Elizabeth Allan (9 April 1910 – 27 July 1990) was an English stage and film actress who worked in both Britain and Hollywood, where she appeared in 50 films.

Life and career

Allan was born in

Skegness Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 19,579 as of 2011, i ...

, Lincolnshire in 1910 and educated in

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

, County Durham. At age 17, she made her stage debut at

the Old Vic The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, nonprofit organization, not-for-profit producing house, producing theatre in Waterloo, London, Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Th ...

. She made her film debut four years later in ''

Alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...

''. She appeared in a number of films for

Julius Hagen Julius Hagen (1884–1940) was a German-born British film producer who produced more than a hundred films in Britain. Hagen originally worked as a salesman for Ruffels Pictures. He then worked his way up to become a production manager in the Br ...

Twickenham Studios Twickenham Studios (formerly known as Twickenham Film Studios) is a film studio in St Margarets, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, that is used by various motion picture and television companies. It was established in 1913 by Ralph ...

, but was also featured in

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...

's ''

Michael and Mary ''Michael and Mary'' is a 1931 British drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Elizabeth Allan, Edna Best, Frank Lawton, and Herbert Marshall. This was the first of the Edna Best and Herbert Marshall co-starring talkies. It was based ...

'' and Korda's '' Service for Ladies''. In 1932 she married agent Wilfrid J. O'Bryen, to whom she was introduced by actor

Herbert Marshall Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall (23 May 1890 – 22 January 1966) was an English stage, screen and radio actor who starred in many popular and well-regarded Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s. After a successful theatrical career in the Uni ...

; they were together until his death in 1977. Her first US/UK co-production and first US production came in 1933, and she worked in the United States under contract with

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...

. 1935 was her most memorable year in Hollywood, when she not only distinguished herself in two memorable Dickens' adaptations as David's unfortunate young mother in

George Cukor George Dewey Cukor (; July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director and film producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head of ...

's ''

David Copperfield ''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...

'' and as Lucie Manette in Jack Conway's ''

A Tale of Two Cities ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the ...

'', but was also featured in

Tod Browning Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of vari ...

's ''

Mark of the Vampire ''Mark of the Vampire'' (also known as ''Vampires of Prague'') is a 1935 American horror film, starring Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan (British actress), Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Jean Hersholt, and directed by Tod Br ...

''. Allan did not think highly of the latter film, to which she had been assigned, and considered it "slumming".

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

announced her for a leading part in

King Vidor King Wallis Vidor (; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, ...

's ''

The Citadel The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, commonly known simply as The Citadel, is a Public college, public United States senior military college, senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina. Established in 1842, it is one ...

'', but she was subsequently replaced by

Rosalind Russell Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedienne, screenwriter, and singer,Obituary ''Variety'', December 1, 1976, p. 79. known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the H ...

. When she was replaced again by

Greer Garson Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was an English-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the hom ...

in ''

Goodbye, Mr Chips ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' is a novella about the life of a school teacher, Mr. Chipping, written by English writer James Hilton and first published by Hodder & Stoughton in October 1934. It has been adapted into two feature films and two televi ...

'', Elizabeth successfully sued the studio. The studio retaliated by refusing to let her work, and, frustrated, she returned to the UK in 1938. The same year she appeared onstage in the West End farce ''

The Innocent Party ''The Innocent Party'' is a 1938 comedy play by the British writers H.M. Harwood and Laurence Kirk. A woman has to decide whether she is needed more by her husband or her lover. It premiered at the Opera House, Manchester before transferring to ...

'' alongside

Basil Radford Arthur Basil RadfordAdam Greaves, "Radford, (Arthur) Basil (1897–1952)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, May 201available online Retrieved 3 August 2020. (25 June 189720 October 1952) was an English charac ...

and

Cecil Parker Cecil Parker (born Cecil Schwabe, 3 September 1897 – 20 April 1971) was an English actor with a distinctively husky voice, who usually played supporting roles, often characters with a supercilious demeanour, in his 91 films made between ...

. By the 1950s, Allan had made the transition to character parts. Particularly memorable is her appearance as

Trevor Howard Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith (29 September 1913 – 7 January 1988) was an English stage, film, and television actor. After varied work in the theatre, he achieved star status with his role in the film ''Brief Encounter'' (1945), followed by ''T ...

's brittle and dissatisfied wife in the film adaptation of

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

's ''

The Heart of the Matter ''The Heart of the Matter'' (1948) is a novel by English author Graham Greene. The book details a life-changing moral crisis for Henry Scobie. Greene, a former Secret Intelligence Service, British intelligence officer in Freetown, British Sie ...

'' (1953). In 1958, she appeared as

Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...

's wife in ''

The Haunted Strangler ''The Haunted Strangler'' (also known as ''Grip of the Strangler'' and originally titled ''The Judas Hole'') is a 1958 British horror film directed by Robert Day. It was adapted from "Stranglehold", a story which screenwriter Jan Read had writte ...

''. Late in her career, she was a frequent panellist on television game shows, including the British version of ''

What's My Line? ''What's My Line?'' is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelis ...

''. She was named Great Britain's Top Female TV Personality of 1952.

Death

She died at

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

, on the Sussex coast, at age 80. She was cremated at Woodvale Crematorium in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

and the ashes were taken by the family.Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14000 Famous Persons by Scott Wilson

Legacy

Her name is on

Brighton & Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...

Scania OmniDekka The East Lancs OmniDekka (later sold as the Darwen OmniDekka and Optare OmniDekka) is a double-decker bus built for sale in the UK market, introduced by East Lancashire Coachbuilders in 2003. Originally built on Scania N94UD chassis at Euro 3, ...

bus 655.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

* *
Photographs and literature on Elizabeth Allan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allan, Elizabeth 1910 births 1990 deaths English film actresses English stage actresses English television personalities People from Skegness People from Hove Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players Actresses from Sussex 20th-century English actresses British expatriate actresses in the United States