Anne Crawford

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Anne Crawford (born November 22, 1920 in Haifa , Palestine , as Imelda Crawford , † October 17, 1956 in London ) was a British actress in film, television and theater. She played various leading roles in British and American cinema productions in the 1940s and 1950s. Among them roles in films such as Die Weber von Bankdam , Daughter of Darkness , Sister Maria Bonaventura , On the Street Corner or The Knights of the Round Table .

Live and act

Anne Crawford in 1920 in Haifa, the daughter of a Scottish engineer born at the railroad. Early on she was sent back to Edinburgh where she went to school and later studied acting at RADA in London . When she moved to Manchester , she changed her name from Imelda to Anne.

Anne got her first small film role in Brian Desmond Hurst's crime film Prison Without Bars in 1938 . With the lead role in director Walter Forde's comedy The Peterville Diamond , she made her breakthrough in 1943 on the side of Donald Ogden Stewart . She then starred in several dramatic films alongside fellow actor David Farrar . Since 1945 she was also seen in the second female lead in films by director Arthur Crabtree . There she played in the film drama Three Marriage alongside James Mason or in 1946 in the romantic adventure film Dangerous Journey alongside Stewart Granger .

Director Walter Forde gave her the female lead of Anne Pickersgill again in 1947 in the literary film adaptation of The Weavers of Bankdam, based on a novel by Thomas Armstrong. This was followed by other leading roles in Lance Comfort's horror film Daughter of Darkness or in dramatic films by Harold French and Jeffrey Dell . In 1950 she starred as partner of Cecil Parker in a comedy by John Paddy Carstairs

In Douglas Sirk's crime film Sister Maria Bonaventura , she played the role of Isabel Jeffreys, the wife of Robert Douglas, alongside colleagues such as Claudette Colbert and Ann Blyth in 1951 . In 1953 she cast the British director Muriel Box in her film drama On the Street Corner about the work of the London police in the female lead role of WPC Susan. Other roles played Peggy Cummins and Barbara Murray . In the same year, at the height of her screen career, she starred in the lavish and expensively produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adventure film adaptation of the legendary saga of King Arthur in The Knights of the Round Table , staged by director Richard Thorpe in the ranks of Stars around Robert Taylor , Ava Gardner , Mel Ferrer and Stanley Baker the role of the unscrupulous Morgan Le Fay.

Anne had already turned to television in 1949, where she starred in episodes of successful series. Her appearances in the new medium have included The Philco Television Playhouse (1950), Strictly Personal (1953), The Six Proud Walkers (1954), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents (1954), The Mulberry Accelerator (1955), BBC Sunday -Night Theater (1955) and Opportunity Murder (1956).

She made her West End debut in 1949, and her television career ran parallel to her film career. While starring in the Agatha Christie play Spider Web at the Savoy Theater , the actress, known as a gentle and humorous actress, was confronted with the harrowing diagnosis of leukemia in September 1956 . Anne Crawford died just a month later on October 17th at the age of 35 in her adopted home, London .

Crawford was married to James Hartley from 1939 until her death.

Anne Crawford's film career spanned over 30 international cinema and television productions.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1938: Prison Without Bars
  • 1943: The Peterville Diamond
  • 1943: The Dark Tower
  • 1943: The Night Invader
  • 1944: headline
  • 1944: Two Thousand Women
  • 1945: Three Marriages (They Were Sisters)
  • 1946: Dangerous journey ( caravan )
  • 1946: Bedelia
  • 1947: The Bankdam Weavers (Master of Bankdam)

literature

  • Anne Crawford in: Leonard Maltin: TV movies . New American Library, 1974, p. 411.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biographical data of Anne Crawford in: John Parker: Who's Who in the Theater . Volume 3, Pitman, 1956, p. 408.
  2. ^ Anne Crawford in: Melanie Bell, Melanie Williams: British Women's Cinema . Taylor & Francis, 2010, p. 211.
  3. ^ Anne Crawford in: Medium . Volume 14, Joint Work of Evangelical Journalism, 1984, p. 100.
  4. ^ Anne Crawford in: Lee Server: Ava Gardner . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010, p. 530.
  5. ^ Anne Crawford in: Frances Stephens: Theater World Annual , Issue 8, Macmillan, 1957, p. 32.
personal data
SURNAME Crawford, Anne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crawford, Imelda (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actress in film, television and theater
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Haifa , Palestine
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1956
Place of death London , England