Florence Marjorie Robertson

Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox (''née'' Robertson; 20 October 1904 – 3 June 1986), known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer.

She was a successful box-office draw in the British cinema for 20 years and was voted the most popular star in Britain in 1949. She was known for providing glamour and sophistication to war-torn London audiences with her lightweight musicals, comedies, and historical dramas. Almost all of her films were produced and directed by Herbert Wilcox, whom she married in 1943.

In her historical dramas, Neagle was renowned for her portrayals of British historical figures, including Nell Gwyn (''Nell Gwyn'', 1934), Queen Victoria (''Victoria the Great'', 1937 and ''Sixty Glorious Years'', 1938), Edith Cavell (''Nurse Edith Cavell'', 1939), and Florence Nightingale (''The Lady with a Lamp'', 1951).

Biography

Early life

Neagle was born in Forest Gate, Essex, daughter of Florence Neagle and her husband, Herbert William Robertson, a Merchant Navy captain. Her elder brother was the bass-baritone and actor Stuart Robertson (1901–1958). Robertson attended primary school in Glasgow and then St Albans High School for Girls. She made her stage debut as a dancer in 1917, and later appeared in the chorus of C.B. Cochran's revues and also André Charlot's revue ''Bubbly''. While with Cochran, she understudied Jessie Matthews.

In 1931, she starred in the West End musical ''Stand Up and Sing'' with actor Jack Buchanan, who encouraged her to take a featured role. For this play, she began using the professional name Anna Neagle (the surname being her mother's maiden name). The play was a success with a total run of 604 performances. ''Stand Up and Sing'' provided her big break when film producer and director Herbert Wilcox caught the show to consider Buchanan for an upcoming film, but also took note of her cinematic potential.''British Pictures'' Profile and Reviews.

Cinematic beginnings

Forming a professional alliance with Wilcox, Neagle played her first starring film role in the musical '' Goodnight, Vienna'' (1932), again with Jack Buchanan. With this film, Neagle became an overnight favourite. Although the film cost a mere £23,000 to produce, it was a hit at the box office, with profits from its Australian release alone being £150,000.
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After her starring role in '' The Flag Lieutenant'' (also 1932), directed by and co-starring Henry Edwards, she worked exclusively under Wilcox's direction for all but one of her subsequent films, becoming one of Britain's biggest stars.

She continued in the musical genre, co-starring with Fernand Gravey (later known as Fernand Gravet) in '' Bitter Sweet'' (1933). This first version of Noël Coward's tale of ill-fated lovers was later obscured by the better known Jeanette MacDonald– Nelson Eddy remake in 1940.

Neagle had her first major success with ''Nell Gwyn'' (1934), which Wilcox had previously shot as a silent starring Dorothy Gish in 1926. Neagle's performance as Gwyn, who became the mistress of Charles II (played by Cedric Hardwicke) prompted some censorship in the United States. The Hays Office had Wilcox add a (historically false) scene featuring the two leads getting married and also a "framing" story resulting in an entirely different ending. Graham Greene, then a film critic, said of ''Nell Gwyn'': "I have seen few things more attractive than Miss Neagle in breeches".

Two years after ''Nell Gwyn'', she followed up with another real-life figure, portraying Irish actress Peg Woffington in ''Peg of Old Drury'' (1936). That same year, she appeared in ''Limelight'', a backstage film musical in which she played a chorus girl. Her co-star was Arthur Tracy, who had gained fame in the United States as a radio performer known as the Street Singer. The film also featured Jack Buchanan in an uncredited cameo. performing "Goodnight Vienna".

Neagle and Wilcox followed with a circus trapeze fable ''Three Maxims'' (1937), which was released in the United States as ''The Show Goes On''. The film, with a script featuring a contribution from Herman J. Mankiewicz (later to co-write ''Citizen Kane'' with Orson Welles), had Neagle performing her own high-wire acrobatics. Although now highly successful in films, Neagle continued acting on stage. In 1934, while working under director Robert Atkins, she performed as Rosalind in ''As You Like It'' and Olivia in ''Twelfth Night''. Both productions earned her critical accolades, despite the fact that she had never performed Shakespearean roles before.

In 1937, Neagle gave her most prestigious performance so far – as Queen Victoria in the historical drama ''Victoria the Great'' (1937), co-starring Anton Walbrook as Prince Albert. The script by Robert Vansittart and Miles Malleson (from Laurence Housman's play ''Victoria Regina'') alternated between the political and the personal lives of the royal couple. The Diamond Jubilee sequence that climaxed the film was shot in Technicolor. ''Victoria the Great'' was such an international success that it resulted in Neagle and Walbrook playing their roles again in an all-Technicolor sequel entitled ''Sixty Glorious Years'' (1938), co-starring C. Aubrey Smith as the Duke of Wellington. While the first of these films was in release, Neagle returned to the London stage and entertained audiences with her portrayal of the title role in '' Peter Pan''.

An American excursion

The success of ''Victoria the Great'' and ''Sixty Glorious Years'' caused Hollywood studios to take notice. Neagle and Wilcox began an association with RKO Radio Pictures. Their first American film was ''Nurse Edith Cavell'' (1939), a remake of ''Dawn'', a Wilcox silent that starred Sybil Thorndike. In this, another Neagle role based on an actual British heroine, she played the role of the nurse who was shot by the Germans in World War I for alleged spying. The resulting effort had a significant impact for audiences on the eve of war.

In a turnabout from this serious drama, the couple followed with three musical comedies, all based on once-popular stage plays. The first of these was ''Irene'' (1940), co-starring Ray Milland. It included a Technicolor sequence, which featured Neagle singing the play's most famous song, "Alice Blue Gown". She followed this film with ''No, No, Nanette'' (1940) with Victor Mature, in which she sang " Tea For Two", and '' Sunny'' (1941), with Ray Bolger.

Neagle and Wilcox's final American film was '' Forever and a Day'' (1943), a tale of a London family house from 1804 to the 1940 blitz. This film boasts 80 performers (mostly expatriate British), including Ray Milland, C. Aubrey Smith, Claude Rains, Charles Laughton, and – among the few North Americans – Buster Keaton. Wilcox directed the sequence featuring Neagle, Milland, Smith, and Rains, while other directors who worked on the film included René Clair, Edmund Goulding, Frank Lloyd, Victor Saville, and Robert Stevenson. During the war, the profits and salaries were given to war relief. After the war, prints were intended to be destroyed, so that no one could profit from them, but this never occurred.

Return to the UK

Returning to the UK, Neagle and Wilcox commenced with ''They Flew Alone'' (1942; shot after but released before ''Forever and a Day''). Neagle this time played aviator Amy Johnson, who had recently died in a flying accident. Robert Newton co-starred as Johnson's husband, Jim Mollison. The film intercut the action with newsreel footage.

Neagle and Wilcox married in August 1943 at London's Caxton Hall.City of Westminster green plaques

They continued with ''Yellow Canary'' (1943), co-starring Richard Greene and Margaret Rutherford. In this spy story, Neagle plays a German-sympathiser (or at least that is what she seems to be at first), who is forced to go to Canada for her own safety. In reality, of course, she is working as an undercover agent out to expose a plot to blow up Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. ''Yellow Canary'' received positive comment for its atmospheric recreation of wartime conditions.

In 1945, Neagle appeared on stage in ''Emma'', a dramatisation of Jane Austen's novel. That same year, she was seen in the film ''I Live in Grosvenor Square'', co-starring Rex Harrison. She wanted Harrison for the lead in her next film, ''Piccadilly Incident'' (1946). However, he (as well as John Mills) proved to be unavailable at the time, so Wilcox cast Michael Wilding in the lead. Thus was born what film critic Godfrey Winn

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