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Major Barbara (film)
''Major Barbara'' is a 1941 British film starring Wendy Hiller and Rex Harrison. The film was produced and directed by Gabriel Pascal and edited by David Lean. It was adapted for the screen by Marjorie Deans and Anatole de Grunwald, based on the 1905 stage play ''Major Barbara'' by George Bernard Shaw. It was both a critical and a financial success. Plot In this social satire, Barbara Undershaft (Hiller), an idealistic major in the Salvation Army, is deeply troubled by the fact that her father, Andrew Undershaft ( Robert Morley), is a wealthy weapons manufacturer. Meanwhile, Andrew is looking for an heir for his industrial empire, in particular a foundling like himself. Cast * Wendy Hiller as Major Barbara Undershaft *Rex Harrison as Adolphus Cusins * Robert Morley as Andrew Undershaft * Robert Newton as Bill Walker *Sybil Thorndike as The General * Emlyn Williams as Snobby Price * Miles Malleson as Morrison, the butler * Donald Calthrop as Peter Shirley (died during filmin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gabriel Pascal
Gabriel Pascal (born Gábor Lehel; 4 June 1894 – 6 July 1954) was a Hungarian film producer and director whose best-known films were made in the United Kingdom. Pascal was the first film producer to successfully bring the plays of George Bernard Shaw to the screen. His most successful production was ''Pygmalion (1938 film), Pygmalion'' (1938), for which Pascal received an Academy Award nomination as its producer. Later adaptations of Shaw plays included ''Major Barbara (film), Major Barbara'' (1941), ''Caesar and Cleopatra (film), Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1945) and ''Androcles and the Lion (1952 film), Androcles and the Lion'' (1952). Early life Pascal was born Gábor Lehel on 4 June 1894 in Arad, Romania, Arad, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Romania). His wife wrote in her book on Pascal's relationship with Shaw that her husband's "origin was shrouded in a mystery which, I often suspected, he enjoyed thickening with contradictory remarks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Major Barbara
''Major Barbara'' is a three-act English play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907. The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London. For many years, Barbara and her siblings have been estranged from their father, Andrew Undershaft, who now reappears as a rich and successful munitions maker. The father gives money to the Salvation Army, which offends Barbara because she considers it "tainted" wealth. The father argues that poverty is a worse problem than munitions and claims that he is doing more to help society by giving his workers jobs and a steady income than she is doing by giving people free meals in a soup kitchen. The play script displays typical Shavian techniques in the omission of apostrophes from contractions and other punctuation, the inclusion of a didactic introductory essay explaining the play's themes, and the phonetic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Jane Trimmer CBE (30 September 192116 October 2007), known professionally as Deborah Kerr (), was a Scottish actress. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first person from Scotland to be nominated for any acting Oscar. During her international film career, Kerr won a Golden Globe Award for her performance as Anna Leonowens in the musical film ''The King and I'' (1956). Her other major and best known films and performances are ''The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'' (1943), ''Black Narcissus'' (1947), ''Quo Vadis (1951 film), Quo Vadis'' (1951), ''From Here to Eternity'' (1953), ''Tea and Sympathy (film), Tea and Sympathy'' (1956), ''An Affair to Remember'' (1957), ''Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison'' (1957), ''Bonjour Tristesse (1958 film), Bonjour Tristesse'' (1958), ''Separate Tables (film), Separate Tables'' (1958), ''The Sundowners (1960 film), The Sundowners'' (1960), ''The Grass Is Greener'' (1960), ''The Innocents (1961 fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Tree
David Tree (born Ian David Parsons; 15 July 1915 – 4 November 2009) was an English stage and screen actor from a distinguished theatrical family whose career in the 1930s included roles in numerous stage presentations as well as in thirteen films produced between 1937 and 1941, among which were 1939's '' Goodbye Mr. Chips'' and two of producer Gabriel Pascal's adaptations of Shaw classics, 1938's '' Pygmalion'', in which he portrayed Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and 1941's ''Major Barbara'', in which he was Charles Lomax. Early stage experience Tree was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, the son of theatre critic Alan Parsons and actress Viola Tree, the daughter of renowned Victorian actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. The young performer's first exposure to the stage came at the age of six, when he played a bear in his mother's 1921 revival of ''The Tempest'' at the Aldwych Theatre in London and continued through his childhood years, as exemplified by his portrayal, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Hudd
Walter Hudd (20 February 1897 – 20 January 1963) was a British actor and director. Stage career Hudd made his stage debut in ''The Manxman'' in 1919, and later toured as part of the Fred Terry Company; first attracting serious attention playing Guildenstern in a 1925 modern dress ''Hamlet''. He also later directed plays at Stratford-on-Avon, including ''Richard II'', ''Twelfth Night'' (also appearing as Malvolio) and '' Doctor Faustus'' (all 1947). His West End appearances included ''The Way Things Happen'' (Ambassadors Theatre 1923), '' The Ghost Train'' (Prince of Wales Theatre 1925), ''The Grain of Mustard Seed'' (Ambassadors Theatre 1930), '' Mile Away Murder'' (Duchess Theatre 1937), ''Geneva'' (Saville Theatre 1938), '' Thunder Rock'' (St Martin's Theatre 1941), '' A Month in the Country'' (New Theatre 1949), ''The Waltz of the Toreadors'' (Criterion Theatre 1956) and '' The Potting Shed'' (Globe Theatre 1958). He made his sole Broadway appearance in the Theatre Gui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penelope Dudley-Ward
Penelope Ann Rachel, Lady Reed (born Penelope Anne Rachel Dudley Ward; 4 August 1914 – 22 January 1982), known as Penelope Dudley-Ward, was an English film actress. Biography Dudley-Ward was born in London in 1914. She was the elder of the two daughters of William Dudley Ward, the Liberal Member of Parliament for Southampton, and the leading socialite Freda Dudley Ward (). Her mother was a member of the wealthy Birkin family and is best remembered for being the long-time mistress of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, from 1918 to 1934. Film career Dudley-Ward was a leading lady who typically played strong yet feminine characters, in several British films during the 1930s and 1940s. She was a contract player at Korda's London Films and collaborator of director Anthony Asquith. Her notable roles include as Natasha Kovrin opposite Laurence Olivier in Asquith's ''Moscow Nights'' (1935), as Maureen Fenwick in Noël Coward's ''In Which We Serve'' (1942), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Ault
Marie Ault (2 September 1870 – 9 May 1951) was a British character actress of stage and film. Biography Born Emily Cragg, in Wigan, Lancashire, the daughter of Jane Ann (née Ault) and Thomas Cragg, a plumber by trade. She made her first stage appearance in ''Babes in the Wood'' at Lincoln in 1891, touring the provinces for many years in various different productions. She made her debut on the London stage in 1906. Her later theatre work included the original production of '' Love on the Dole'' in 1935, as well as the 1941 film version. She married James Alexander Paterson in Dudley, Staffordshire in 1893. Ault was a star in many British films of the silent era but is most remembered for her role as Daisy Bunting's mother in '' The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog'' (1927) directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She also played small but significant roles in three Ivor Norvello movies. The Rat, The Triumph Of The Rat and The Return Of The Rat released from 1925 to 1929. Ault played ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Holloway
Stanley Augustus Holloway (1 October 1890 – 30 January 1982) was an English actor, comedian, singer and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles Stanley Holloway on stage and screen, on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in ''My Fair Lady''. He was also renowned for his Songs and monologues of Stanley Holloway, comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career. Born in London, Holloway pursued a career as a clerk in his teen years. He made early stage appearances before infantry service in the First World War, after which he had his first major theatre success starring in ''Kissing Time'' when the musical transferred to the West End theatre, West End from Broadway theatre, Broadway. In 1921, he joined a Concert party (entertainment), concert party, ''The Co-Optimists'', and his career began to flourish. At first, he was employed chiefly as a singer, but his skills as an actor and re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Lohr
Marie Kate Wouldes Lohr (28 July 1890 – 21 January 1975) was an Australian-born actress, active on stage and in film in Britain. During a career of more than 60 years she created roles in plays by, among others, Bernard Shaw, J. M. Barrie, Frederick Lonsdale, Somerset Maugham, William Douglas-Home and Noël Coward. She appeared mainly in the West End, but toured the British provinces at intervals throughout her career, appeared in Broadway productions and toured Canada. Biography Marie Löhr was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to Lewis J. Löhr, treasurer of the Melbourne opera house, and his wife, the English actress Kate Bishop (1848–1923).Herbert, pp. 1097–1100 Her maternal uncle Alfred Bishop and her godparents, William and Madge Kendal, were also actors. She moved with her mother to England in 1898 and began to act as a child. Lohr married Anthony Leyland Prinsep, a theatrical producer, at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in 1912. They divorced in 1928. On the death of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Calthrop
Donald Esme Clayton Calthrop (11 April 1888 – 15 July 1940) was an English stage and film actor. Born in London, Calthrop was educated at St Paul's School and made his first stage appearance at eighteen years of age at the Comedy Theatre, London. His first film was '' The Gay Lord Quex'' released in 1917. He starred as the title character in the successful musical '' The Boy'' in the same year. He then appeared in more than 60 films between 1916 and 1940, including five films directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He died in Eton, Berkshire from a heart attack while he was filming ''Major Barbara'' (1941). According to Ronald Neame in his autobiography, some shots in the final film had a stand-in playing Calthrop's role (from the back) and a piece of dialogue was recorded using an unnamed person who impersonated Calthrop's voice. He was the nephew of dramatist Dion Boucicault. Selected filmography * ''Altar Chains'' (1916) * '' Masks and Faces'' (1917) - Lovell * '' The Gay L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles Malleson
William Miles Malleson (25 May 1888 – 15 March 1969) was an English actor and dramatist, particularly remembered for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career, he also appeared in cameo roles in several Hammer horror films, with a fairly large role in '' The Brides of Dracula'' as the hypochondriac and fee-hungry local doctor. Malleson was also a writer on many films, including some of those in which he had small parts, such as ''Nell Gwyn'' (1934) and '' The Thief of Bagdad'' (1940). He also translated and adapted several of Molière's plays (''The Misanthrope'', which he titled ''The Slave of Truth'', '' Tartuffe'' and ''The Imaginary Invalid''). Biography Malleson was born in Avondale Road, South Croydon, Surrey, England, the son of Edmund Taylor Malleson (1859-1909), a manufacturing chemist, and Myrrha Bithynia Frances Borrell (1863-1931), a descendant of the numismatist Henry Perigal Borrell and the inventor Francis Mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emlyn Williams
George Emlyn Williams, CBE (26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987) was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor. Early life Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flintshire. He was the eldest of the three surviving sons of Mary (née Williams) a former maid-servant and Richard Williams, a greengrocer. He spoke only Welsh until the age of eight. Later, he said he would probably have begun working in the mines at age 12 if he had not caught the attention of Sarah Grace Cooke, the model for Miss Moffat in '' The Corn Is Green''. She was a teacher of French at the grammar school in Holywell, Flintshire in 1915, where Williams had gone on a scholarship. Over the next seven years she encouraged him in his studies and helped pay for him to stay with a French friend of hers in Haute-Savoie in France, where he spent three months perfecting his French. When he was 17 she helped him win a scholarship to Christ Church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
