Dorice Fordred

Dorice Fordred (25 November 1902 – 4 August 1980) was a South African actress who built her reputation primarily on the London stage, where she was recognized for character roles and Shakespearean work. Born and raised near Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, she traveled to England to pursue theatrical training. In a 1931 interview with an American journalist, she attributed a sensitivity to elemental rhythms to her upbringing on the veldt. That same year, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described her as a rare example of a young and attractive character actress.

Fordred made her London stage debut in 1923 and remained active in the city's theatrical world through the following two decades. Her early credits included multiple productions in 1923 and 1924 alone: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Troilus and Cressida, The School for Scandal, Faust, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Othello, the last of which she also revisited in 1935. Her Shakespearean work continued with Hamlet, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night in 1925, Love's Labour Lost in 1930, A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1924, and King Lear in 1936. Among her other notable London productions were Murder on the Second Floor, which ran from 1929 into 1930; Cynara, which ran from 1930 into 1931; Musical Chairs and Half-Holiday in 1932; A Sleeping Clergyman in 1933; Viceroy Sarah in 1934; and We At the Crossroads in 1939.

Alongside her stage work, Fordred appeared in a number of films. Her earliest screen credits were two short films from 1928, Blue Bottles and Daydreams, both based on stories by H. G. Wells and both starring Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton, though neither film survives. Her later film appearances included The Silent Passenger (1935), the Laurence Olivier-starring As You Like It (1936), Knight Without Armour (1937) with Marlene Dietrich, The Nursemaid Who Disappeared (1939), Stolen Life (1939), John Smith Wakes Up (1940), and The Skin Game (1951).

Fordred's single Broadway credit came in 1931 with Payment Deferred, a production that again placed her alongside Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton. She died in London on 4 August 1980 at the age of 77.