Hiller, Wendy (1912—)

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Hiller, Wendy (1912—)

British actress, acclaimed for her portrayal of Mary of Teck in Crown Matrimonial. Name variations: Dame Wendy Hiller. Born Wendy Margaret Hiller on August 15, 1912, in Bramhall, Cheshire, England; only daughter and one of four children of Frank Watkin Hiller (a mill director) and Elizabeth (Stone) Hiller; graduated from the Winceby House School, Bexhill, England; studied acting at Manchester (England) Repertory Theater; married Ronald Gow (a playwright), on February 25, 1937; children: one son; one daughter.

Selected theater:

made her debut as the Maid in The Ware Case (Manchester Repertory Theater, September 1930); London debut as Sally Hardcastle in Love on the Dole (Garrick Theater, January 30,1935); New York debut in same role (Shubert Theater, February 24, 1936); title role in Saint Joan and Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (Malvern [England] Theater Festival, July 1936); toured as Viola in Twelfth Night ; Sister Joanna in The Cradle Song (Apollo Theater, January 1944); Princess Charlotte in The First Gentleman (New Theater, July 1945); Tess in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Portia in The Merchant of Venice (Bristol Old Vic Co., 1946); Tess in London production of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (New Theater, November 1946); Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (Biltmore Theater, New York, September 1947); title role in Ann Veronica (Piccadilly Theater, London, May 1949); succeeded Peggy Ashcroft as Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (Haymarket Theater, January 1950); Margaret Tollemache in The Night of the Ball (New Theater, January 1955); Portia in Julius Caesar, Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hermione in The Winter's Tale, Emilia in Othello, and Helen in Troilus and Cressida (Old Vic Company, Old Vic Theater, London, 1955–56); Josie Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten (Bijou Theater, New York, May 1957); succeeded Celia Johnson as Isobel Cherry in Flowering Cherry (Haymarket Theater, London, June 1958); Marie Marescaud in All in the Family (Gaiety Theater, Dublin, Ireland, June 1959); Carrie Berniers in Toys in the Attic (Piccadilly Theater, November 1960); Tina in The Aspern Papers (Playhouse theater, New York, February 1962); Susan Shepherd in The Wings of the Dove (Lyric Theater, London, December 1963); Queen Mary in Crown Matrimonial (Haymarket, October 1972); Tina in revival of The Aspern Papers (Theater Royal, London, 1984).

Filmography:

Lancashire Luck (1937); Pygmalion (1938); Major Barbara (1941); I Know Where I'm Going (1945); An Outcast of the Islands (1951); Single-handed (Sailor of the King, 1951); Something of Value (1957); How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1957); Separate Tables (1958); Sons and Lovers (1960); Toys in the Attic (1963); A Man for All Seasons (1966); David Copperfield (1970); Murder on the Orient Express (1974); Voyage of the Damned (1976); The Cat and the Canary (1978); The Elephant Man (1980); Making Love (1982); The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987).

Setting her sights on an acting career as a child, Wendy Hiller was encouraged by her mother, who was so enamored of the theater that she named all her children after characters in the plays of Sir James Barrie—René, Michael, John, and, of course, Wendy. Upon finishing her formal education, Hiller joined the Manchester Repertory Company, where she worked her way up from non-salaried apprentice to actor-manager. "For marvelous experience in the theater there's nothing to beat a repertory company," she later said. The company let her go in 1932, telling her she was an inadequate actress, but they called her back shortly thereafter to play Sally Hardcastle in Ronald Gow's adaptation of the novel Love on the Dole, because she was the only one they knew who could do a convincing Lancashire accent. In June 1935, after a successful tour, Hiller made her London debut in the

role and was an instant success. She so impressed George Bernard Shaw that he asked her to play Joan of Arc in his Saint Joan and Eliza Doolittle in his Pygmalion at the Malvern Festival in 1936. The following year turned out to be a banner one for the actress, who married playwright Gow in February and also launched her film career in Lancashire Luck, repeating her role in the movie version of Love on the Dole. Her second Hollywood effort, the film version of Pygmalion (1938) with Leslie Howard, won her an Academy Award. Although her subsequent movie career was sporadic, Hiller captured another Academy Award in 1958 for her delicate portrayal of the lonely Miss Cooper in Separate Tables.

Hiller remains best known for her stage performances, which include appearances in several additional plays by her husband, notably Tess in his adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1946), and the title role in his adaptation of the H.G. Wells' novel Ann Veronica (1949). Harold Hobson praised Hiller's Tess as the perfect embodiment of the character. "With rosy cheeks that any intelligent apple would envy," he wrote, "Miss Hiller is physically well suited to Hardy's opulently earthy heroine: temperamentally too: she causes Tess' love for Angel to seem a blessing and benediction, and confounds morality by making murder only a very little thing." Of her portrayal of the title role in Ann Veronica, Hobson wrote: "Wendy Hiller reveals Ann's essential tenderness; you can see the femininity beneath the feminism."

Hiller was also memorable as the downtrodden heroine of The Heiress (1947), based on the Henry James novel Washington Square, and as Josie Hogan in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (1937). Of her later roles, the finest was her portrait of Queen Mary of Teck in Royce Ryton's Crown Matrimonial (1972), the story of the abdication of Edward VIII. Even critic W. Stephen Gilbert of Plays and Players, never a fan of the actress, had nothing but praise. "Wendy Hiller, whom I've found resistible in the past, won me with her firm characterization and her skill with a deadly line—'I've been so lucky with my daughter-in-law … so far.' When she entered in her toque as an older Mary, we all gasped. She was the woman who waved to me outside Sandringham when I was five."

In 1975, Hiller was made a Dame of the British Empire and also starred as Gunhild Borkman in Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman, a role she repeated in March 1976, with Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft. In 1974, Hiller appeared in a revival of Waters of the Moon and, in 1984, recreated the role of Tina in The Aspern Papers.

Throughout her career, Hiller, the mother of two, carefully juggled home and career, admitting that it was difficult to consistently make a success of both. She also remained a quiet, unassuming presence, who quite successfully guarded her private life.