Gladys Young (29 April 1887 – 18 August 1975) was an English actress and prominent member of BBC
Radio Drama Company.
Peggy Chamber's 1954 book, ''Women And The World Today'', has a chapter on Gladys Young's life and achievements up to the 1950s.
Early life
Gladys Young was born in Newcastle, to William Michael Young & Frances Jane Hocken. She was educated at Sutton High School, and later at Bonn, in Germany.
She joined a amateur dramatic club along with
Mabel Constanduros and
Leslie Howard.
At the start of the First World War, she was in J.E. Harold Terry & Lechmere Worrall's ''The Man Who Stayed at Home'' but, in 1916, left to marry Major Algernon Henry Pascoe West.
In 1926, Mabel Constanduros suggested she take an audition for radio broadcasting at Savoy Hill.
Career
In July 1930, Gladys Young appeared, along with
Earle Grey, in the first play on a television screen,
Luigi Pirandello's ''The Man with the Flower in his Mouth'', directed by
Lance Sieveking. According to Val Gielgud, ''The TV system employed was Baird's in his Long Acre studio''.
In 1939 Gladys Young joined the newly-formed
B.B.C. Repertory Company which subsequently moved from Evesham to Manchester. In 1940 she went to Bristol and became involved in
Children's Hour
''Children's Hour'', initially ''The Children's Hour'', was the BBC's principal recreational service for children (as distinct from "Broadcasts to Schools") which began during the period when radio was the only medium of broadcasting.
''Childre ...
and Schools programmes.
In 1946 she appeared in film
The Courtneys of Curzon Street
''The Courtneys of Curzon Street'' (also titled ''The Courtney Affair'' or Kathy's Love Affair, in the U.S.) is a 1947 British drama film starring Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding. It is a study of class division and snobbery in Britain in t ...
as Lady Courtney, along with Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding.
Awards
Gladys Young was awarded the Silver Microphone for the best actress of the radio year for 1949 & 1950. In 1951 received the O.B.E. in the New Year's Honours List.
Death
Gladys Young died on 18 August 1975, Eastbourne district, Sussex
The BBC broadcast a tribute programme, ''Gladys Young - First Lady of the Air'' in 1975, soon after her death.
Radio appearances
Gladys Young appeared in hundreds of BBC radio programmes, including:
* Gerald Grace's ''The House Agent''
2LO
2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House.
H ...
19/11/1926
*
Luigi Pirandello's ''The Man with the Flower in his Mouth''
2LO
2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House.
H ...
29/8/1929
*
A.J. Alan's ''Fire!''
2LO
2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House.
H ...
8/12/1926
*
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' as Miss Prism
2LO
2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House.
H ...
3/5/1927
* ''The Children's Hour 'The Minotaur
2LO
2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House.
H ...
28/2/1935
Earliest surviving recording
The earliest recording of Gladys Young surviving in the BBC Archives is a 4-minute trailer for P.H. Lennox's ''Matinee'', originally broadcast on the National Programme 22/9/1933. It was used in a 1950 talk by
Val Gielgud, as part of a series demonstrating the development of broadcast drama between 1924 and 1933.
The 1970 ''BBC Sound Archives - Catalogue of Drama Recordings'' has this entry:
"MATINEE"" by P.H. Lennox. Trailer for farcical fantasy specially written for broadcasting. With Ray Wallace, Hermione Gingold, Gladys Young and Charles H. Mason. Produced by Lance Sieveking. No.7 in series Twelve Plays for Broadcasting.
National 22.9.33 (Trailer); National 17.11.33 (Complete play). 4.20 282
[''BBC Sound Archives - Catalogue of Drama Recordings'' January 1970, BBC, page 86]
References
External links
*
* ''
Desert Island Discs'' - Gladys Young in conversation with Roy Plomley, BBC Home Service 12/9/1960, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y71n
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Gladys
1887 births
1975 deaths
People from Newcastle upon Tyne
20th-century British actresses