Jennifer Gray

Jennifer Gray (5 November 1916 – 3 February 1962) was a British actress, frequently seen in the West End and on tour between 1934 and 1954. She made only two cinema films, but was often seen on BBC television in the late 1940s. Among the roles she created onstage were Daphne Stillington in Noël Coward's Present Laughter and Queenie Gibbons in his This Happy Breed, which premiered on successive nights in September 1942.

Life and career Early years Gray was born in Hankow, China, on 5 November 1916, the daughter of Dr Alexander Hugh Skinner, and his wife Winifred Mary, née Beney. She was educated at Westonbirt School and then studied for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama under Elsie Fogerty. She made her first professional appearance on the stage at the Piccadilly Theatre, London on 16 December 1934, as Thetis in Dreams and Ditches. After a 25-week tour, taking in 21 cities and towns in England, Scotland and Wales, the productions opened for a limited season of 38 performances at the Haymarket Theatre, London in April 1943. After that run finished, she joined the cast of Coward's Blithe Spirit at the Duchess Theatre, taking over the part of Edith. During 1946–47 Gray was with the repertory company at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, and she returned to the West End in October 1947 as Mrs Dallas-Baker in a revival of an early Somerset Maugham play, Smith. At the People's Palace in May, 1950 she appeared as Kerenhappuch in Bird-cage, in which she subsequently toured. In a production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951–52 she played Blanche du Bois. She toured in 1953 as Mrs James in The Gay Dog, a farce starring Wilfred Pickles. At the Globe Theatre in London she succeeded Gabrielle Brune as Hilda in Emlyn Williams's thriller Someone Waiting, in 1954, subsequently touring in the part with the author in the leading male role.

In addition to her stage roles, Gray appeared in two cinema films: Her Father's Daughter (1941) and an adaptation of The Gay Dog with Pickles and Petula Clark (1954). For the BBC she appeared as Sheba in adaptations of Seyler's production of Dandy Dick on radio in April 1948 and on television in July of that year. Other television appearances were in adaptations of Gas Light (1947), Trilby (1947), Tons of Money (1947) and George and Margaret (1948).

Gray was married to Robert Langford-Jones;

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