Years active 1938-1976 | Name Margaret Leighton Role Actress | |
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Books Journey for a Princess Movies The Go‑Between, Under Capricorn, 7 Women, The Elusive Pimpernel, Lady Caroline Lamb Similar People Michael Wilding, Laurence Harvey, Ralph Richardson, Joseph Losey, Anthony Asquith | ||
Cause of death Multiple sclerosis | ||
Margaret leighton actress
Margaret Leighton, CBE (26 February 1922 – 13 January 1976) was an English actress, known for her exquisite sense of grandeur and refinement. Her film appearances included Under Capricorn (1949), Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951), Carrington V.C. (1955) and The Best Man (1964). For The Go-Between (1971), she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
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Leighton began her career on stage in 1938, before joining the Old Vic and making her Broadway debut in 1946. A four-time Tony Award nominee, she twice won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play; for the original Broadway productions of Separate Tables (1957) and The Night of the Iguana (1962). She also won an Emmy Award for a 1970 television version of Hamlet.
Margaret Leighton
Life and career
Born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Leighton made her stage debut as Dorothy in Laugh With Me (1938), which was also performed that year for BBC Television. She became a star of the Old Vic. Her Broadway debut was as the Queen in Henry IV (1946) starring Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson during a visit to America of the Old Vic company, which performed a total of five plays from its repertoire before returning to London.
After appearing in two British films, including the starring role of Flora MacDonald opposite David Niven in Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) and in the popular The Winslow Boy (also 1948), the tall willowy actress played second female lead in Alfred Hitchcock's Under Capricorn (1949) starring Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Michael Wilding. She starred with Walter Pidgeon in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer crime/mystery Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951).
Leighton won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Separate Tables (1956); she won another Tony in that category for The Night of the Iguana (1962), playing the luminous Hannah Jelkes (a role played by Deborah Kerr on film) opposite Bette Davis's Maxine Faulk. Leighton was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for Much Ado About Nothing (1959) opposite John Gielgud and for Tchin-Tchin (1962) opposite Anthony Quinn. She portrayed the wife of an American presidential candidate (Henry Fonda) in the 1964 film The Best Man, written by Gore Vidal.
She had a noteworthy list of TV appearances, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ben Casey and Burke's Law. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama for Hamlet (1970) and she was nominated for an Emmy in 1966 for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for four episodes of Dr. Kildare. Her last appearance on Broadway was as Birdie Hubbard in a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1967) starring Anne Bancroft as Regina Giddens.
For her film role as Mrs. Maudsley in The Go-Between (1970) Leighton won the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her role as Valerie Carrington in Carrington V.C. (1955). She received a Hollywood Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Go-Between.
Personal life
Leighton had three husbands: publisher Max Reinhardt (1947–55); actor Laurence Harvey (1957–61); and actor Michael Wilding (1964–76), her death). She had no children. She was awarded the CBE in 1974. Leighton died of multiple sclerosis in 1976, aged 53, in Chichester, Sussex.