PHYLLIS CALVERT OBITUARY IN “THE GUARDIAN” IN 2002
Phyllis Calvert was one of the Gainsborough ladies who were the leading lights of 40’s cinema in Britain. Margaret Lockwood was the leading light followed coosely in popularity bu Phyllis Calvert and then Patricia Roc and Jean Kent. Ms Calvert was born in Chelsea, London in 1915. She made her London stage debut in “A Woman’s Privilege” in 1939. Her breakthrough role on film came with “The Man in Gray” in 1943. Other film highlights include”2,000 Women”, “Fanny by Gaslight”, “Madonna of the Seven Moons” and “The Magic Bow”. She made three films in Hollywood including “Appointment With Danger” in 1951 with Alan Ladd where she played a nun who witnesses a murder. In 1952 she received widespread critical acclaim for “Mandy”. She continued working well into her eighties. Phyllis Calvert died in 2002 at the age of 87
Eric Shotter’s obituary in “The Guardian” :
Phyllis Calvert, who has died aged 87, made her way to the top of British cinema in the 1940s through niceness. As a well-bred, Kensington-accented cornerstone of Gainsborough costume epics, she vied with Margaret Lockwood at the box office.
Regency romps, they were known as. Utter nonsense, with heart-throbs like Stewart Granger and James Mason served up with grace and charm, was quintessential to Calvert’s artistic durability – but to keep it up, without growing dull, required a determined personality and an exceptional talent. It saw her through a long and respectable career in films, plays and television.
The only great dramatic part that ever came Calvert’s way was Madame Ranevskya in The Cherry Orchard, for the Oxford Playhouse on tour in 1971. Yet, within her permitted range, was a talent which served writers from Terence Rattigan (Flare Path, 1942), JM Barrie (Peter Pan, 1947), Roger MacDougall (Escapade, 1953) and Graham Greene (The Complaisant Lover, 1959), to Noel Coward (Present Laughter, 1965, Blithe Spirit, 1971, Hay Fever, 1973), William Douglas Home (The Reluctant Debutante, 1975), Edward Albee (All Over, 1973), Denis Cannan (Dear Daddy, 1976) and Rodney Ackland (Before The Party, 1980).
Whether as bored wives realising how much their boring husbands need them, long-suffering matriarchs tied to bombastic pacifists or in flight from their rowdy families, or just het up because cook had handed in her notice, Calvert’s galère of gracious British womanhood was hard to take your eyes off. Her sense of comedy never failed her in its dry, sarcastic discipline, and there was always that expressive lower lip, with which she stirred our feelings in the feeblest part
child dancer until an injury forced her to switch to acting, she was born Phyllis Bickle in London, and educated at the Margaret Morris school of dancing and the Institut Français. She first appeared on the stage aged 10, at the Lyric, Hammersmith, with Ellen Terry in Walter de la Mare’s Crossings (1925). She got her chance in films at 12 and, during six or seven prewar years in weekly rep, made a few forgotten talkies.
In Max Catto’s Punch Without Judy (1939), she met her future husband, Peter Murray Hill, better known later as a publisher. With him as Hook, she also acted Peter Pan in the annual Scala revival of 1947. The golden wartime days at Gainsborough studios, with James Mason or Stewart Granger dancing attendance in such epics as The Man In Grey (1943), Fanny By Gaslight (1944), Madonna Of The Seven Moons (1944) and They Were Sisters (1945) had long gone; though she regularly went on making films of even more variable quality for another quarter of a century.
One of the best of the bunch was probably Mandy (1952), in which Calvert got all our tear-ducts going as the mother of the deaf-and-dumb heroine.
Her work on stage and television – especially as a woman’s page writer in the series Kate, and plays like Death Of A Heart (1985) and Across The Lake (1988) – stood her in better stead because it had the backing of years in rep. It gave her a technique of little use before the camera, but invaluable on stage.
As a parent-turned-novelist in Felicity Doulkas’s It’s Never Too Late (1954), Calvert took over from Celia Johnson. As the Countess in Anouilh’s The Rehearsal (1961), she superciliously condoned her husband’s affair with Maggie Smith’s young Lucile; and, as Mrs Arbuthnot in Wilde’s A Woman Of No Importance (1967), she showed how beans could be spilled with style.
It was, however, as Queen Mary – in succession to Wendy Hiller – that her stage authority rose exquisitely to the social occasion in Royce Ryton’s Crown Matrimonial (1973). Struggling – first, as a mother through the constraints of court behaviour, and, second, as an actor through her natural niceness – to speak to her son, Edward VIII (Peter Barkworth), she brought emotional eloquence to the task of reproaching him for putting personal happiness before the monarchy.
She made her final stage appearance at the Chichester festival in 1989, in Henry James’s The Heiress, when she was 74, and came out of retirement to appear in her last film, Mrs Dalloway, in 1997.
The only other times I recall Calvert risking loss of sympathy for an apparent lapse of taste, grace or charm was at the Lyric in 1963, and at the Duke of York’s in 1964. In the first, as Marius Goring’s wife in Ronald Duncan’s Ménage à Trois, she condoned his misconduct – as long as it took place off the premises, herself departing as a lesbian with his mistress as the curtain fell. Then, as the cold, insensitive stepmother in James Saunders’s A Scent Of Flowers, she left no trace of “the rose that sings”. Was it purely coincidental that neither show ran?
Peter Murray Hill died in 1957. Calvert is survived by her son and a daughter.
· Phyllis Calvert, actor, born February 18 1915; died October 8 2002
If Margaret Lockwood was the “Wicked Lady” of British cinema, Phyllis Calvert (1915–2002) was her essential atmospheric opposite. While Lockwood thrived on defiance and fire, Calvert became the definitive “English Rose”—a performer of immense warmth, resilience, and a luminous, understated dignity.
Together, they were the twin pillars of Gainsborough Pictures, the studio that defined British escapism during the dark years of World War II.
Career Overview: The Radiance of the Gainsborough Era
Calvert’s career was built on a foundation of classical dance and theatre, which gave her a physical grace that translated perfectly to the screen.
The Breakthrough (1940s): After several years in repertory theatre, she achieved stardom in the landmark melodrama The Man in Grey (1943). While Lockwood played the villain, Calvert played the virtuous, tragic Clarissa.
The Melodrama Queen: She became the “soul” of the Gainsborough melodramas, starring in massive hits like Fanny by Gaslight (1944), 2,000 Women (1944), and Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945). By 1945, she was one of the highest-paid and most popular stars in Britain.
Hollywood and Italy: Like many British stars of her era, she attempted a Hollywood career (signing with Paramount), but found the American “studio machine” restrictive. She notably starred in the Italian-produced Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953), directed by Vittorio De Sica.
The Matriarchal Shift (1970s–90s): She transitioned seamlessly into television, becoming a beloved matriarch in the series The Kate Williams Show (1970) and appearing in high-profile dramas like The Edwardians and Casualty.
Detailed Critical Analysis: The “Steel” Behind the Silk
1. The Subversion of the “Victim” Tropes
In the 1940s, “virtuous” female characters were often written as passive. Calvert’s genius lay in her ability to infuse these roles with quiet agency.
Analysis: In Fanny by Gaslight, she plays a woman navigating the brutal class structures of Victorian England. Critics noted that Calvert didn’t play Fanny as a “damsel”; she played her with a stoic intelligence. She used her soft features and gentle voice to mask a character of immense moral “steel,” making her goodness feel like a choice rather than a lack of personality.
2. The Duality of Madonna of the Seven Moons
This film represents Calvert’s most complex technical challenge. She played a woman with a dual personality: a devout, repressed mother and a wild, Romani-inspired mistress.
Critical Insight: This role allowed Calvert to break out of the “English Rose” mold. Critics praised her for the psychological shading she brought to the transition. She didn’t rely on heavy makeup or “acting” ticks; the shift was internal, visible in the tension of her posture and the darkening of her expression. It proved she possessed a “chameleon” quality that Gainsborough often underutilized.
3. The “Calvert Glow” and Cinematography
Calvert was famously easy to light and photograph, but her screen presence was more than just aesthetic.
Technical Analysis: She possessed a translucent acting style. She had a way of “listening” on camera that drew the audience’s eye toward her, even when she wasn’t speaking. In the ensemble piece 2,000 Women (about a Nazi internment camp), she acted as the “emotional anchor,” using small, naturalistic gestures to ground the more theatrical performances of her co-stars.
4. Longevity through “Authentic Aging”
Unlike stars who struggled as they lost their youthful “glow,” Calvert embraced the transition into character work with a dry, witty realism.
Critical View: In her later TV work, she shed the “Rose” persona for something more acerbic and “no-nonsense.” She became the definitive portrayal of the “Upper-Middle-Class Matriarch”—women who were formidable, slightly terrifying, but ultimately deeply human.