career on stage that lasted for 63 years.Early life
Madeline Angela Clinton-Baddeley was born in
London in 1904, the daughter of a wealthy family who had servants. She based the character of Mrs Bridges on one of the cooks her family had when she was a child.cite news|url=|title=The Best of Upstairs, Downstairs|first=|last=|publisher=TV Times |date=1976] Her younger sister was the actressHermione Baddeley . In 1912, at the age of 8, Baddeley made her stage debut at theDalston Palace in London in a play called "The Dawn of Happiness ". When she was nine, Angela Baddeley auditioned at theOld Vic Theatre and by the age of 11 she was appearing in Shakespeare plays. During her teenage years, the "consummate little actress", as a national paper called had called her when she was 10, starred in many musicals andpantomime s. She briefly 'retired' from acting at age 18. Her first marriage, to Stephen Thomas, produced one daughter. In c.1930 she married the actor and theatre directorGlen Byam Shaw , and they had a son and a daughter. During the early years of her second marriage she and her husband had four servants. In 1938, she appeared inKing Vidor 's film, "The Citadel", an adaptation ofA. J. Cronin 's novel.Later years
Continuing to act on stage, she played the bawd in
Tony Richardson 's production of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre " at theShakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1958. She was made a CBE in 1975 for "services to the theatre". She died inLondon in 1976 ofpneumonia at the age of 71, shortly after "Upstairs, Downstairs" finished being shown on television. Had she lived it is likely that a spin-off series, with Baddeley reprising her role as Mrs. Bridges and Gordon Jackson returning as Mr Hudson, would have been made. This would have been set in theboarding house they had moved to at the end of "Upstairs, Downstairs".She is the grandmother of Charles Hart, the lyricist of "The Phantom of the Opera".
References
External links
*imdb name|id=0045967|name=Angela Baddeley
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.