Nova Pilbeam

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Nova Margery Pilbeam (born November 15, 1919 in London , † July 17, 2015 there ) was a British actress . She was a teenage star in British cinema in the 1930s and starred in two Alfred Hitchcock films .

Live and act

Nova Pilbeam was born in Wimbledon and made her theatrical debut at the age of ten. At the age of 14 she was brought in front of the camera for the first time by the Austrian directorial emigrant Berthold Viertel . In Little Friend , a family drama staged based on a model by Ernst Lothar , about the impending divorce of a married couple and the subsequent suicide attempt of their child, the young mime embodied her daughter Felicity Hughes, who was driven into deep emotional distress. Immediately afterwards, she played the key role of Betty Lawrence, kidnapped by a conspiratorial couple, in the first film adaptation of The Man Who Knew Too Much , again a daughter role, under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock at the side of Peter Lorre .

Hitchcock then gave the blond, curly 17-year-old the leading role of Erica Burgoyne in the crime thriller Young and Innocent in early 1937 . As a cheeky, youthful nose, she helped a fugitive man, suspected of murdering a film star, to arrest the real culprit in this Hitchcock side work. Fresh, open and likeable girls and young women continued to play the role of Nova Pilbeams until the beginning of World War II. Until she graduated from school, she used the school holidays for filming, but remained loyal to the stage. For example, she was successful in a performance of Peter Pan at the end of 1935 . Nova Pilbeam's most demanding film role was probably Lady Jane Gray in the opulent historical drama Tudor Rose in the autumn of 1935, the 16-year-old English queen in 1553 who was executed for alleged treason after only nine days of reign.

The 20-year-old Pilbeam received her last significant role in the late autumn of 1939 with Christine Hall, daughter of an upright man of God and Nazi despiser in Germany of Adolf Hitler , in the drama Pastor Hall . With the outbreak of the Second World War , Nova Pilbeam's career stagnated, and the artist was also hit by a severe blow in her private life. Her husband, the film director Penrose 'Pen' Tennyson (1912–1941), was killed in a plane crash in July 1941. He had served in the Admiralty department responsible for making educational films. Pilbeam made her last film in 1948, and only three years later she also retired from the theater. From 1950 until his death in 1972 Nova Pilbeam was married to the journalist Alexander Whyte and had a daughter with him. She lived withdrawn from the public in North London and refused interviews and public appearances. Pilbeam last lived in Dartmouth Park, North London and died at home on July 17, 2015 at the age of 95.

Filmography

  • 1934: Little Friend
  • 1934: The Man Who Knew Too Much (The Man Who Knew Too Much)
  • 1936: Tudor Rose
  • 1937: Young and Innocent (Young and Innocent)
  • 1939: Prison Without Bars (TV movie)
  • 1939: Cheer Boys Cheer
  • 1940: Pastor Hall
  • 1940: Spring Meeting
  • 1941: Banana Ridge
  • 1941: Next of Kin
  • 1943: Yellow Canary
  • 1946: Green Fingers
  • 1946: This Man is Mine
  • 1947: The Three Weird Sisters
  • 1948: Counterblast
  • 1951: The Shining Hour (TV movie)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philip Hoare: Nova Pilbeam: Alfred Hitchcock's star who vanished from view. In: The Independent , July 21, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  2. ^ Margalit Fox: Nova Pilbeam, an Early, and Brief, Star for Hitchcock, Dies at 95. In: The New York Times , July 23, 2015 (English). Retrieved July 24, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Pilbeam, Nova
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pilbeam, Nova Margery (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actress
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 17th July 2015
Place of death London