Dame Flora Robson

Dame Flora McKenzie Robson (28 March 19027 July 1984) was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from queens to murderesses.

Early life

Flora McKenzie Robson was born on 28 March 1902 in South Shields, County Durham, of Scottish descent to a family of six siblings. Many of her forebears were engineers, mostly in shipping. Her father was a ship's engineer who moved from Wallsend near Newcastle to Palmers Green in 1907 and Southgate in 1910, both in north London, and later to Welwyn Garden City.

She was educated at the Palmers Green High School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she won a bronze medal in 1921.

Career

Her father discovered that Flora had a talent for recitation and, from the age of 5, she was taken around by horse and carriage to recite, and to compete in recitations. This established a pattern that remained with her.

Robson made her stage debut in 1921. By the 1930s she was appearing in several prominent films both in the UK and in Hollywood, alongside such stars as Laurence Olivier, Paul Muni and George Raft. Her most notable role was that of Queen Elizabeth I in both ''Fire Over England'' (1937) and '' The Sea Hawk'' (1940). In 1934, Robson played the Empress Elizabeth in Alexander Korda'' (1934). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Angelique Buiton, a servant, in ''Saratoga Trunk'' (1945). The same year, audiences in the U.K. and the U.S. watched her hypnotic performance as Ftatateeta, the nursemaid and royal confidante and murderess-upon-command to Vivien Leigh's Queen Cleopatra in the screen adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1945).

After the Second World War, demonstrating her range, she appeared in ''Holiday Camp'' (1947), the first of a series of films which featured the very ordinary Huggett family; as Sister Philippa in '' Black Narcissus'' (1947); as a magistrate in ''Good-Time Girl'' (1948); as a prospective Labour MP in '' Frieda'' (1947); and in the costume melodrama ''Saraband for Dead Lovers'' (1948). Her other film roles included the Empress Dowager Cixi in '' 55 Days at Peking'' (1963), Miss Milchrest in '' Murder at the Gallop'' (1963), the Queen of Hearts in ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1972), and Livia in the aborted ''I, Claudius'' in 1937.

She struggled to find a footing in the theatre after she graduated from RADA with a bronze medal since she lacked the conventional good looks which were then an absolute requisite for actresses in dramatic roles. After touring in minor parts with Ben Greet's Shakespeare company she may have played small parts for two seasons in the new repertory company at Oxford, but her contract was not renewed. She was told that they required a prettier actress. Unable to secure any acting engagements, she gave up the stage at the age of 23, and she took up work as a welfare officer in the Shredded Wheat factory in Welwyn Garden City. Tyrone Guthrie, due to direct a season at the new Festival Theatre, Cambridge, asked her to join his company. Her performance as the stepdaughter in Pirandello's ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' made her the theatrical talk of Cambridge. She followed with Isabella in '' Measure for Measure'' with Robert Donat, Pirandello's ''Naked'', the title role in ''Iphigenia in Tauris'', Varya in ''The Cherry Orchard'', and Rebecca West in Henrik Ibsen's ''Rosmersholm''.

In 1931, she was cast as the adulterous Abbie in Eugene O'Neill's ''Desire Under the Elms''. Her brief, shocking appearance as the doomed prostitute in James Bridie's play ''The Anatomist'' put her firmly on the road to success. "If you are not moved by this girl's performance, then you are immovable" the ''Observer'' critic wrote. This success would lead to her famous 1933 season as leading lady at the Old Vic.

She continued her acting career late into life, though not on the West End stage, from which she retired at the age of 67, often for American television films, including a lavish production of ''A Tale of Two Cities'' (in which she played Miss Pross). She also performed for British television, including ''The Shrimp and the Anemone''. In the 1960s, she continued to act in the West End, in ''Ring Round the Moon'', ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' and '' Three Sisters'', among others.

She continued to act on film and television. She was last briefly seen as a Stygian Witch in the fantasy adventure '' Clash of the Titans'' in 1981. Both the BBC
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