Moyna MacGill

Moyna MacGill, born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie on 10 December 1895 at 42 Eglantine Avenue in south Belfast, was a British and Irish actress whose career spanned stage, film, and television across several decades. She died on 25 November 1975 in Los Angeles of esophageal cancer at the age of 79. In 2020, The Irish Times ranked her 35th on its list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Her father, William McIldowie, was a wealthy solicitor of Scottish parentage who served as a director of the Grand Opera House in Belfast, an association that cultivated MacGill's early interest in the theatre. As a teenager, she was spotted on the London Underground by director and producer George Pearson, who subsequently cast her in several of his films. Her stage debut came in 1918 with the play Love is a Cottage at the Globe Theatre in London's West End. It was Gerald du Maurier who encouraged her to adopt the stage name Moyna Macgill, a name that was frequently misspelled as MacGill, McGill, or, in the case of the film Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven, as Magill. She went on to establish herself as a leading actress of her era, performing in light comedies, melodramas, and classical productions alongside Herbert Marshall, John Gielgud, and Basil Rathbone.

MacGill's Broadway career included an appearance in the 1954 musical The Boy Friend. Her stage work in the United States had a complicated beginning, however. After relocating her family from England to New York City just before the Blitz, she initially lacked a work visa and was unable to perform professionally, instead giving dramatic readings at private schools to support herself. In 1942, she joined a touring troupe rehearsing Noël Coward's Tonight at 8.30, a production organized to raise funds for the Royal Canadian Air Force. When that run concluded in Vancouver, she traveled to Hollywood to pursue further work.

Her Hollywood career consisted primarily of character roles in film and television. Among her more prominent film credits are Frenchman's Creek and The Picture of Dorian Gray, the latter of which also featured her daughter Angela. In her later years she made guest appearances on television series including Studio One, The Twilight Zone, Dr. Kildare, Mister Ed, and My Favorite Martian.

MacGill's personal life was marked by significant change. She had been married to actor Reginald Denham and had a daughter, Isolde, who later married Sir Peter Ustinov, when she became romantically involved with Edgar Lansbury, a socialist politician and son of Labour MP and Leader of the Opposition George Lansbury. Denham named Edgar Lansbury as co-respondent in his divorce filing, and MacGill and Lansbury married once the divorce was finalized. The couple settled with Isolde in a garden flat in London's Regent's Park. Following the births of daughter Angela and twin sons Edgar Jr. and Bruce, MacGill stepped back from her career for a period, though music and dance remained central to the household. When the family moved to a larger home in suburban Mill Hill, she transformed it into a gathering place for actors, writers, directors, musicians, and artists, an environment that shaped Angela's path toward acting. Edgar Lansbury died of stomach cancer in 1935, a year after publishing a biography of his father George. MacGill subsequently became involved with Leckie Forbes, a former British Army colonel, but his rigid, disciplinarian manner over the household eventually led her to end the relationship entirely when she departed for the United States.

MacGill was the mother of three children who achieved prominence in the entertainment industry. Her daughter Angela Lansbury became a celebrated stage and film actress, known for the long-running television series Murder, She Wrote. Her twin sons Edgar Jr. and Bruce both became Broadway producers, with Bruce additionally recognized for his television work on series including The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, and Murder, She Wrote.