Tuesday, 9 February 2021

Heather Grace Angel ,a British actress Born 9 February 1909 – 13 December 1986

 

Heather Grace Angel ,a British 

actress Born 9 February 1909 –

 13 December 1986




Heather Grace Angel (9 February 1909 – 13 December 1986) was a British actress.

Early years

Angel was born 9 February 1909 in Headington, Oxford, England.[1][2] She was the daughter of Mary Letitia Stock and Andrea Angel, an Oxford University chemistry lecturer and initially a don at Brasenose College and later at Christ Church. They were married in 1904 and, after the wedding, they moved to the Banbury Road.[3] Andrea Angel's maternal grandfather was an Italian refugee and he was named after his uncle Andrea Rabagliati.


In the 1911 UK Census, the family is shown as living at 17 Banbury Road, Oxford along with three servants. She was the younger of two sisters.


Andrea Angel was killed in the Silvertown explosion in January 1917, and posthumously awarded the Edward Medal (First Class).[4] In his will, he left his wife £374[5] and shortly thereafter, his wife moved to London with the two daughters.[6] By 1929, when Heather was 19, she was already appearing with an overseas touring theatre company managed by Charles Bradbury-Ingles.[7] The same record shows that she was living at 20 Queen Anne's Grove, London W4, when she left.



Stage

Angel began her stage career at the Old Vic in 1926 and later appeared with touring companies. Her Broadway debut came in December 1937, in Love of Women at the Golden Theatre.[8] She also appeared in The Wookey (1941–42).[9]


Film


L-R: Walter Slezak, John Hodiak, Tallulah Bankhead, Henry Hull, William Bendix, Heather Angel, Mary Anderson, Canada Lee, and Hume Cronyn in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944)

Angel appeared in many British films. She made her first screen appearance in City of Song. She later had a leading role in Night in Montmartre (1931), and followed this success with The Hound of the Baskervilles (1932). She then decided to move to Hollywood. She sailed on the Majestic to New York on 21 December 1932 with her mother.[7] Over the next few years, she played strong roles in such films as The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935), The Three Musketeers (1935), The Informer (1935) and The Last of the Mohicans (1936).





In 1937 she made the first of five appearances as Phyllis Clavering in the popular Bulldog Drummond series.[10] She was cast as Kitty Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (1940) and as the maid, Ethel, in Suspicion (1941). Angel was also the leading lady in the first screen version of Raymond Chandler's The High Window, released in 1942 as Time to Kill. She was one of the passengers of Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944).[10] Her film appearances in the following years were few, but she returned to Hollywood to provide voices for the Walt Disney animated films Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953). From 1964 until 1965, she played a continuing role in the television soap opera Peyton Place.[10] After that role, she played Miss Faversham, a nanny and female friend of Sebastian Cabot's character of Giles French in the situation comedy Family Affair.[citation needed]


Personal life


Angel married actor Ralph Forbes in Arizona in 1934, a union that lasted less than ten years. Angel had acted with Henry Wilcoxon in Self Made Lady (1932) when they were both in Britain. When she heard Wilcoxon was also in Hollywood, she contacted him. She invited him to polo matches at the home of Will Rogers and later taught him horseback riding. They acted together in two other films: The Last of the Mohicans (1936) and Lady Hamilton (1941). Though they remained lifelong friends, they never married. Heather and her husband were both present at the wedding of Wilcoxon to his first wife. They had intended to host the wedding at their house in Coldwater Canyon.[11]


Angel married Robert B. Sinclair (1905–1970), a film and television director, in 1944. On 4 January 1970, an intruder, Billy McCoy Hunter, broke into their home. When Sinclair attempted to protect Angel, Hunter killed him in her presence, then fled. He was allegedly found with a knife and pistol when arrested.[12] The incident is believed to have been a failed burglary. Angel had one son with Sinclair in 1947.


Recognition

Angel has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the film industry. Her star is located at 6301 Hollywood Boulevard.[13]


Death

Angel died from cancer in Santa Barbara, California,[14] and was buried in Santa Barbara Cemetery.[15]

Benjamin Kober·Heather Grace Angel was born in Oxford, England, on February 9, 1909. She dabbled on the stage for a time before coming to California to try her luck on the screen. Heather was 20 years old when she landed a bit part for the 1929 film, Bulldog Drummond (1929). Although she didn't know it at the time, she would become a staple of that particular series eight years hence. That movie would be her only foray onto celluloid for two years. When Heather did return, she did so in 1931's Night in Montmartre (1931). Not only did she land a part, but it was the leading role in the picture, starring as Annette Lefevre. Later that year, she again landed the leading role in the acclaimed The Hound of the Baskervilles (1931). Throughout the 1930s, Heather's services were in high demand. She kept very busy in such productions as Men of Steel (1932), Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933), Orient Express (1934), and Daniel Boone (1936). In 1937, she began playing Phyllis Clavering in the serial about Bulldog Drummond. Audiences delighted in catching the latest adventures of Drummond. After the last Drummond film, Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938) in 1939, Heather went on her way in other films. Although she didn't have the leading role, she did appear in top movies such as 1940's Kitty Foyle (1940) and Pride and Prejudice (1940) and in 1943's Cry 'Havoc' (1943). After Lifeboat (1944) in 1944, Heather wasn't seen again on the silver screen until The Saxon Charm (1948) in 1948. As with other actresses, Heather's time had come and gone. Her last appearance anywhere was in 1979's television mini-series, Backstairs at the White House (1979) when she played President 'Harry Truman''s mother-in-law. On December 13, 1986, Heather died in Santa Barbara, California, of cancer. She was 77 years old.

 

Filmography[edit]

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