Joan Hickson

Joan Hickson, born Joan Bogle Butler on 5 August 1906 in Kingsthorpe, Northampton, was an English actress whose career spanned theatre, film, and television across seven decades. The daughter of Edith Mary Hickson and Alfred Harold Hickson, a shoe manufacturer, she attended Oldfield School in Swanage, Dorset, before training at RADA in London. She made her professional stage debut in 1927 and spent several years performing throughout the United Kingdom, building a reputation in comedic and often eccentric roles in the West End. Among her early stage work was the role of the cockney maid Ida in the original production of See How They Run, first at the Q Theatre in 1944 and subsequently at the Comedy Theatre in January 1945. Her first film appearance came in 1934, and she went on to accumulate numerous supporting roles over the following decades, including parts in several Carry On films — Sister in Carry On Nurse and Mrs May in Carry On Constable among them.

During the 1940s, Hickson appeared in Agatha Christie's stage play Appointment with Death, an experience that proved consequential. Christie wrote to her directly, expressing an intention to cast her as Miss Marple in a future production. Years later, in 1961, Hickson played the housekeeper in the film Murder, She Said, based on Christie's novel 4.50 From Paddington and starring Margaret Rutherford in the title role. Her television work during the 1960s and early 1970s included the role of Mrs Peace, housekeeper to the Reverend Stephen Young played by Donald Sinden, in the series Our Man at St Mark's from 1963 to 1966, followed by Mrs Pugsley in Bachelor Father from 1970 to 1971, and Mrs Chambers in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?

Hickson's Broadway career ran from 1968 to 1979 and included appearances in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce. Her performance in Bedroom Farce earned her the 1979 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. The same role had previously brought her a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Comedy Performance in 1977. Her stage work also encompassed Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit and the 1975 musical The Card, adapted by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent from Arnold Bennett's novel.

Christie's prophecy was ultimately fulfilled when the BBC undertook a faithful adaptation of her Miss Marple stories in the mid-1980s. Hickson played Miss Marple across all 12 productions, filmed between 1984 and 1992, beginning with The Body in the Library and concluding with The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. She received two BAFTA nominations for Best TV Actress, in 1987 and 1988, for her work in the series. In June 1987 she was awarded the OBE, and Queen Elizabeth II was reported to have remarked that Hickson played the part just as one envisages it. Hickson also narrated a number of Miss Marple stories for audiobook release. In 1986, separate from the Christie adaptations, she appeared in the film Clockwise as Mrs Trellis and in an episode of the drama series ScreenPlay. Her stage work continued into 1980, when she took the role of Mrs Rivington in Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, another Christie adaptation.

On 29 October 1932, Hickson married Dr Eric Norman Butler, a physician born in Westbury, Wiltshire, at Hampstead Parish Church in north-west London. They had two children. Her husband died in Colchester, Essex, in June 1967. From 1958, Hickson lived at 2 Rose Lane in Wivenhoe, Essex, a house now marked with a commemorative plaque, for the remaining forty years of her life. She died of a stroke at Colchester General Hospital on 17 October 1998, aged 92, and was interred at Sidbury Cemetery in Devon.