Dorothy Hyson

Dorothy Hyson, born Dorothy Wardell Heisen on December 24, 1914, in the United States, was a film and stage actress who built her career primarily in England. She died on May 23, 1996, in Britain, at the age of 81. Known professionally as Dorothy Hyson and later as Lady Quayle, she was the only child of actress Dorothy Dickson and matinée idol Carl Constantine Hyson, born Heisen. Her mother earned recognition as the Toast of Broadway and became the highest-paid actress in London following a successful run in Jerome Kern's musical Sally.

Hyson made her first screen appearance at age three, cast as her mother's daughter in a silent film directed by George Fitzmaurice at Paramount's New York studios. She relocated to England with her parents, who later divorced, and received her schooling in England and France. Under the nickname "Little Dot," she took on children's roles in West End productions, among them J.M. Barrie's Quality Street. At age 13, her performance in a theatrical adaptation of Daisy Ashford's The Young Visiters prompted actress Sybil Thorndike to tell her mother that she was destined to be a star.

Following the completion of her schooling in Paris, Hyson launched her professional theatrical career in Ivor Novello's play Flies in the Sun. She subsequently appeared in Soldiers of the King alongside Cicely Courtneidge at age 19, simultaneously pursuing film work during the day while performing on stage at night. This demanding schedule, which included filming Sing As We Go with Gracie Fields at Blackpool and appearing in Dodie Smith's Touch Wood in the West End, resulted in a nervous breakdown. She continued working in light West End comedies and achieved a significant success in a 1936 stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In 1938, she played Titania in Tyrone Guthrie's Old Vic revival of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Hyson's Broadway career brought her to New York in 1935, where she appeared in the comedy Most of the Game, connecting her American birth and London upbringing to the stage of her mother's native theatrical world. Her first marriage, to actor Robert Douglas, lasted from 1935 to 1945.

During the Second World War, Hyson appeared in several films, including You Will Remember with Robert Morley and the musical comedy Spare a Copper with George Formby. Her stage work during the war years included revue, musical comedy, and dramatic productions such as the thriller Pink String and Sealing Wax in 1943, an adaptation from Trollope titled Scandal at Barchester in 1944, and Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan in 1945, in which she played Lady Windermere. Alongside this theatrical activity, she served as a cryptographer at Bletchley Park, the secret codebreaking establishment. She was a member of a twelve-person team led by Patricia Bartley that succeeded in breaking the German diplomatic code known as Floradora. Actor and director Anthony Quayle visited her at Bletchley Park during this period, later recalling that he found her ill and exhausted from long night shifts. Quayle became her second husband in 1947.

After the war, Hyson returned to the West End and joined John Gielgud's Haymarket Company in 1945. Following her marriage to Quayle, she retired from the stage to raise their three children. She was widowed in 1989 upon Quayle's death and died the year after her mother, who passed away at the age of 102. Whether Hyson or her mother ever relinquished their United States citizenship or became British citizens remains unknown.