Gwen Watford

Gwendoline Watford (10 September 1927 – 6 February 1994), professionally known after the mid-1950s as Gwen Watford, was an English actress.

Watford's talent was spotted by John Gielgud while she was still a schoolgirl. With his help, she made her professional London debut in 1945. From then until her death, she pursued a parallel career on stage and on television. She played a wide range of roles, from Shakespeare and Shaw to new works by playwrights including Willis Hall, David Hare, Hugh Leonard and David Mercer. For the BBC and ITV, she appeared frequently from the mid-1950s onwards, and was dubbed one of British television's two leading ladies. She twice won the Society of Film and Television Arts's award (now the BAFTA award) for best television actress. Although she appeared in several cinema films, including Cleopatra, she remained chiefly known as a stage and television performer.

In later years Watford appeared in more comedy than in her earlier career, including the television series Don't Forget to Write! and in the West End Noël Coward's Present Laughter, for which she won a Society of West End Theatre Award in 1981. The last years of her career were curtailed by ill health, and she died aged 66.

Early years Watford was born in London, the third of three children of Percy Charles Watford and his wife Elizabeth, née Cooper. Percy Watford had been a non-commissioned officer in the First World War. Afterward he became the owner of a public house at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex.

Watford made her first professional appearance at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings in March 1944, as Florrie in the comedy Once A Gentleman. Her London debut was the following year: on Gielgud's recommendation Anthony Hawtrey engaged her to play Fenny, the romantic lead, in Dodie Smith's comedy Dear Octopus at the Embassy Theatre. In the West End, she appeared at the Winter Garden in May 1946 as Judith Drave in the long-running drama No Room at the Inn, and the St Martin's Theatre in January 1950 as Jennifer in Kenneth Horne's comedy A Lady Mislaid. (The BBC spelled her name "Gwendolyn Watford" in the credits for the series.) Among the new plays in which she starred on television was a 1958 piece by Clemence Dane, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth I, of which the reviewer in The Daily Telegraph wrote:

The Times said of this period that Watford and Billie Whitelaw were the two leading ladies of British television. Her next role with the London company was Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream to the Oberon of Alec McCowen; The Times thought her "enchanting", but the cast won higher praise than the production, which was thought prosaic. Her third and final role in the Old Vic season was Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part 1. but another five years elapsed before she appeared again in a London theatre. For the cinema she played supporting roles in The Very Edge, Cleopatra (both 1963) and Valley of the Kings (1964), and had a leading part in Do You Know This Voice? (1964). She recreated the role the following year for BBC radio. Her last West End role of the 1960s was Violet Seedy in Come Sunday, half of a double-bill that ran briefly at the Fortune Theatre in October 1968. The following year she was a founder-member of Robin Phillips's Company Theatre group, based at Greenwich Theatre; fellow members included Jeremy Brett, Charles Dance, Mia Farrow, Penelope Keith and Joan Plowright. In the company's opening production, Chekhov's Three Sisters, Watford, playing Masha, was "ripely sensual", "memorable" and "the essence of Chekhovian suffering", according to critics. Other stage appearances outside the West End included Mrs Conklin and Hilde Latymer in a Noël Coward double bill in Basingstoke, and Gertrude in Hamlet at Ludlow. The Stage, commenting in 1974 that Watford was too rarely seen in London, asked "why it is that this supremely talented actress so seldom gets the parts she deserves in the theatres to which her abilities entitle her".

During the 1970s, Watford continued to appear in numerous one-off television dramas, including Special Branch in 1973. But her most conspicuous screen role was as co-star with George Cole in the comedy series Don't Forget to Write!, written by Charles Wood. It originated in a single comedy written for ITV in 1974, but was taken up by the BBC. Twelve episodes were made in two series between 1977 and 1979. The comic playing of Cole and Watford was likened by The Stage to "a superb Rolls Royce ... gliding smoothly and effortlessly along" but with "hidden power under the bonnet".

Her radio roles in the 1970s included Minna in a drama about the life of Richard Wagner, leading parts in adaptations of stories by Maugham, Henry James, George Meredith and Daphne du Maurier; Mrs Davenport in the premiere of Terence Rattigan's Cause Célèbre, and Lady Britomart in Shaw's Major Barbara. She was last seen in the West End as Alice More opposite Charlton Heston in A Man for All Seasons, in a production transferred from the Chichester Festival. The Evening Standard found her performance so touching that it "would make a stone weep". Offstage, she was vice-chairman of the Combined Theatrical Charities and was one of the four trustees of Equity.

Watford's later career was curtailed by illness, but the year before her death she toured in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. A memorial service was held at the actors' church, St Paul's, Covent Garden, on 22 March 1994; Sinden read the lesson and there were readings by Gielgud, Judi Dench and other friends and colleagues.

Selected filmography

The Fall of the House of Usher (1950) .... Lady Usher David Copperfield (1956) .... Rose Dartle The Winslow Boy (1958) (TV) .... Katherine Winslow Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960) .... Sally Carter The Grass Is Greener (1960) .... Hairdresser's receptionist (uncredited) The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1961) (TV) .... Elizabeth Barrett The Very Edge (1963) .... Sister Holden Cleopatra (1963) .... Calpurnia Do You Know This Voice? (1964) .... Jackie Hopta Valley of the Kings (1964) .... Mrs. Marsh The Rise and Rise of Cesar Birotteau (1965) (TV) .... Constance Birotteau Broome Stages (1966) (TV) .... Lettice Broome Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969) .... Martha Hargood Shadows of Fear (1970) .... Moira Astle (episode Did You Lock Up?) A Face of Your Own (1973) (TV) .... Moira The Ghoul (1975) .... Ayah In This House of Brede (1975) (TV) .... Dame Catherine Crown Court (1977) (TV) | The Silencer – Barbara Truscott Don't Forget To Write! (1977–1979) (TV) .... Mable Maple The Agatha Christie Hour: The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife (1982) (TV) .... Maria Packington Miss Marple: The Body in the Library (1984) (TV).... Mrs. Dolly Bantry Sorrell and Son (1984) Cry Freedom (1987) .... Wendy's Mother Behaving Badly (1989) (TV) .... Frieda Relatively Speaking (1990) (TV) .... Sheila Carter The Winslow Boy (1990) (TV) .... Grace Winslow Miss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1992) (TV) .... Mrs. Dolly Bantry (final film role)

Notes, references and sources