Wynyard, Diana (1906–1964)

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Wynyard, Diana (1906–1964)

English actress . Born Dorothy Isobel Cox on January 16, 1906, in London, England; died of a kidney ailment on May 13, 1964, in London; daughter of Edward Cox and Margaret Cox; attended Woodford

School, Croydon; married Sir Charles Reed, in 1943 (divorced 1947); married Tibor Csato (divorced).

Selected theater:

The Grand Duchess (1925); Sorry You've Been Troubled (1929); The Old Bachelor (1930); The Devil Passes (1932); Wild Decembers (1933); Sweet Aloes (1934); Pygmalian (1937); Design for Living (1939); No Time for Comedy (1941); Watch on the Rhine (1942); Marching Song (1954); The Bad Seed (1955); Toys in the Attic (1960); Camino Real (1957).

Selected filmography:

Rasputin and the Empress (Rasputin the Mad Monk, 1933); Cavalcade (1933); Men Must Fight (1933); Reunion in Vienna (1933); Where Sinners Meet (The Dover Road, 1934); Hollywood on Parade No. 13 (1934): One More River (Over the River, 1934): Let's Try Again (Marriage Symphony, 1934); On the Night of the Fire (The Fugitive, 1939); Angel Street (1941); Freedom Radio (A Voice in the Night, 1941); The Prime Minister, Kipps (The Remarkable Mr. Kipps, 1941); An Ideal Husband (1947); Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951); The Feminine Touch (The Gentle Touch, 1956); Island in the Sun (1957); "The Second Man" (television, 1959).

Born Dorothy Isobel Cox in London in 1906, Diana Wynyard attended Woodford School in Croydon, where she and Peggy Ashcroft acted in Shakespearean plays and studied the art of public speaking. Making her London debut in 1925, she worked with William Armstrong's Liverpool Repertory Company from 1927 to 1930, laying the foundations of her career. Wynyard then appeared at the St. Martin's Theater in London in Sorry You've Been Troubled. After a successful Broadway appearance opposite Basil Rathbone in The Devil Passes in 1932, Wynyard was signed to a supporting role with John, Lionel, and Ethel Barrymore in Rasputin and the Empress—the only film in which the three Barrymores performed together. Although she made only seven films in America, Wynyard garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in Noel Coward's Oscar-winning Cavalcade in 1933. Hollywood honored her in a ceremony on January 26, 1933, by adding her imprint in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Wynyard resumed her career on the British stage when no other substantial roles were presented in Hollywood. She continued to appear in British films that generally lacked box-office appeal but were hallmarked by quality, especially Reunion in Vienna in 1933 in which she teamed once more with John Barrymore, and the role of the wife being driven mad by a psychotic husband in Angel Street in 1940, which some critics believe to be superior to the 1944 Hollywood remake titled Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman . Wynyard wed film director Charles Reed in 1942, but that marriage ended as did her later marriage to Tibor Csato. Although she continued to appear in films, she devoted most of her career to the stage. After World War II, Wynyard spent two years with the Stratford Memorial Theater at Stratford upon Avon, where she successfully performed numerous leading roles, including Desdemona, Beatrice, and Queen Catherine. She then toured Australia with the Memorial Theater Company in 1949 and 1950.

Throughout her career she was known for her bold choices of plays, especially those by dramatists Dennis Cannan, John Whiting, André Roussin, Tennessee Williams, and Lillian Hellman . According to an obituary in the London Times, "She was a restraining influence in the theater, an enemy of emotional self-indulgence whether on stage or in the auditorium." Wynyard was honored for her service to the British stage by being named a Companion of the Order of the British Empire in 1953. She died of a kidney ailment in London on May 13, 1964.