Diana Wynyard - Life and Career

Life and Career

Born in London, Wynyard began her career on the stage. After success in Liverpool and London, she performed on Broadway, appearing first in Rasputin and the Empress in 1932, with Ethel, John, and Lionel Barrymore. She appeared in the film version, beginning her brief Hollywood career.

Fox Film Corporation then borrowed her for their lavish film version of Noël Coward's stage spectacle Cavalcade (1933). As the noble wife and mother she aged gracefully against a background of the Boer War, the sinking of the Titanic, the First World War, and the arrival of the Jazz Age. With this performance, she became the first British actress to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. After a handful of film roles, including playing John Barrymore's old flame in Reunion in Vienna, she returned to Britain, but concentrated on theatre work, including roles as Charlotte Brontë in Clemence Dane's Wild Decembers, in Sweet Aloes, and as Gilda in the British premiere of Noël Coward's Design for Living.

She was tempted to return to the screen to play opposite Ralph Richardson in On the Night of the Fire (1939), a film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. Her best remembered success was as the frightened heroine of Gaslight (1940), the first film version of Patrick Hamilton's play Gas Light. This was followed by roles opposite Clive Brook in Freedom Radio, John Gielgud in The Prime Minister and Michael Redgrave in Kipps (all 1941), directed by Carol Reed to whom she was later briefly married.