Kathleen Harrison
Kathleen Harrison (born February 23, 1892 in Blackburn , England , † December 7, 1995 in London , England) was a British actress .
life and career
Kathleen Harrison was born in Lancashire, England, but her family moved to London when she was five years old. In 1903 she was among the first 84 students at the newly established St Savior's and St Olave's Church of England School in the London Borough of Southwark . Harrison completed her acting studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art between 1914 and 1915, where she played, among others, Eliza Dolittle in Pygmalion . She made her film debut in 1951 in the silent film Our Boys (this was her only film appearance until 1931). After her marriage to John Henry Black in 1916, Harrison lived in Argentina and Madeira for some time before the family returned to London and Harrison made her professional acting debut there in 1926 at the Pier Theater in Eastbourne . In the years that followed, she regularly appeared in classic British plays, most notably on Broadway . Among other things, she had an appearance in the crime play Night Must Fall , in whose US film adaptation of the same name she also played. It was one of Harrison's few Hollywood films, otherwise it mostly starred in British productions.
Harrison had been in the film business regularly since the early 1930s, but her roles were mostly small. Her big breakthrough came in the late 1940s as mother Huggett alongside Jack Warner in four light but popular comedies about the average English family Huggett. From then on she got bigger roles in films like This is Life and became one of the "greatest character actresses in British film of the 1940s and 1950s". She played particularly frequently in Dickens film adaptations, for example as the quarrelsome wife of an undertaker in Oliver Twist (1948), as Scrooge's defensive housekeeper in A Christmas Story (1951) and as the "old maid" Rachel Wardle in Mr. Pickwick (1951). Most of the time Harrison was seen in slightly comical but warm-hearted roles as a mother, wife or servant. Between 1966 and 1967 she had her own television series Mrs Thursday , where she inherits ten million pounds as a simple cleaning lady.
After more than 100 film and television appearances, Harrison retired from the acting business in 1979. She was married to John Henry Black from 1916 until his death in 1960 and they had three children. Kathleen Harrison died in 1995 at the old age of 103.
Filmography (selection)
- 1915: Our Boys
- 1931: Hobson's Choice
- 1933: The Ghoul
- 1936: Broken Blossoms
- 1937: Night Must Fall
- 1940: Gaslight (Gaslight)
- 1940: Major Barbara
- 1941: A Letter from Home
- 1941: The Ghost Train
- 1942: In Which We Serve
- 1945: Waterloo Road
- 1945: Caesar and Cleopatra (Caesar and Cleopatra)
- 1946: I See a Dark Stranger
- 1947: Have fun (Holiday Camp)
- 1948: Oliver Twist
- 1948: The Winslow Boy (The Winslow Boy)
- 1950: That's Life (Trio)
- 1951: A Christmas Story (Scrooge)
- 1951: The Wonderful Flicker Box (The Magic Box)
- 1952: Mr. Pickwick (The Pickwick Papers)
- 1955: Demon of Women (Cast A Dark Shadow)
- 1958: You've got a pig again (The Big Money)
- 1958: Alive and Kicking
- 1961: Das Schlitzohr (On the Fiddle)
- 1962: O Darling - what intercourse (The Fast Lady)
- 1966–1967: Mrs Thursday (TV series, 38 episodes)
- 1976: Our Mutual Friend (TV series, 4 episodes)
- 1979: James Jr. Strikes (The London Connection)
Web links
- Kathleen Harrison in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Kathleen Harrison in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Harrison, Kathleen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 23, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Blackburn , England , UK |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 7, 1995 |
| Place of death | London , England , UK |