Wendy Hiller Dies

Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 13:38:55 -0400 (EDT)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre.musicals
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Kenneth Jones: Wendy Hiller, the British actress who brought Bernard
Shaw's Eliza Doolittle and Barbara Undershaft to life in film versions
of Pygmalion and Major Barbara during Shaw's lifetime, died May 14 at
the age of 90. She won the Academy Award in 1958 for playing Miss Cooper
in "Separate Tables." In 1957, she was Tony Award-nominated on Broadway
for her work as blowsy Josie Hogan in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the
Misbegotten. Her films include "Toys in the Attic" (1964), "Sons and
Lovers" (1960), "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), and "The Elephant
Man" (1980) among others. Gabriel Pascal directed her in the film "Major
Barbara" in 1941 and she had a fine screenwriter for 1938's
Pascal-produced "Pygmalion" =97 Shaw himself got the credit. The movie's
ending differs from the play, and would later be borrowed for My Fair
Lady. An obituary of Ms. Hiller in The Times of London points out that
"she had an inimitable voice, something between a quaver and a slight
stammer," and she was not a conventional beauty. She studied acting at
the Manchester Repertory Theatre. Her London debut was as Sally
Hardcastle in Love on the Dole, in 1935, and she played the part on
Broadway in 1936. According to The Times of London, Love on the Dole was
seen by Shaw who was so impressed he asked Hiller to play Saint Joan and
Eliza Doolittle at the Malvern Festival in 1936. Shaw also championed
her for casting in the two Gabriel Pascal-produced Shaw films.
On Broadway, she played Catherine Sloper in The Heiress in 1947 and
succeeded Peggy Ashcroft in the later London run of the same play.
Producer and director Jed Harris pursued Ms. Miller for the role of the
unloved American daughter of a stern doctor and did not relent until she
agreed to play it. The play would be her greatest Broadway success.
In 1937, she married playwright Ronald Gow, who adapted and wrote plays
for her (Tess of the D'Urbervilles, from the Hardy novel, among others).
He died in 1993 and two children survive them.
As late as the 1980s, she appeared on stage in Gow's last play, The Old
Jest (1980) and as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest
(1981 at Watford and 1987 at the Royalty). She played Miss Daisy in
Driving Miss Daisy at the Apollo in London in 1988. She was appointed
OBE in 1971 and DBE in 1975.