Wendy Hiller

Wendy Margaret Hiller was born on 15 August 1912 in Bramhall, Cheshire, the daughter of Frank Watkin Hiller, a Manchester cotton manufacturer, and Marie Stone. Educated at Winceby House School for Girls in Bexhill and Oriel Bank High School, she joined the Manchester Repertory Company at age 18, where she both acted and stage-managed for several years. Her Broadway career extended from 1936 to 1962, and her work across stage and screen spanned nearly six decades. In 1937 she married Ronald Gow, the author of Love on the Dole, who was fifteen years her senior.

Hiller's professional breakthrough came with the stage version of Love on the Dole in 1934, in which she played slum dweller Sally Hardcastle. The production toured regional British stages before reaching the West End at the Garrick Theatre in 1935, and its continued popularity brought it to New York in 1936, marking Hiller's Broadway debut. That New York run drew the attention of George Bernard Shaw, who cast her in several of his plays, including Saint Joan, Pygmalion, and Major Barbara. Shaw was reported to regard her as his favourite actress of the period.

Her 1947 Broadway appearance as Catherine Sloper in The Heiress, based on Henry James's novel Washington Square, proved to be among her most celebrated stage achievements. The production, which also featured Basil Rathbone as her emotionally abusive father, ran for a year at the Biltmore Theatre. Hiller returned to the role in the West End production in 1950. She appeared in the Robert Bolt play Flowering Cherry, which ran at the Haymarket in London in 1958 before transferring to Broadway in 1959.

In 1957 Hiller returned to New York to play Josie Hogan in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, alongside Cyril Cusack and Franchot Tone. That performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play in 1958. Her final Broadway appearance came in 1962, when she played Miss Tina in The Aspern Papers, Michael Redgrave's adaptation of the Henry James novella.

Beyond Broadway, Hiller built an extensive stage career in Britain. She was directed by John Gielgud as Sister Joanna in The Cradle Song at the Apollo Theatre in 1944, and appeared as Princess Charlotte in The First Gentleman at the Savoy in 1945 opposite Robert Morley. A two-year run of N. C. Hunter's Waters of the Moon at the Haymarket from 1951 to 1953 placed her alongside Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans. During the Old Vic's 1955–56 season she played Portia in Julius Caesar and Helen of Troy in Troilus and Cressida. She demonstrated a sustained affinity for Henrik Ibsen, appearing as Irene in When We Dead Awaken in Cambridge in 1968, as Mrs. Alving in Ghosts in Edinburgh in 1972, and as Gunhild in John Gabriel Borkman at the National Theatre's Old Vic in 1975 with Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft. Her final West End performance came in the title role of Driving Miss Daisy at the Apollo Theatre in 1988.

Hiller's film career brought her three Academy Award nominations. At Shaw's insistence she starred as Eliza Doolittle opposite Leslie Howard in the 1938 film Pygmalion, a performance that earned her first Oscar nomination and made her the first British actress to receive such a nomination for a British film. She followed that with another Shaw adaptation, Major Barbara in 1941, alongside Rex Harrison and Robert Morley, and later appeared in I Know Where I'm Going! in 1945 for filmmakers Powell and Pressburger. After largely stepping away from film following 1945, she returned to screen work in the 1950s, appearing in Carol Reed's Outcast of the Islands in 1952 and Something of Value in 1957. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a lonely hotel manager in Separate Tables in 1958, and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Sons and Lovers in 1960. Her third Oscar nomination came for her role as Lady Alice More opposite Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons in 1966. She also received a Golden Globe nomination for Toys in the Attic in 1963, in which she appeared alongside Dean Martin and Geraldine Page.

Hiller was created a Dame in recognition of her contributions to acting. She died on 14 May 2003, having accumulated, across her career, nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Tony Award, and Laurence Olivier Award.