Phyllis Neilson-Terry

Phyllis Neilson-Terry (15 October 1892 – 25 September 1977) was an English actress born in London into the third generation of the Terry theatrical dynasty. Her parents were the actors Julia Neilson and Fred Terry, and her younger brother Dennis also pursued a stage career. She received her early education at Westgate-on-Sea and in Paris before studying singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Her first stage appearance came in 1909, when she joined her parents' touring company in Blackpool, playing Marie de Belleforêt in Henry of Navarre under the pseudonym Phillida Terson. The attempt to conceal her famous lineage proved ineffective, and she abandoned the stage name the following year. Her London debut came in January 1910 at the New Theatre in the same role, and within weeks she was stepping in for her ailing mother to take on the leading part of Marguerite de Valois. That April, she played Viola in Twelfth Night at His Majesty's Theatre in a production led by Sir Herbert Tree, who cast her father as Sebastian. Tree publicly predicted she would bring further distinction to the Terry name.

Between 1910 and 1914, Neilson-Terry built a substantial classical repertoire, taking on Rosalind in As You Like It in 1911, and Juliet, Desdemona, and Portia all in 1912. She also appeared in modern work, including a revival of Trilby opposite Tree's Svengali, a role she would reprise in productions around the world for years afterward. In 1914 she signed a long-term contract in the United States and did not return to Britain until 1919. During those years she performed Trilby again, appeared in vaudeville with songs, recitations, and Shakespearean excerpts, performed at Yale University, and played Nora Marsh in Somerset Maugham's The Land of Promise. She also toured in the play Maggie, which appeared at the Princess Theatre in Toronto in 1918. Her Broadway appearances during this American period included The Adventure of Lady Ursula, which marked her entry onto the Broadway stage beginning in 1915.

After returning to England in 1919, Neilson-Terry pursued a wide-ranging career that took in cabaret, pantomime, and variety alongside returns to classical drama. In 1922 she appeared in J. B. Fagan's The Wheel, a production notable for giving her young cousin John Gielgud his first paid acting engagement. During the 1920s she toured South Africa and performed in pantomime at Drury Lane, as well as appearing in Shakespeare at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park and on tour with Donald Wolfit. In the 1930s she took on Lady Macbeth and Queen Katherine in Henry VIII at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Gielgud later identified her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in Ferdinand Bruckner's Elizabeth of England as her most notable inter-war performance, citing a scene in which she displayed what he described as unexpected tragic power. Her roles in the 1940s included Miss Moffat in The Corn is Green.

Neilson-Terry's most prominent later stage work was the role of Mrs. Railton-Bell, the domineering matriarch in Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables, which she originated in the West End in 1954. She subsequently brought the role to Broadway, where her credits also included Table by the Window and The Great Pursuit, with her Broadway career spanning from 1915 to 1956. Her performance in Separate Tables earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1957. Her final stage appearances were as Lady Bletchley in Frederick Lonsdale's Let Them Eat Cake in 1959 and Lady Godolphin in Robert Kemp's Off a Duck's Back in 1960.

Her screen work included the 1915 Hollywood film version of Trilby, directed by Maurice Tourneur, as well as Boadicea (1927), in which she played the title role, and the 1960 film Conspiracy of Hearts, in which she appeared as Sister Elizaveta in her final film role. Television credits from 1958 included roles in Ivanhoe as Queen Eleanor and Pride and Prejudice as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Neilson-Terry was married twice, both times to actors: Cecil King and Heron Carvic. She died in London at the age of 84.