RATHER TALENTED
How stage and screen star Margaret Rutherford forged a path to fame in her late 30s -
MARGARET Rutherford was a great character actress, remembered and loved for her fantastic screen creations including Madame Aracati in Blithe Spirit and as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. But the theatre was where she learned and honed her craft, and Bristol saw two of her early, great stage performances – literally watching her star as it rose.
Margaret’s stage entrance was late: by the time she made her professional debut she was 36. When she got her break she was 43, and still a comparative beginner.
The break was Short Story starring Marie Tempest and Sybil Thorndike, and Margaret had a small role as eccentric spinster Miss Flower. But the casting was inspired and Margaret didn’t just make the most of it; she stole the show, with one reviewer announcing, “‘Miss Margaret Rutherford has a roaring success as a village lady of organising tendencies. [her] shrewd characterisation and humour deserved all the appreciation that was given her.”
The Sunday Times said: “convulses the house every moment she is on stage. The scene in which this tigerish mouse wrestles with another caller for the telephone, and finally secures it with a kick on the ankle, is the best thing in the play.”
The ankle belonged to a young Rex Harrison, and the kick had been Margaret’s idea. Night after night the business got a round of applause. The humour was lost on Marie Tempest, who had trod the boards for half a century and was decidedly not amused.
The upstart was summoned to the star’s dressing room, and Margaret later recalled that, “in no uncertain manner [she] told me that she was not accustomed to have a play stolen from under her nose…it was not the thing to do to stand up to Miss Tempest. But I was quite firm and told her very quietly that I intended to play my part as well as I could and that was that.”
Short Story toured after London, including a week in Bristol at the Prince’s Theatre, Park Row, where The Stage said, “the first night [was] a notable event,” with a “huge house”. With Miss Flower, Margaret’s comic genius blossomed - and by Bristol she was on the road to stardom herself. From now on she would specialise in a riotous array of acutely observed eccentric spinsters, both hilariously funny and extremely moving.
In 1939 Margaret returned to the Prince’s Theatre twice. In the three years since Short Story she had done both radio and the new ‘television’ for the BBC as well as films, and had to juggle rehearsals with her stage matinees.
At London’s Ambassadors Theatre she played the wonderfully named Bijou Furze in the stage adaptation of Molly Keane’s Spring Meeting, directed by John Geilgud. Bijou is an impoverished Irish gentry character. and The Daily Telegraph wanted to give Margaret an award for “a study which is both hilarious and almost painful in its pathological exactitude.” Margaret would later say that she never saw her character as comical: “to me a woman like Bijou had a deep streak of disturbing pathos that one finds often in the so-called comic characters of life.”
Bijou made the front cover of Theatre World, with a huge feature inside; there were bouquets at the stage door; The Sketch hailed Margaret as “The hit of SPRING MEETING”. Critic Ivor Brown said, “The play does tend to wilt when she is away.”
The “tigerish mouse” who’d dared to outface Marie (now Dame Marie) Tempest had arrived; never again would Margaret be summoned to a star’s dressing room for a dressing down.
Spring Meeting’s tour included a week at the Prince’s in May 1939, and this time the name MARGARET RUTHERFORD featured in the advertisements. The Western Daily Press was not disappointed: “the outstanding personal performance, however, came, as one anticipated, from Margaret Rutherford, a lovably-cantankerous old aunt, with a secret passion for betting on horses.”
Six months later, Margaret was back with a different play in a very different world. When Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, London theatres closed shortly afterwards. The forced shutdown lasted just eleven days – how different from today!
Some theatres stayed shut due to the threat of bombing, but London’s
loss was the provinces’ gain. West End shows took to the road, including John Geilgud’s legendary production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, with Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell speaking the immortal words, “A Handbag?!”
Evans may have been the biggest star in a truly glittering cast, but Margaret was making ground fast and now had a full page photo in the programme. When critics remarked on similarities between Bijou Furze and Miss Prism, Margaret said she hadn’t consciously linked them, but she saw a deep strain of loneliness in both women, “a withdrawal from the world...this I have always personally understood.”
Margaret Rutherford suffered from depression all her life, had several major breakdowns, and was frequently hospitalised. Her father had killed his own father before she was born, and her mother is believed to have taken her own life while pregnant with a second child.
Margaret feared she had inherited her father’s mental illness and that her private tragedies would be discovered by, and potentially revealed by the press as a result of her fame. But her creativity and
wonderful characters were her salvation, allowing her to escape from, as she said, those times when “you are sick of yourself and the futilities of life”. The mask of comedy often conceals great sadness.
The Importance of Being Earnest opened in Bristol on Monday October 16 1939, when Margaret must have been feeling particularly lonely. Nine years earlier at Oxford Rep, she’d fallen for actor Stringer Davis and they had a complex on/ off relationship.
Stringer had served in the First World War, and by 1939 he was 40 too old to be called up. When he immediately volunteered again it must have been a shock to Margaret. On October 15, the day before the Bristol opening, Stringer was appointed Second Lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment. Two days later the Post reviewed the first night at The Prince’s: “…the cleverest acting I have ever seen. To watch these artistes is a precious theatrical experience…an abundance of genius…Margaret Rutherford and George Howe in less exalted company would have earned a column of praise each. A brilliant company in a brilliant play.”
The very next day - Margaret had a 2pm matinee and 6.45 evening show on Park Row, the earlier evening time presumably due to the blackout – Stringer wrote to say he’d started a fortnight’s intense training and to, “please send me an arty photograph of yourself.” They would hardly see each other for the rest of the war.
While the Prince’s Theatre was destroyed in the Blitz of 1940, Margaret’s star continued to ascend. She was the first to play the terrifying Mrs Danvers in Daphne du Maurier’s own stage adaption of Rebecca – with Celia Johnson as the second Mrs de Winter. In 1941 Spring Meeting was filmed with Margaret as Bijou, and Noel Coward asked her to play Madam Arcati – written specially for her – in his play Blithe Spirit. But Margaret turned it down, fearing the play and the part were less than respectful to the spirits on “the other side”, in which she was a firm believer. Coward was furious and called her a name that cannot be written here.
When she eventually agreed to do it, he was forbidden to give her any notes as director and later said he considered her “the worst thing in it”.
In 1945 Margaret filmed Blithe Spirit as a blissful Madam Arcati and married Stringer, “dazed with happiness”. She would become the
highest earning British actress at MGM, with all her film contracts including a role for her husband. In 1957 she appeared in The Smallest Show on Earth – a celebration of cinema like no other. In 1961 she was the first to play Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple on film, and was awarded an OBE. In 1963, aged 71, she made three films including The VIPs, in which her pill-popping, impoverished Duchess of Brighton attempts to board a flight to America without the necessary smallpox vaccination certificate. She got a Golden Globe and an Oscar, and was the oldest performer to win the latter for Best Supporting Actress, beating Dame Edith Evans. Margaret was made a Dame in 1967.
Mr and Mrs Stringer Davis were devoted to each other; him caring for her on set with thermos, hot water bottle and even a primus stove – a relic from their touring theatre days to make the after show late night bacon and egg suppers they both adored. Margaret died in 1972 and Stringer the following year, unable to live without her.
Sheila Hannon’s Show of Strength Theatre Company runs a regular series of walks looking at some of the more sensational (and often gruesome) tales from Bristol’s, including “Crime and Crinolines in Clifton”, “Blood and Butchery in Bedminster” and more. For details, see showofstrength.org.uk