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Margaret Rutherford 1892 - 1972

Margaret Taylor Rutherford was born on May 11, 1892 at Balham in Greater London County, England United Kingdom to Florence (Nicholson) Rutherford and William Rutherford Benn. Margaret Rutherford married James Buckley Stringer Davis on March 26, 1945 at United Kingdom, and they were married until Margaret's death on May 22, 1972 at Chalfont Saint Peter, UK in Chalfont Saint Peter, Buckinghamshire County.

Margaret Taylor Rutherford

May 11, 1892

Balham in Greater London County, England, United Kingdom

May 22, 1972

Chalfont Saint Peter, UK in Chalfont Saint Peter, Buckinghamshire County, England, United Kingdom

Female

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Margaret Rutherford Margaret Rutherford (1892 - 1972)

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Margaret Taylor Rutherford's History: 1892 - 1972

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Introduction

Margaret Rutherford Born May 11, 1892 in Balham, London, England, UK Died May 22, 1972 in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, England, UK (pneumonia) Birth Name Margaret Taylor Rutherford Height 5' 5" (1.65 m) Mini Bio (1) Rare is the reference to Margaret Rutherford that doesn't characterize her as either jut-chinned, eccentric, or both. The combination of those most mundane of attributes has led some to suggest that she was made for the role of Agatha Christie's indomitable sleuth, Jane Marple, whom Rutherford portrayed in four films between 1961 and 1964 plus in an uncredited film cameo in The Alphabet Murders (1965). Rutherford began her acting career first as a student at London's Old Vic, debuting on stage in 1925. In 1933, she first appeared in the West End at the not-so-tender age of 41. She had her screen debut in 1936 portraying Miss Butterby in the Twickenham-Wardour production of Hideout in the Alps (1936). In summer 1941, Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit opened on the London stage, with Coward himself directing. Appearing as Madame Arcati, the genuine psychic, was Rutherford, in a role in which Coward had earlier envisaged her and which he then especially shaped for her. She would carry her portrayal of Madame Arcati to the screen adaptation, David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945). Not only would this become one of Rutherford's most memorable screen performances - with her bicycling about the Kentish countryside, cape fluttering behind her - but it would establish the model for portraying that pseudo-soothsayer forever thereafter. Despite Rutherford's appearances in more than 40 films, it is as Madame Arcati and Miss Jane Marple that she will best be remembered. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Takacs Spouse (1) Stringer Davis (26 March 1945 - 22 May 1972) ( her death) Trivia (19) Agatha Christie dedicated her 1963 novel, The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side, to Rutherford in admiration. She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1961 Queen's New Year Honours List and the DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1967 Queen's New Year Honours List for her services to drama. She started work on The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), but illness caused her to be replaced by Fay Compton. Her husband, Stringer Davis, portrayed Mr. Stringer in her four Miss Marple films and appeared with her in other films as well. Her cousin is the well-known British politician Tony Benn. She was the daughter of William Benn and Florence Nicholson. In 1883, nine years before her birth, her father murdered her grandfather. Her mother committed suicide when she was three years old and she was brought up by her aunt, Bessie Nicholson, in Wimbledon. When her aunt died a small inheritance allowed her to join the Old Vic in repertory. She developed an interest in the theatre while at school. Her guardian aunt paid for her to have private acting lessons. In 1925 (age 33), she was accepted as a student at the Old Vic Theatre, where she appeared in several small Shakespearean roles in productions starring Edith Evans, including The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew. The Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts named an award after her. She was interred at Saint James Churchyard in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England, with her husband, Stringer Davis. Her epitaph reads "A Blithe Spirit.". Was the 58th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The V.I.P.s (1963) at The 36th Annual Academy Awards (1964) on April 13, 1964. While filming "The Virgin and the Gypsy" in 1969 Rutherford, who was playing a deaf old grandmother, suffered frequent memory lapses causing filming delays. This resulted in her being replaced by Fay Compton. Unfortunately Rutherford never made another film. A memorial service was held for her at St Paul's, Covent Garden (commonly known as the Actors' Church), on 21 July 1972. Among those in attendance were John Gielgud, Flora Robson, Ralph Richardson, Joyce Grenfell and Sybil Thorndike. Robert Morley said in a 1967 TV interview, "Although the profession is crowded with very nice people, she's always too nice, too soft, too much the perfect auntie. She's frightfully funny. She's a marvelous woman... a good woman.". Song of Norway (1970) was the last project for which Margaret Rutherford was contracted, but because of her poor memory at the time, she was replaced before shooting began. She was offered the role of Miss La Creevy in The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens (1970). Margaret also rehearsed the part in her home in the presence of Ned Sherrin and Anthony Hopkins. Having been unwell for quite a while, she didn't manage to remember her lines though and was therefore replaced. She collaborated with husband Stringer Davis on a total of 27 television and cinema productions. She appeared in two adaptations of the 1895 play "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde: she played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (1946) and Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). Decided not to have children, despite having strong maternal feelings and a great love for children, out of fear that her children would contract mental illnesses, as she and her parents did. (Margaret battled depression throughout her life; her father murdered her grandfather and her mother committed suicide.). Personal Quotes (5) I hope I'm an individual. I suppose an eccentric is a super individual. Perhaps an eccentric is just off centre - ex-centric. But that contradicts a belief of mine that we've got to be centrifugal. You never have a comedian who hasn't got a very deep strain of sadness within him or her. One thing is incidental on the other. Every great clown has been very near to tragedy. [on co-starring with Alastair Sim in The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950)] I found doing the film a bit tiresome. Film actors are, by nature, more complicated than stage actors. Mr Sim is a brilliant actor but most competitive. [on her initial aversion to doing a Miss Marple movie] Murder, you see, is not the sort of thing I can get close to. I don't like these things that are just for thrills. I would far rather go without work. I do not like murder. It has an atmosphere I have always found uncongenial. How I would love to have been a great traditional actress like Bernhardt, Duse, or Ellen Terry. There have been so many parts I yearned to play.
05/11

1892

Birthday

May 11, 1892

Birthdate

Balham in Greater London County, England United Kingdom

Birthplace

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Ethnicity & Family History

Margaret Rutherford died on May 22, 1972 at Chalfont Saint Peter, UK, Chalfont Saint Peter, England United Kingdom at 80 years old. She was born on May 11, 1892 at Balham, England United Kingdom. She is the child of Florence (Nicholson) Rutherford and William Rutherford Benn. According to her family tree, she married James Buckley Stringer Davis on March 26, 1945 at United Kingdom, United Kingdom. They were married until Margaret's death in 1972 at Chalfont Saint Peter, UK, Chalfont Saint Peter, England United Kingdom.
Professional Career

Film career Although she made her film debut in 1936, it was Rutherford's turn as Madame Arcati in David Lean's film of Blithe Spirit (1945) that established her in films. Her jaunty performance, cycling about the Kent countryside, head held high, back straight, and cape fluttering behind her, established the model for portraying that role thereafter. She was Nurse Carey in Miranda (1948) and the sprightly Medieval expert Professor Hatton-Jones in Passport to Pimlico (1949), one of the Ealing Comedies. She reprised her stage roles of the headmistress alongside Alastair Sim in The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950) and Miss Prism in Anthony Asquith's film adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). More comedies followed, including Castle in the Air (1952) with David Tomlinson, Trouble in Store (1953), with Norman Wisdom, The Runaway Bus (1954) with Frankie Howerd and An Alligator Named Daisy (1955) with Donald Sinden and Diana Dors. Rutherford then worked with Norman Wisdom again in Just My Luck (1957) and co-starred in The Smallest Show on Earth with Virginia McKenna, Peter Sellers and Leslie Phillips (both 1957). She featured, alongside Ian Carmichael and Peter Sellers, in the Boulting Brothers satire I'm All Right Jack (1959). In the early 1960s, she appeared as Miss Jane Marple in a series of four George Pollock films loosely based on the novels of Agatha Christie. The films depicted Marple as a colourful character, respectable but bossy and eccentric. Authors Marion Shaw and Sabine Vanacker in their book Reflecting on Miss Marple (1991) complained that the emphasis on the "dotty element in the character" missed entirely "the quietness and sharpness" that was admired in the novels.[2] The actress, then aged in her 70s, insisted on wearing her own clothes for the part and having her husband appear alongside her. In 1963 Christie dedicated her novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side "To Margaret Rutherford in admiration", though the novelist too was critical of the films for diverging from her original plots and playing dramatic scenes for laughs.[2][7] Rutherford reprised the role of Miss Marple in a very brief, uncredited cameo in the 1965 film The Alphabet Murders. Rutherford played the absent-minded, impoverished, pill-popping Duchess of Brighton, the only comedy relief, in The V.I.P.s (1963), from a screenplay by Terence Rattigan. The film features a star-studded cast led by Maggie Smith, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. For her performance, she won an Academy Award and Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress. At the time she set a record for the oldest woman and last born in the nineteenth century to win an Oscar. She appeared as Mistress Quickly in Orson Welles' film Chimes at Midnight (1965) and was directed by Charlie Chaplin in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, which was one of her final films. She started work on The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), but illness caused her to be replaced by Fay Compton.
Personal Life & Family

Personal life In 1945, Rutherford, fifty-three, married character actor Stringer Davis, forty-six, after a courtship that lasted for 15 years. Davis' mother reportedly considered Rutherford an unsuitable match for her son, and their wedding was postponed until after Mrs. Davis had died. Subsequently, the couple appeared in many productions together. Davis adored Rutherford, with one friend noting: "For him she was not only a great talent but, above all, a beauty." The actor and former serviceman rarely left his wife's side, serving Rutherford as private secretary and general dogsbody. More importantly, he nursed and comforted her through periodic debilitating depressions. These illnesses, sometimes involving stays in mental hospitals and electric shock treatment, were kept hidden from the press during Rutherford's lifetime. In the 1950s, Rutherford and Davis unofficially adopted the writer Gordon Langley Hall, then in his twenties. Hall later had sex reassignment surgery and became Dawn Langley Simmons, under which name she wrote a biography of Rutherford in 1983.
05/22

1972

Death

May 22, 1972

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

Chalfont Saint Peter, UK in Chalfont Saint Peter, Buckinghamshire County, England United Kingdom
Death location

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Obituary

Death Rutherford suffered from Alzheimer's disease at the end of her life and was unable to work. Davis cared for his wife at their Buckinghamshire home until her death on 22 May 1972, aged 80. Many of Britain's top actors, including Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, Dame Flora Robson and Joyce Grenfell, attended a memorial Service of Thanksgiving at the Actors' Church, St. Paul's, Covent Garden, on 21 July 1972, where 90-year-old Dame Sybil Thorndike praised her friend's enormous talent and recalled that Rutherford had "never said anything horrid about anyone". Rutherford and Davis (who died in 1973) are interred at the graveyard of St. James's Church, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. "A Blithe Spirit" is inscribed on the base of Margaret Rutherford's memorial stone, a reference to the Noël Coward play that helped to make her name. Dame Margaret Rutherford Photo added by AJ Picture of Added by Running Ambassador Picture of Added by Steve Johnson Dame Margaret Rutherford Famous memorial BIRTH 11 May 1892 Balham, London Borough of Wandsworth, Greater London, England DEATH 22 May 1972 (aged 80) Chalfont St Peter, Chiltern District, Buckinghamshire, England BURIAL St James Churchyard Gerrards Cross, South Bucks District, Buckinghamshire, England Show Map PLOT Memorial Plate in St. Paul's Church Covent Garden. Buriel Plot St. James's Church, Gerrards Cross. MEMORIAL ID 8388553 · View Source MEMORIAL PHOTOS 5 FLOWERS 1K+ Actress. Despite having an acting career that lasted from 1936 to 1967 and encompassed roles in the theater and in motion pictures, she is best remembered for her performances late in her career as ‘Miss Marple,’ the fictional elderly amateur detective created by crime-novelist Agatha Christie. The character had been popular since 1930, but it wasn’t until Dame Rutherford’s portrayal in 1961’s “Murder, She Said” that she first appeared in films. Margaret Rutherford had appeared in twelve movie roles prior to her appearance in 1945’s “Blithe Spirit” as ‘Madame Arcati’ that established her as an actress. In the 1950s she starred in a number of successful comedies before assuming the ‘Miss Marple’ role, which she appeared as in five movies. In 1963 her performance as ‘The Duchess of Brighton” in motion picture director Anthony Asquith’s “The V.I.P.S” won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was appointed first as as Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1961, then as a Dame Commander in 1967. Inscription To The Loved Memory Of Margaret Rutherford D. B. E. -Actress- (Dear Wife of J.B. Stringer Davis) Family Members Parents William Benn William Rutherford Benn 1855–1921 Florence Rutherford Florence Nicholson Rutherford 1858–1896 Spouse Stringer Davis Stringer Davis 1899–1973 Children Dawn Langley Pepita Hall Simmons Dawn Langley Pepita Hall Simmons 1922–2000

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Margaret Rutherford lived 8 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 80.

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9 Memories, Stories & Photos about Margaret

Amanda S. Stevenson

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04/13/2019

Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Margaret Rutherford

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

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08/20/2022

Margaret Rutherford in Colour.

Book about her.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

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08/20/2022

Margaret Rutherford as a young lady.

Posted on a Facebook page.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

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04/13/2019

Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Margaret Rutherford

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/13/2019

Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Margaret Rutherford

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/13/2019

Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Margaret Rutherford

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/06/2019

Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Margaret Rutherford

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

03/27/2019

Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Margaret Rutherford

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Amanda S. Stevenson

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11/17/2018

Joyce Grenfell and Margaret Rutherford

A photo of Joyce Grenfell and Margaret Rutherford, as MISS MARPLE.

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Margaret Rutherford's Family Tree & Friends

Margaret Rutherford's Family Tree

Florence (Nicholson) Rutherford 1858 - May 22, 1896

William Rutherford Benn 1855 - Aug 4, 1921

Margaret Rutherford May 11, 1892 - May 22, 1972

Partner

Child

Sibling

Marriage

James Buckley Stringer Davis