Margaret Rawlings

Margaret Rawlings, Lady Barlow (5 June 1906 – 19 May 1996) was an English stage actress born in Osaka, Japan, to the Reverend George William Rawlings and his wife Lilian, née Boddington. She was educated at Oxford High School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and while still a student appeared at the Little Theatre with John Masefield's company. Her professional debut came in March 1927 with The Macdona Players, playing Jennifer in The Doctor's Dilemma at Croydon, after which she performed in several further Shaw productions with the same company, including The Philanderer, Arms and the Man, You Never Can Tell, and The Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

Rawlings made her London stage debut on 22 January 1928 as Louise in Jordan at the Strand Theatre, appearing under the Venturers company banner. Later that year she played Vivian Mason in The Seventh Guest and Moya in The Shadow at the Embassy Theatre, and in 1929–30 she toured Canada and the United States in Shaw repertory with Maurice Colbourne and Barry Jones. Her New York stage debut followed on 31 October 1931, when she appeared as Bianca Capello in The Venetian at the Masque Theatre, one of three Broadway credits documented for her between 1931 and 1939.

Throughout the 1930s Rawlings accumulated a wide range of stage roles in London and beyond. She played the title role in Oscar Wilde's Salome at the Gate Theatre in May 1931, and in 1932 appeared as Elizabeth in The Barretts of Wimpole Street in Sydney. She took the role of Mary Fitton opposite Leslie Howard as William Shakespeare in This Side Idolatry at the Lyric Theatre in October 1933, and played Ann Whitefield in Man and Superman and Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion for the Macdona Players at the Cambridge Theatre in August 1935. She returned to Pygmalion in 1939, co-starring with Basil Sydney as Higgins at the Embassy Theatre and subsequently at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Her second Broadway credit was Katherine "Kitty" O'Shea in Parnell by Elsie T. Schauffler, which ran for 99 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre beginning in November 1935. Rawlings had partly rewritten the play to allow it to be licensed for London performance, and she reprised the role at the Gate Theatre in April 1936 and at the New Theatre in November 1936. Also in October 1936 she played Charmian in Antony and Cleopatra at the New Theatre, directed by Theodore Komisarjevsky. Her third Broadway appearance came in April 1939 at the Biltmore Theatre, where she played Karen Selby in The Flashing Stream by Charles Morgan, a role she had originated at the Lyric Theatre in London the previous September.

Her stage work continued with considerable range into the 1940s and beyond. She appeared as Mrs. Dearth in Dear Brutus directed by John Gielgud at the Globe Theatre in January 1941, and as Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in April 1946. In 1947 she played Vittoria Corombona in The White Devil at the Duchess Theatre, and in 1951 she appeared as Zabrina in Tamburlaine the Great alongside Donald Wolfit in the title role, directed by Tyrone Guthrie at the Old Vic. In May 1953 she played Lysistrata in The Apple Cart at the Theatre Royal Haymarket opposite Noël Coward as King Magnus, and during the 1955–56 Old Vic season she took on Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Paulina in The Winter's Tale. She played the title role in Phedre, which she also translated, on multiple occasions, including a Theatre-in-the-Round production in November 1957 and a production at Arts Cambridge in May 1963. Later stage work included Ella Rentheim in John Gabriel Borkman at the Duchess Theatre in December 1963, Jocasta in Oedipus the King at the Nottingham Playhouse in November 1964, and a solo touring performance as Empress Eugenie beginning at the Cambridge Festival in July 1978, which subsequently played the May Fair Theatre, the Vaudeville Theatre, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, and the Dublin Festival.

Rawlings also appeared in film and television. Her film roles included a part in The Way of Lost Souls in 1929, the Countess Vereberg in Roman Holiday in 1953, Mrs. Railton in No Road Back in 1957, Madame Bullard in Hands of the Ripper in 1971, and Jekyll's Mother in Jekyll & Hyde in 1990, her final film role. On television she appeared as Marion Brown in The Plane Makers in 1964 and as Mrs. Hamley in Wives and Daughters in 1971.

Beyond her performing career, Rawlings was a co-founder of Equity and served on its Council for 30 years, being appointed Vice-President twice, in 1973–74 and again in 1975–76. She married twice: first to Gabriel Toyne, a marriage that was dissolved, and subsequently to Sir Robert Barlow, who was knighted in 1943 and predeceased her. She is recorded in successive editions of Who's Who in the Theatre under addresses in London and, from 1947 onward, at Rocketer Farm, Wendover, Buckinghamshire.