Virginia Field

Virginia Field, born Margaret St. John Field on 4 November 1917 in London, England, was a British actress whose career spanned film, stage, and television across several decades. The daughter of Sir John Field, a judge of the Leicester County Court Circuit, she was an only child whose family connections extended to notable figures on both sides of the Atlantic: her mother was a cousin of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and her aunt was British stage actress and director Auriol Lee. Field died on 2 January 1992, of cancer, and was cremated, her ashes scattered at sea.

Her education took her across Europe, with studies in Paris, Vienna, and the South of France before she returned to England to train for the stage. During her time in Vienna, she performed under the direction of Max Reinhardt. Back in Britain, she secured her first film role as a teenager in The Lady is Willing, which led to a Hollywood contract. She traveled to the United States to appear in David O. Selznick's Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1936, and by the late 1930s had established a presence at 20th Century Fox through a series of supporting roles in the Mr. Moto films. In 1940, she appeared alongside Vivien Leigh in Waterloo Bridge, playing a character named Kitty, a ballerina. The following year she portrayed Nell Gwyn in Hudson's Bay, a role that placed her opposite Vincent Price as King Charles II. Price later recounted the production in his book The Book of Joe, describing a scene involving King Charles spaniels and Field's costuming that was ultimately cut by censors.

Field's Broadway career ran from 1940 to 1948 and included three productions. She appeared in the comedy The Doughgirls, the musical Panama Hattie, and Light Up the Sky. Her stage work during this period placed her among the working performers of wartime and postwar Broadway.

On television, Field made six guest appearances on the CBS drama Perry Mason between 1957 and 1966. She played Irene Collaro in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Prodigal Parent," and portrayed the murderer in both the 1960 episode "The Case of the Provocative Protege" and the 1962 episode "The Case of the Polka Dot Pony." In 1964, she appeared as Mason's client and defendant Ramona Carver in "The Case of the Simple Simon." She also appeared as Lotta Langley in an episode of the ABC series The Rebel, starring Nick Adams, and played Josephine Dunning in the pilot for Meet the Girls, a comedy that aired on CBS in August 1960. Field was additionally a regular participant on the television program Pantomime Quiz.

Field married three times. Her husbands included actors Paul Douglas and Willard Parker, as well as Howard Grode, a composer and musician whom she married in 1947. Her daughter, Margaret Field Douglas, was born of her marriage to Paul Douglas. Field holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street in Los Angeles, dedicated on 8 February 1960.