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 and ITV made special programs to celebrate her 80th birthday in 1982, and the BBC ran a short season of her best films.

Awards and honours

She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Angelique Buiton, a Haitian maid, in ''Saratoga Trunk'' (1945).

She was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1952 New Year Honours, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1960 Birthday Honours. She was also the first famous name to become president of the Brighton Little Theatre.

On 4 July 1958, she received an honorary DLitt from Durham University at a congregation in Durham Castle.

She was the subject of ''This Is Your Life'' in February 1961 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in central London.

Personal life and death

Her private life was largely focused on her large family of sisters, nephews and nieces, who used the home in Wykeham Terrace, Brighton, which she shared with sisters, Margaret and Shela.

She died in Brighton, aged 82, in her sleep, of cancer. She was never married and had no children. The two sisters, with whom she shared her life and home, died around the same time: Shela shortly before Flora, in 1984, and Margaret on 1 February 1985.

Legacies

Dame Flora Robson Avenue, built in 1962, in Simonside, South Shields, is named after her.
There is a plaque on the house in Wykeham Terrace, Dyke Road, Brighton, and also one in the doorway of St. Nicholas's Church, of which Flora Robson was a great supporter.

There is also a plaque to commemorate the opening of the Prince Charles Theatre (Leicester Square, London) by Flora Robson.

In 1996, the British Film Institute erected a plaque at number 14 Marine Gardens, location of Flora's other home in Brighton, where she lived from 1961 to 1976.

A plaque at 40 Handside Lane in Welwyn Garden City records Flora Robson living there from 1923 to 1925.

A blue plaque sponsored by Southgate District Civic Trust and Robson's former school Palmers Green High School was unveiled at her family home from 1910 to 1921, The Lawe, 65, The Mall, Southgate, on 25 April 2010.

Robson attended the opening of the Flora Robson Playhouse in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1962, which was named in her honour. The building was demolished in 1971 and the theatre company it housed relocated to the new University Theatre.

Filmography

Partial television credits

Theatre performances

* Queen Margaret in '' Will Shakespeare'' at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, 1921
* Shakespearean repertory with Ben Greet's company, 1922
* JB Fagan's company at the Oxford Playhouse, 1923
* Two seasons at the Festival Theatre, Cambridge, 1929–30
* Abbey Putnam in '' Desire Under the Elms'' at the Gate Theatre, London, 1931
* Herodias in ''Salome'' at the Gate Theatre, London, 1931
* Mary Paterson in ''The Anatomist'' at the Westminster Theatre, London, 1931
* Stepdaughter in ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' at the Westminster Theatre, London, 1932
* Bianca in ''Othello'' at the St. James' Theatre, London, 1932
* Olwen Peel in ''Dangerous Corner'' at the Lyric Theatre, London, 1932
* Eva in '' For Services Rendered'' at the Globe Theatre, London, 1932
* Ella Downey in '' All God's Chillun Got Wings'' at the Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage, 1933
* A season at the Old Vic, London, 1933–34
* Mary Read in ''Mary Read'' at His Majesty's Theatre, London 1934
* Lady Catherine Brooke in ''Autumn'' at the St. Martin's Theatre, London, 1937
* Ellen Creed in '' Ladies in Retirement'' at the Henry Miller's Theatre, New York, 1940
* Sarah, Duchess of Malborough in '' Anne of England'' at the St. James Theatre, New York, 1941
* Rhoda Meldrum in ''The Damask Cheek'' at the Playhouse Theatre, New York, 1942–43
* Thérèse Raquin in ''Guilty'' at the Lyric, Hammersmith, 1944
* Agnes Isit in ''A Man About the House'' at the Piccadilly Theatre, 1946
* Lady Macbeth in ''Macbeth'' at the National Theatre, New York, 1948
* Lady Cicely Waynflete in ''Captain Brassbound's Conversion'' at the Lyric, Hammersmith, 1948
* Christine in ''Black Chiffon'', at the Westminster Theatre, 1949 and the 48th Street Theatre, New York, 1950
* Lady Catherine Brooke in ''Autumn'' at the Q Theatre, London, 1951
* Paulina in ''The Winter's Tale'' at the Phoenix Theatre, London, 1951
* ''The Return'' at the Duchess Theatre, London, 1953–54
* Janet in ''The House by the Lake'' at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, 1956
* Mrs Alving in ''Ghosts'' at the Old Vic, 1958–59 and the Prince's Theatre, London, 1959
* Miss Tina in ''The Aspern Papers'' at the Queen's Theatre, London, 1959 and on tour to South Africa, 1960
* Grace Rovarte in ''Time and Yellow Roses'' at the St. Martin's Theatre, London, 1961
* Miss Moffatt in ''The Corn is Green'' at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, the Flora Robson Playhouse, Newcastle upon Tyne and on tour to South Africa, 1962
* Gunhild in '' John Gabriel Borkman'' at the Duchess Theatre, London, 1963
* Lady Bracknell in ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' at the Flora Robson Playhouse, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1964
* Hecuba in ''The Trojan Women'' at the Edinburgh Festival, 1966
* Miss Prism in ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, 1968
* Mother in '' Ring Round the Moon'' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, 1968
* Agatha Payne in ''The Old Ladies'' at the Duchess Theatre, London, 1969
* Elizabeth I in ''Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England'' at the Edinburgh Festival, 1970

References

External links

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Flora Robson performances in the Theatre Archive, University of Bristol

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robson, Flora
1902 births
1984 deaths
English people of Scottish descent
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Actresses awarded British damehoods
English Anglicans
English film actresses
English stage actresses
English radio actresses
English television actresses
People from Brighton
People from South Shields
Actresses from Tyne and Wear
Actors from Sussex
Actors from County Durham
People educated at Palmers Green High School
20th-century English actresses
Deaths from cancer in England