Diana Napier

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Diana Napier , actually Alice Mary Ellis (born January 31, 1905 in Bath , United Kingdom , † March 12, 1982 in Windlesham , Surrey , United Kingdom) was a British stage and film actress .

Live and act

Early years and film activity

Alice Mary Ellis, daughter of an ENT doctor, grew up for several years in the then British colony of South Africa and went to school in Durban . After her return to Europe, "Mollie" Ellis, as she was known, took acting lessons in Paris and played repertory theater with little attention in the second half of the 1920s. At this time she met her first husband, the theater and film actor GH Mulcaster (1891-1964), whom she married in 1927. England's most important film producer, the Hungarian-born Alexander Korda , offered her an aptitude test in 1932, which was satisfactory. Under the stage name Diana Napier - Napier was the maiden name of her mother Alice - the attractive Mimin shot little meaningful Korda productions and, with the small supporting role of Countess Vorontzowa, also got a part in an ambitious large-scale production Katharina the Great at the side of Elisabeth Bergner and in 1933 Douglas Fairbanks Junior . Immediately thereafter, she cast Korda again with a rather insignificant supporting role in another prestige production, The Private Life of Don Juan , where she this time alongside Fairbanks jrs. Father who appeared in Hollywood silent film legend Douglas Fairbanks senior .

Korda's dissatisfaction with Diana Napier led to her film contract being terminated early, whereupon Fairbanks Jr. brought her to his side in 1935 for his romance Mimi - The novel of a great love and left her the second female lead. On the set, Napier met the Austrian director Paul Ludwig Stein , a childhood friend of the famous Austrian tenor Richard Tauber . Stein also brought the artist with the auburn hair for his follow-up production Wien, Wien, only you and brought her to the camera for the first time with Tauber, albeit with only a supporting role. The tenor and the up-and-coming actress fell in love, and Tauber and the now divorced Diana Napier were married on June 20, 1936. By that time she had stood at the side of her newlywed two more times: In The Bajazzo and The Singing Land ; two films that were entirely geared towards the singing power of their popular star Richard Tauber.

The late years

Diana Napier largely withdrew from acting in 1936 and devoted herself entirely to private life with her husband until the outbreak of World War II . In April 1940 Diana Napier joined the all-women charity First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and attended an ambulance unit in Scotland to care for Polish soldiers who had fled German-occupied Poland to England. Diana Napier Tauber later joined the Polish Welfare Unit in London. In 1945, shortly after the liberation of the Netherlands, she traveled there to take care of the Polish soldiers who had been hiding from the Nazis in Holland until then, as part of the Red Cross. Shortly afterwards, in Meppen , she received an award from the Polish general in exile, Clemens Rudnicki, for her auxiliary work in caring for Polish military personnel. After Richard Tauber's surprisingly early death in January 1948, Diana Napier devoted herself entirely to the memory of her husband in literary form. In 1971, on the occasion of the 80th birthday of her late husband, she also took part in the British television documentary "This was Richard Tauber".

Her third marriage since 1953 to the Polish-born Stanislaus Maria Wolkowicki (1902-1965), whom she had met during World War II while helping with the Polish Red Cross, Napier was at his side after her death in 1982 as Diana Wolkowicka in the cemetery of Buried in Sunningdale, Berkshire.

Filmography (complete)

  • 1932: Wedding Rehearsal
  • 1932: Her First Affaire
  • 1933: Strange Evidence
  • 1933: The Butterfly Affair
  • 1933: For Love of You
  • 1933: Catherine the Great (Catherine the Great)
  • 1934: The Private Life of Don Juan (The Private Life of Don Juan)
  • 1934: The Warren Case
  • 1934: Falling in Love
  • 1935: Royal Cavalcade
  • 1935: Mimi - The novel of a great love (Mimi)
  • 1935: Vienna, Vienna, just you alone (Heart's Desire)
  • 1936: The Bajazzo (Pagliacci)
  • 1936: The Singing Land (Land Without Music)
  • 1949: I was a dancer
  • 1950: Bait

literature

  • Diana Napier Tauber: Richard Tauber (biography). Arts and Educational Publishers Ltd., Glasgow & London 1949
  • Diana Napier Tauber: My Heart and I (autobiography). Evans Brothers, London 1959

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gravestone Diana Wolkowicka (Napier Tauber) January 31, 1905 to March 12, 1982
personal data
SURNAME Napier, Diana
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ellis, Alice Mary (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British stage and film actress
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Bath , UK
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1982
Place of death Windlesham , Surrey , United Kingdom