ANNA NEAGLE ,BRITISH ACTRESS
HAIR STYLIST IN 1940`S
BORN 1904 OCTOBER 20
Dame Anna Neagle, DBE (20 October 1904 – 3 June 1986), born Florence Marjorie Robertson, was a popular English stage and film actress and singer and dancer
| Dame Anna Neagle DBE | |
|---|---|
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Anna Neagle with Ray Bolger (right) in Sunny(1941)
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| Born | Florence Marjorie Robertson 20 October 1904 Forest Gate, then in Essex, now London, England |
| Died | 3 June 1986 (aged 81) West Byfleet, Surrey, England |
| Cause of death | Complications of renal disease and cancer |
| Resting place | City of London Cemetery, Ilford, London, England |
| Occupation | Actress, singer |
| Years active | 1917–1986 |
| Spouse(s) | Herbert Wilcox (1943–1977) |
In her historical dramas, Anna Neagle was renowned for her portrayals of British historical figures, including Nell Gwynn (Nell Gwynn, 1934), Queen Victoria (Victoria the Great, 1937, and Sixty Glorious Years, 1938) and Edith Cavell (Nurse Edith Cavell, 1939).
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Neagle was born in Forest Gate, then in Essex, now part of the London Borough of Newham, daughter to Herbert Robertson, a Merchant Navy captain, and his wife, the former Florence Neagle.[1] Her older brother was the bass-baritone and actor Stuart Robertson (1901-1958).[2] Robertson attended primary school in Glasgow and then St Albans High School for Girls.[citation needed] She made her stage debut as a dancer in 1917, and later appeared in the chorus of C.B. Cochran's revues and also André Charlot's revue Bubbly. While with Cochran she understudied Jessie Matthews.[3]
In 1931 she starred in the West End musical Stand Up and Sing (1931), with actor Jack Buchanan, who encouraged her to take a featured role. For this play she began using the professional name of Anna Neagle (the surname being her mother's maiden name).[4] The play was a success with a total run of 604 performances.[4] Stand Up and Sing provided her big break when film producer and director Herbert Wilcox, who had caught the show purposely to consider Buchanan for an upcoming film, but also took note of her cinematic potential.[5]
Cinematic beginnings[edit]
"Naturally enough when I was a young dancer, I was terribly anxious to get ahead, and to get ahead quickly. I was impatient with all those older people who talked of the long grind to the top, who turned me down for jobs I knew I could do."
Anna Neagle[6]
Forming a professional alliance with Wilcox, Neagle played her first starring film role in the musical Goodnight, Vienna (1932), again with Jack Buchanan. With this film Neagle became an overnight favourite. Although the film cost a mere £23,000 to a produce, it was a hit at the box office, profits from its Australian release alone being £150,000.[7]
After her starring role in The Flag Lieutenant (also 1932), directed by and co-starring Henry Edwards, she worked exclusively under Wilcox's direction for all but one of her subsequent films,[4] becoming one of Britain's biggest stars.
She continued in the musical genre, co-starring with Fernand Gravey (later known as Fernand Gravet) in Bitter Sweet (1933). This first version of Noël Coward's tale of ill-fated lovers was later obscured by the better known Jeanette MacDonald–Nelson Eddy remake in 1940.[4]
Neagle had her first major success with Nell Gwynn (1934), which Wilcox had previously shot as a silent starring Dorothy Gish in 1926. Neagle's performance as the woman who became the mistress of Charles II (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) prompted some censorship in the United States.
The Hays Office had Wilcox add a (historically false) scene featuring the two leads getting married and also a "framing" story resulting in an entirely different ending.[8] Graham Greene, then a film critic, said of Nell Gwynn: "I have seen few things more attractive than Miss Neagle in breeches".[7]
Two years after Nell Gwynn, she followed up with another real-life figure, portraying Irish actress Peg Woffington in Peg of Old Drury (1936). That same year she appeared in Limelight, a backstage film musical in which she played a chorus girl. Her co-star was Arthur Tracy, who had gained fame in the United States as a radio performer known as 'The Street Singer'. The film also featured Jack Buchanan in an uncredited cameo.[9] performing "Goodnight Vienna".[5]
Neagle and Wilcox followed with a circus trapeze fable Three Maxims (1937), which was released in the United States as The Show Goes On. The film, with a script featuring a contribution from Herman J. Mankiewicz (later to co-write Citizen Kane with Orson Welles), had Neagle performing her own high-wire acrobatics.[7]
Although now highly successful in films, Neagle continued acting on stage. In 1934, while working under director Robert Atkins, she performed as Rosalind in As You Like It and Olivia in Twelfth Night. Both productions earned her critical accolades, despite the fact that she had never performed Shakespearean roles before.[4]
In 1937 Neagle gave her most prestigious performance so far – as Queen Victoria in the historical drama Victoria the Great (1937), co-starring Anton Walbrook as Prince Albert. The script by Robert Vansittart and Miles Malleson (from Laurence Housman's play Victoria Regina) alternated between the political and the personal lives of the royal couple.[7]
The Diamond Jubilee sequence that climaxed the film was shot in Technicolor. Victoria the Great was such an international success that it resulted in Neagle and Walbrook playing their roles again in an all-Technicolor sequel entitled Sixty Glorious Years (1938), co-starring C. Aubrey Smith as the Duke of Wellington. While the first of these films was in release, Neagle returned to the London stage and entertained audiences with her portrayal of the title role in Peter Pan.[4]
An American excursion[edit]
Anna Neagle gives a radio interview in Montreal in 1937.
The success of Victoria the Great and Sixty Glorious Years caused Hollywood studios to take notice. Neagle and Wilcox began an association with RKO Radio Pictures. Their first American film was Nurse Edith Cavell (1939), a remake of Dawn, a Wilcox silent that starred Sybil Thorndike. In this, another Neagle role based on an actual British heroine, she played the role of the nurse who was shot by the Germans in World War I for alleged spying. The resulting effort had a significant impact for audiences on the eve of war.[7]
In a turnabout from this serious drama, the couple followed with three musical comedies, all based on once-popular stage plays. The first of these was Irene (1940), co-starring Ray Milland. It included a Technicolor sequence, which featured Neagle singing the play's most famous song, "Alice Blue Gown". She followed this film with No, No, Nanette (1940) with Victor Mature, in which she sang "Tea For Two", and Sunny (1941), with Ray Bolger.
Neagle and Wilcox's final American film was Forever and a Day (1943), a tale of a London family house from 1804 to the 1940 blitz. This film boasts 80 performers (mostly expatriate British), including Ray Milland, C. Aubrey Smith, Claude Rains, Charles Laughton and – among the few North Americans – Buster Keaton. Wilcox directed the sequence featuring Neagle, Milland, Smith and Rains, while other directors who worked on the film included René Clair, Edmund Goulding, Frank Lloyd, Victor Saville and Robert Stevenson. During the war the profits and salaries were given to war relief. After the war, prints were intended to be destroyed, so that no one could profit from them. However, this never occurred.[7]
Back to Britain[edit]
Returning to Britain, Neagle and Wilcox commenced with They Flew Alone (1942; shot after but released before Forever and a Day). Neagle this time played aviator Amy Johnson, who had recently died in a flying accident. Robert Newton's co-starred as Johnson's husband, Jim Mollison. The film inter-cut the action with newsreel footage.[7]
Neagle and Wilcox married in August 1943 at the Caxton Hall.[10]
They continued with The Yellow Canary (1943), co-starring Richard Greene and Margaret Rutherford. In this spy story, Neagle plays a German-sympathiser (or at least that is what she seems to be at first) who is forced to go to Canada for her own safety. In reality, of course, she's working as an undercover agent out to expose a plot to blow up Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. The Yellow Canary received positive comment for its atmospheric recreation of wartime conditions.[5]
In 1945 Neagle appeared on stage in Emma, a dramatisation of Jane Austen's novel. That same year she was seen in the film I Live in Grosvenor Square, co-starring Rex Harrison. She wanted Harrison for the lead in her next film, Piccadilly Incident (1946). However, he (as well as John Mills) proved to be unavailable at the time, so Wilcox cast Michael Wilding in the lead. Thus was born what film critic Godfrey Winn called "the greatest team in British films".[7]
The story – of a wife, presumed dead, returning to her (remarried) husband – bears a resemblance to the Irene Dunne–Cary Grant comedy My Favorite Wife. Piccadilly Incident was chosen as Picturegoer's Best Film of 1947. Despite the fact that Neagle was some 8 years senior to Wilding, they proved to be an extremely bankable romantic pairing at the British box office. By now in her mid forties, Neagle continued to have success in youthful and romantic lead roles.
Neagle and Wilding were reunited in The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947), a period drama that became the year's top box-office attraction. The film featured Wilding as an upper class dandy and Neagle as the maid he marries, only to have the two of them driven apart by Victorian society.[5]
The third pairing of Neagle and Wilding in the "London Films", as the series of films came to be called, was in Spring in Park Lane (1948). A drama, this depicted the romance between a millionaire's niece and a footman (actually a nobleman who has seen better days). The script was written by Nicholas Phipps, who also played Wilding's brother.
Although not a musical, it contains a dream sequence featuring the song "The Moment I Saw You". Spring in Park Lane was the 1949 Picturegoer winner for Best Film, Actor and Actress.[7] Neagle and Wilding were together for a fourth time in the Technicolor romance Maytime in Mayfair (1949). The plot is reminiscent of Roberta, as it had Wilding inheriting a dress shop owned by Neagle.[5]
By now, Neagle was at her peak as Britain's top box-office actress, and she made what reputedly became her own favourite film, Odette (1950), co-starring Trevor Howard, Peter Ustinov and Marius Goring. As Odette Sansom, she was the Anglo-French resistance fighter who was pushed to the edge of betrayal by the Nazis.[7]
In 1950, Neagle and Wilcox moved to the top floor flat in Aldford House overlooking Park Lane, which would be their home until 1964.[10] She played Florence Nightingale in The Lady with a Lamp (1951), based on the 1929 play by Reginald Berkeley.
Returning to the stage in 1953, she scored a success with The Glorious Days, which had a run of 476 performances. Neagle and Wilcox brought the play to the screen under the title Lilacs in the Spring (1954), co-starring Errol Flynn. In the film she plays an actress knocked out by a bomb, who dreams she is Queen Victoria and Nell Gwyn – as well as her own mother.
As she begins dreaming, the film switches from black-and-white to colour. In Britain, where Neagle had top billing, the film was reasonably successful. In the United States, however, where Flynn had top billing, the title was changed to Let's Make Up, and it flopped, with limited bookings.[7][11]
On the wane[edit]
Neagle and Flynn reteamed for a second film together, King's Rhapsody (1955), based on an Ivor Novello musical and also starring Patrice Wymore (Flynn's wife at the time). Although Neagle performed several musical numbers for the film, most of them were cut from the final release, leaving her with essentially a supporting role. Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope with location work near Barcelona, Spain, King's Rhapsody was a major flop everywhere. Neagle's (and Flynn's) box-office appeal, it seemed, was fading.[12]
Neagle's last box-office hit was My Teenage Daughter (1956), which featured her as a mother trying to prevent her daughter (Sylvia Syms) from lapsing into juvenile delinquency.[5]
Neagle and Syms worked together again on No Time For Tears (1957), also starring Anthony Quayle and Flora Robson. As directed by Cyril Frankel, this was the first film for over 20 years where Neagle was directed by someone other than Herbert Wilcox. Set in a children's hospital, the film features Neagle as a matron dealing with the problems of the patients and the staff, notably a nurse (Syms) infatuated with one of the doctors (George Baker).[5]
With her husband, Neagle began producing films starring Frankie Vaughan, but these were out of touch with changing tastes, and lost money, resulting in Wilcox going heavily into debt. Neagle herself made her final film appearance in The Lady Is a Square (1957), also Wilcox's last film as director.
Neagle was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in February 1958 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre, and in March 1983, when Andrews surprised her at London's Royal National Hotel.
Final years[edit]
Herbert Wilcox was bankrupt by 1964, but his wife soon revived his fortunes. She returned to the stage the following year and made a comeback in the West End musical Charlie Girl. In it she played the role of a former "Cochran Young Lady" who marries a peer of the realm. Charlie Girl was not a critical success, but it ran for six years and 2,047 performances. It earned Neagle an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for her enduring popularity.[4]
Two years after Charlie Girl – which she also performed in Australia and New Zealand – Neagle was asked to appear in a revival of No, No, Nanette, having appeared in the screen version three decades earlier. Later, in 1975, she replaced Celia Johnson in The Dame of Sark and, in 1978 (the year after her husband's death), she was acting in Most Gracious Lady, which was written for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.[13]
Although affected by Parkinson's disease in her last years, Neagle continued to be active. In 1985 she appeared as the Fairy Godmother in a production of Cinderella at the London Palladium.[14]
Some sources state that Neagle was suffering from cancer at the time of her death. She was interred alongside her husband in the City of London Cemetery.[15] Their grave was recommemorated by Princess Anne, the Princess Royal on 6 March 2014.
A memorial plaque on her former home at Aldford House, Park Lane was unveiled on 30 May 1996, by Princess Anne and Lana Morris. [10]
A street named in her honour, Anna Neagle Close,[16] is situated in Forest Gate, London.
Awards[edit]
Neagle was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1952 [17] and, for her contributions to the theatre, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1969.
Filmography[edit]
The following list contains all of Neagle's acting credits in feature-length films with the exception of Queen Victoria (1942), which is actually a compilation of two earlier films, Victoria the Great and Sixty Glorious Years. All of her films were directed by Herbert Wilcox and produced in the United Kingdom unless otherwise noted.
In addition, Neagle also appeared briefly as herself in a documentary short entitled The Volunteer (1943), and served as narrator for the films The Prams Break Through (1945) and Princess's Wedding Day (1947). Neagle also produced, but did not appear in, three films starring Frankie Vaughan: These Dangerous Years (1957), Wonderful Things (1957) and The Heart of a Man (1959).
Dame Anna Neagle
Born October 20, 1904 in Forest Gate, Essex, England, UK
Died June 3, 1986 in West Byfleet, Surrey, England, UK (complications of renal disease and cancer)
Birth Name Florence Marjorie Robertson
Height 5' 5" (1.65 m)
Mini Bio (1)
Dame Anna Neagle, the endearingly popular British star during WWII, was born Florence Marjorie Robertson and began dancing as a professional in chorus lines at age 14. She starred with actor Jack Buchanan in the musical "Stand Up and Sing" in the West End and earned her big break when producer/director Herbert Wilcox, who had caught the show purposely to consider Buchanan for an upcoming film, was also taken (and smitten) by Anna, casting her as well in the process. Thus began one of the most exclusive and successful partnerships in the British cinema.
Under Wilcox's guidance (they married in 1943), Anna became one of the biggest and brightest celebrities of her time. Always considered an actress of limited abilities, the lovely Anna nevertheless would prove to be a sensational box-office commodity for nearly two decades. She added glamour and sophistication for war-torn London audiences and her lightweight musicals, comedies and even costumed historical dramas provided a nicely balanced escape route.
The tasteful, ladylike heroines she portrayed included nurses Edith Cavell and Florence Nightingale, flyer Amy Johnson and undercover spy Odette; Nell Gwyn and Queen Victoria also fell within her grasp. She appeared in a number of frothy post-war retreads co-starring Michael Wilding that the critics turned their noses on but the audiences ate up - including Piccadilly Incident (1946), Kathy's Love Affair (1947), Spring in Park Lane (1948) and The Lady with a Lamp (1951). She tried to extend her fame to Hollywood and briefly appeared there in three musicals in the early 40s, but failed to make a dent. Anna's appeal faded somewhat in the late 50s and, after producing a few film efforts, retired altogether from the screen.
She returned to her theatre roots, which culminated in the long-running "Charlie Girl", a 1965 production that ran with Anna for nearly six years. She was bestowed with the honor of Dame of the British Empire in 1969 for her contributions to the theatre. Anna continued to perform after her husband's death in 1977, later developing Parkinson's disease in her final years. She died in 1986 of complications.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Spouse (1)
Herbert Wilcox (9 August 1943 - 15 May 1977) (his death)
Trivia (15)
Sister of actor Stuart Robertson.
She was awarded the DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1969 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.
She made her stage debut in 1917 at age 12, but was not seen again until 1925 in the musical revue "Bubbly."
She produced three films in the 1950s (Dangerous Youth (1957), Wonderful Things! (1958), and The Heart of a Man (1959)), all starring British actor Frankie Vaughan.
For seven straight years after WWII, she was voted top favorite English actress.
She was recorded in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for her 2,062 consecutive performances in the stage play "Charlie Girl" which ran from 1965 to 1971.
London (By Cable)-Wednesday, November 15, 1939: Statement of affairs of Imperator Films, in voluntary liquidation, lists $692, 985 owing to unsecured creditors, among whom are Herbert Wilcox ($136,165) and Anna Neagle ($127,885.) Both Wilcox and Miss Neagle have cabled from Hollywood expressing the wish that their claims be set aside until other creditors have been paid. Herbert Wilcox Productions, also in voluntary liquidation, lists debts to unsecured creditors of $310,125.
Great-aunt of Nicholas Hoult.
Neagle played many historical characters including Nell Gwynn, Queen Victoria, 18th Century British actress Peg Woffington, aviatrix Amy Johnson, nurse Edith Cavell, French Resistance heroine Odette Celine, and Florence Nightengale.
She played Nell Gwyn in both Nell Gwyn (1934) and Let's Make Up (1954).
She had two roles in common with Fay Compton: (1) Neagle played Queen Victoria in Victoria the Great (1937) and Queen of Destiny (1938) while Compton played her in The Prime Minister (1941) and Journey to the Unknown: Poor Butterfly (1969) and (2) Compton played Florence Nightingale in Wrath of Jealousy (1936) while Neagle played her in The Lady with a Lamp (1951).
Although she played Errol Flynn's daughter in Let's Make Up (1954), she was almost five years his senior in real life.
Although she played Mary Morris's daughter in Victoria the Great (1937), she was eleven years Morris' senior in real life.
She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1952 King's New Year Honours List for her services to drama.
'Neagle' was her mother's maiden name.
Personal Quotes (1)
[Asked in a 1985 interview if her films had a feminist point of view] "Instinctively, yes, not consciously. I feel very strongly for women's emancipation. Now it's accepted, of course, but at the time some of the characters I played lived, it wasn't accepted.
OLIVE THOMAS ,THE BEAUTY OF NEWYORK ,
SILENT FILM ACTRESS BORN 1894 OCTOBER 20
DIED OF DRUG CHANGING
Born October 20, 1894 in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, USA
Died September 10, 1920 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France (accidental poisoning)
Birth Name Olive Elaine Duffy
Nickname Ollie
Mini Bio (2)
Oliveretta Elaine Duffy was born on October 20, 1894, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Olive, as she was known to family and friends, did not have much of a childhood. Life in industrial Pittsburgh was depressing and grim with its smoky factories and hard living. She married Bernard Krug Thomas at the age of 16 (which wasn't uncommon at the time), but the marriage wasn't happy and they divorced two years later. By that time Olive had left Pittsburgh for New York, where she found work in a department store.
On a lark, she entered a competition for the most beautiful girl in New York City, as fate would have it, she won. With the ensuing publicity, Olive caught the eye of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and immediately joined his famed Follies. An outstanding addition, men went wild over her beauty. She also posed nude for the famed Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas. As a result of her sudden fame, she was signed to a contract with Triangle Pictures.
Her first film was Beatrice Fairfax (1916). Later that year, she married Jack Pickford, brother of screen star Mary Pickford. The relationship was a stormy one. In 1917, she starred in four more films: Madcap Madge (1917), A Girl Like That (1917), Broadway Arizona (1917) and Indiscreet Corinne (1917). With five films on her resume, Olive was the toast of Hollywood. Her beauty was captivating. One look at her pictures can make one understand why. She made three films in 1918 and six in 1919. By 1920, Olive was at the top of the film world.
She continued to make good pictures, most notably, Youthful Folly (1920) and The Flapper (1920), which was an overwhelming success. After finishing Everybody's Sweetheart (1920), Olive and Jack sailed to France for a much-needed vacation. The couple finally seemed happy, which seems odd in light of what was to follow. Olive accidentally ingested bi-chloride of mercury from a French-labeled bottle in a darkened bathroom, believing it to be another medication.
Found unconscious, she died five days later. The death made worldwide headlines and was ruled accidental. Always remembered as one of the finest actresses of the silent era, With the advent of sound pictures, she would have no doubt continued a dazzling career. Considered to be one of the world's great beauties, Olive was only 25 when she died.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson & MO840
Oliva R. Duffy was born on October 20, 1894, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Ollie, as she was known to family and friends, did not have much of a childhood. Life in industrial Pittsburgh was depressing and grim, with its smoky factories and hard living. Olive's father died while she was still young, forcing her to leave school to help earn her keep. In April 1911 at the age of 16 she married Bernard Krug Thomas in McKees Rock, PA.
During this time she reportedly worked as a sales clerk. The marriage was an unhappy one and after 2 years Olive filed for divorce. She soon moved to New York and stayed with relatives while again working in a department store. In 1914 she answered a newspaper ad and won the title of "The Most Beautiful Girl in New York City". The contest was run by the celebrated commercial artist Howard Chandler Christy. After winning, Thomas modeled for artist Harrison Fisher and eventually landed on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
Either on a recommendation or her own brazen approach, Thomas impressed Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and immediately went to work in his famed Ziegfeld Follies. Thomas would become a Follies favorite, working in The Midnight Frolic as well as many of the revues. Stunningly gorgeous, she soon found herself being pursued by a number of very wealthy and powerful men who frequented the follies. Thomas received expensive gifts from her admirers, with rumors that the German Ambassador had given her a $10,000 string of pearls. Her beauty would lead to a sitting with famed Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas.
Thomas' entry into films is slightly sketchy, as it is hard to trace when or why it happened. Her first contract was with International Film Company as the leading lady in the studio's Harry Fox movies, though this never resulted in any actual films. Her acting debut was a small yet key role in an episode of Beatrice Fairfax (1916). Oddly, she then made one film for Famous Players-Lasky before signing with Triangle Pictures to make a string of light comedies similar to those of Mabel Normand and Mary Pickford.
Many of these films did well, including Madcap Madge (1917), A Girl Like That (1917), Broadway Arizona (1917) and Indiscreet Corinne (1917).
Thomas met Jack Pickford, brother of Mary, in 1916 while dancing at Nat Goodwin's Cafe located on the Santa Monica Pier. The relationship was rocky but very passionate. Thomas and Pickford claimed to have married in 1916, though they did not announce the "marriage" until 1917 when Thomas was already a film star in her own right. Oddly enough, recently found marriage records prove the couple did not marry until 1918.
In 1918 Thomas signed with Selznick Pictures, where her star grew. During her Triangle days she had played teenager types, causing people to term her a "baby vamp". Selznick capitalized on this image, which would eventually give way to the flapper, Thomas being the first to portray a flapper in The Flapper (1920). It was so successful that Thomas' follow-up films followed a similar pattern, including Youthful Folly (1920) and Everybody's Sweetheart (1920).
Thomas had never been fully accepted by the Pickford family, with Mary resenting her. However, Lottie Pickford befriended her. Despite the stormy relationship, Olive and Jack married in 1918. In 1919 they began proceedings to adopt her nephew, as his mother had passed away (a common practice at the time). Thomas adored children and could not wait to be a mother.
Making what is seen as a last-ditch effort to fix her relationship with Jack, she and Pickford went on a "second honeymoon" in August 1920. While in Paris they had a heavy night of drinking and partying, returning to the hotel at 3:00 a.m. Pickford headed for bed, and Thomas wrote a letter to her mother. After concocting what she thought was a sleeping potion (sleeping medicine at the time was in a powder form, to be mixed with a liquid for consumption) and starting to drink it, Thomas screamed violently.
Pickford ran in to see what was wrong and discovered that she had misunderstood the French labels and drank a solution of mercury bichloride instead (which, when mixed in that fashion, was used as bathroom cleaner). She was immediately rushed to a hospital. Blinded and unable to talk due to burned vocal chords, it was hard for her to communicate with the French police, who were investigating the incident.
In any case, the police left satisfied the event was an accident. Thomas passed away a day later, with her husband and brother-in-law Owen Moore at her side. She was 25.
Thomas' death was the first big celebrity scandal, and the first death of a star at the height of her fame and youth (only one other major film star had died unexpectedly at the height of fame, the elderly comedian John Bunny in 1915). Rumors swirled she had killed herself, or was poisoned by a crazed American captain or murdered by Pickford himself.
After an autopsy and an American and French investigation, her death was ruled accidental. Thomas was buried in New York in a tiny mausoleum marked "Pickford". Though the relationship had been rocky most agree she was the love of Jack's life, so much so that he was said to have contemplated suicide upon returning to America. Two marriages later (both to Ziegfeld girls), Jack was said to call out for Olive while in the midst of his drunken stupors.
Olive's final film, Everybody's Sweetheart (1920), was released after her death. Her name lives on, steeped in her scandal, enhanced by fabrications in Hollywood Babylon. Surprisingly, today many of her films exist (about 12 complete and some in fragments), though they have not as of yet been released on DVD or home video. In 2005 a documentary, "Everybody's Sweetheart" was released, along with "The Flapper".
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hala Pickford (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)
Spouse (2)
Jack Pickford (25 October 1916 - 10 September 1920) (her death)
Bernard Krugh Thomas (1 April 1911 - 25 September 1915) (divorced)
Trade Mark (1)
Playing teenage types, first as a baby vamp and later as a flapper
Trivia (9)
Found poisoned in her room after consuming mercury bichloride tablets dissolved in alcohol. The circumstances around this event were mysterious but were officially determined to be accidental. She died five days later in the American Hospital in Neuilly.
Irish-American descent
Sister-in-law of Mary Pickford and Lottie Pickford.
Daughter-in-law of Charlotte Smith.
Her personal belongings were sold at auction in New York for $26,931. Fellow screen star Mabel Normand bought a 14-karet gold cigarette case for $50, a 20-piece toilet set for $1,425, a diamond pearl brooch and sapphire pin for $500 and a platinum set with star sapphire for $425 (22 November 1920).
Her ghost has been said to haunt the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City.
Discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. for his "Follies of 1915". He also cast her in the "Ziegfeld Midnight Frolics", which was a racier, after-hours show atop the New Amsterdam Theater for mostly male audiences. She often wore nothing but balloons, which the gents would eagerly burst with their cigars. She also became Ziegfeld's mistress.
Only daughter in a family of three. Her brothers were Michael James (born February 1893) and William L.(born May 1898).
Was the first actress to play a 'Flapper' which would become a huge fad in the coming years.
Personal Quotes (2)
I think that you die when your time comes and not until then. I feel the same about other things as I do about death. I don't think you can change anything that is going to happen to you any more than you can change anything that has happened to you. That's why I never worry, and that is why I don't think people should get conceited and think themselves better than others
Life's too short and fate too funny to get upstage, Today they may be showering us with roses on Broadway and tomorrow some fool director who used to be a waiter may be rejecting us as atmosphere in a five reel five cent feature...
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | Those Who Love | Bit part (uncredited) | Directed by H. Manning Haynes |
| 1930 | The Chinese Bungalow | Charlotte | Directed by Arthur Barnes and J.B. Williams |
| The School for Scandal | Flower Seller (uncredited) | Directed by Maurice Elvey. Filmed in Raycol. | |
| Should A Doctor Tell? | Muriel Ashton | Directed by H. Manning Haynes | |
| 1932 | Goodnight, Vienna | Viki | Neagle's first collaboration with director Herbert Wilcox |
| The Flag Lieutenant | Hermione Wynne | Directed by Henry Edwards. | |
| 1933 | Bitter Sweet | Sarah Millick and Sari Lind | |
| The Little Damozel | Julie Alardy | ||
| 1934 | Nell Gwyn | Nell Gwyn | Neagle's first major hit |
| The Queen's Affair | Queen Nadia | ||
| 1935 | Peg of Old Drury | Peg Woffington | |
| 1936 | Limelight | Marjorie Kaye | |
| Three Maxims | Pat | Franco–British production. | |
| 1937 | Victoria the Great | Queen Victoria | Finale filmed in Technicolor |
| London Melody | Jacqueline | ||
| 1938 | Sixty Glorious Years | Queen Victoria | Filmed in Technicolor |
| 1939 | Nurse Edith Cavell | Edith Cavell | Neagle's first American film |
| 1940 | Irene | Irene O'Dare | Features one sequence in Technicolor; Produced in the U.S. |
| No, No, Nanette | Nanette | U.S. production | |
| 1941 | Sunny | Sunny O'Sullivan | U.S. production |
| 1942 | They Flew Alone | Amy Johnson | |
| 1943 | Yellow Canary | Sally Maitland | |
| Forever and a Day | Susan Trenchard | U.S. production | |
| 1945 | I Live in Grosvenor Square | Lady Patricia Fairfax | |
| 1946 | Piccadilly Incident | Diana Fraser | |
| 1947 | The Courtneys of Curzon Street | Katherine O'Halloran | |
| 1948 | Elizabeth of Ladymead | Elizabeth | Filmed in Technicolor |
| Spring in Park Lane | Judy Howard | ||
| 1949 | Maytime in Mayfair | Eileen Grahame | Filmed in Technicolor |
| 1950 | Odette | Odette Sansom | |
| 1951 | The Lady with a Lamp | Florence Nightingale | |
| 1952 | Derby Day | Lady Helen Forbes | |
| 1954 | Lilacs in the Spring | Carole Beaumont / Lillian Grey / Nell Gwynne / Queen Victoria | Filmed in Eastmancolor (aside from a black and white prologue) |
| 1955 | King's Rhapsody | Marta Karillos | Filmed in CinemaScope and Eastmancolor |
| 1956 | My Teenage Daughter | Valerie Carr | |
| 1957 | The Man Who Wouldn't Talk | Mary Randall, Q.C. | |
| No Time for Tears | Matron Eleanor Hammond | Directed by Cyril Frankel; Filmed in Eastmancolor | |
| 1958 | The Lady Is a Square | Frances Baring |
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