Nora Swinburne

Nora Swinburne, born Leonora Mary Johnson on 24 July 1902 in Bath, Somerset, was an English actress whose career spanned stage and screen across more than six decades. The daughter of Henry Swinburne Johnson and his wife Leonora Tamar, née Brain, she was educated at Rosholme College in Weston-super-Mare before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She died on 1 May 2000.

Swinburne's earliest professional engagements came in 1914, when she performed with Clive Currie's Young Players at the Grand, Croydon, Court, and Little Theatres. That same year she auditioned for the ballerina Phyllis Bedells and subsequently for Anna Pavlova, who judged her too young for the corps de ballet. She then enrolled at the Italia Conti school, where she secured her first substantial child role in Where the Rainbow Ends, performing the production in London and throughout Britain for eighteen shillings a week. By the end of 1915 she had gained a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and while still a student she appeared at the New Theatre on 11 April 1916 as the Wild Flowers in Paddly Pools. Later that year she danced in the revue This and That at the Comedy Theatre in September, and in October appeared in Samples at the Globe Theatre. In March 1917 she returned to the Globe as Gabrielle in Suzette. Further early roles included Lulu in Yes, Uncle! at the Prince of Wales Theatre in December 1917 and Regina Waterhouse at the Strand Theatre in December 1918.

In 1919 Swinburne played the title role in Tilly of Bloomsbury at the Apollo Theatre for approximately six weeks. She followed that with the role of Roselle in The Betrothal at the Gaiety in January 1921. Her London stage work continued with Miss Dale Ogden in The Bat at the St James's Theatre in January 1922, before she made her first appearances in New York.

Her Broadway career ran from 1923 to 1930. She made her New York debut as Evadne in The Mountebank at the Lyceum Theatre in May 1923, and returned that September to play Sheila in Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary at the Belasco Theatre. Her final Broadway credit came in April 1930, when she appeared as Yolande Probyn in Lady Clara at the Booth Theatre.

Between and after her Broadway engagements, Swinburne maintained an active presence on the London stage. Selected credits from this period include Lorna Webster in In the Next Room at the St Martin's Theatre in June 1924, Joan Lee Tevis in Tarnish at the Vaudeville Theatre in March 1925, and Marion Lennox in The Best People at the Lyric Theatre in March 1926. In January 1928 she played Lady Blair in Regatta and Ann in Outward Bound by Sutton Vane at the Prince of Wales Theatre, and the following month appeared as Susan Cunningham in The Fourth Wall at the Haymarket. She played Sonia in Fame at the St James's Theatre in February 1929, a production that ran for 108 performances, and Sylvia Armitage in Murder on the Second Floor at the Lyric Theatre in June 1929.

Her stage work continued steadily through the 1930s and 1940s. In February 1937 she appeared as Tony Campion in Wise Tomorrow at the Lyric Theatre, a production in which she first co-starred with Esmond Knight, who would become her husband. She took on the role of Dinah Lot in Lot's Wife in April 1938 at the Duke of York's Theatre, subsequently managing the production herself at the Whitehall Theatre before it transferred to the Aldwych and Savoy Theatres. During the war years she succeeded Valerie Taylor as Natalia Petrovna in A Month in the Country at the St James's Theatre in August 1943, and succeeded Diana Wynyard as Sara Muller in Watch on the Rhine at the Aldwych Theatre in October 1943. She appeared as Diana Wentworth in The Years Between at Wyndham's Theatre beginning in January 1945, a run she noted lasted over a year.

Later stage credits included Mrs. Arbuthnot in A Woman of No Importance at the Savoy Theatre in February 1953, and roles with the 69 Theatre Company in Manchester, where she played Violet in The Family Reunion in October 1973 and Julia Shuttlethwaite in The Cocktail Party in September 1975. In addition to her extensive theatre work, Swinburne appeared in numerous British films and on television, including the BBC's The Forsyte Saga in 1967 as Aunt Hester Forsyte and Fall of Eagles in 1974 as Katharina Schratt.