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IMDbPro

Margaret Lockwood(1916-1990)

  • Actress
  • Writer
  • Soundtrack
IMDbProStarmeter
See rank
Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
A British fortune-hunter playboy is killing his rich wives in order to inherit their wealth.
Play trailer1:49
Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
4 Videos
92 Photos
Karachi-born Margaret Lockwood, daughter of a British colonial railway clerk, was educated in London and studied to be an actress at the Italia Conti Drama School. Her first moment on stage came at the age of 12, when she played a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1928. She had a bit part in the Drury Lane production of "Cavalcade" in 1932, before completing her training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Her film career began in 1934 with Lorna Doone (1934) and she was already a seasoned performer when Alfred Hitchcock cast her in his thriller, The Lady Vanishes (1938), opposite relative newcomer Michael Redgrave. The film was shot at Islington studios and was "in the can" after just five weeks in 1937 and released the following year. This was her first opportunity to shine, and she gave an intelligent, convincing performance as the inquisitive girl who suspects a conspiracy when an elderly lady (May Whitty) seemingly disappears into thin air during a train journey. Due to the success of the film, Margaret spent some time in Hollywood but was given poor material and soon returned home. Back at Gainsborough, producer Edward Black had planned to pair Lockwood and Redgrave much the same way William Powell and Myrna Loy had been teamed up in the "Thin Man" films in America, but the war intervened and the two were only to appear together in the Carol Reed-directed The Stars Look Down (1940). This was the first of her "bad girl" roles that would effectively redefine her career in the 1940s. In between playing femmes fatales, she had a popular hit in the 1944 melodrama A Lady Surrenders (1944) as a brilliant but fatally ill pianist and was sympathetic enough as a young girl who is possessed by a ghost in A Place of One's Own (1945). However, her best-remembered performances came in two classic Gainsborough period dramas. The first of these, The Man in Grey (1943), co-starring James Mason, was torrid escapist melodrama with Lockwood portraying a treacherous, opportunistic vixen, all the while exuding more sexual allure than was common for films of this period. The enormous popular success of this picture led to her second key role in 1945 (again with Mason) as the cunning and cruel title character of The Wicked Lady (1945), a female Dick Turpin. This was even more daring in its depiction of immorality, and the controversy surrounding the film did no harm at the box office. Some of Lockwood's scenes had to be re-shot for American audiences not accustomed to seeing décolletages. Margaret scored another hit with Bedelia (1946), as a demented serial poisoner, and then played a Gypsy girl accused of murder in the Technicolor romp Jassy (1947).

As her popularity waned in the 1950s she returned to occasional performances on the West End stage and appeared on television, making her greatest impact as a dedicated barrister in the ITV series Justice (1971), which ran from 1971 to 1974.
BornSeptember 15, 1916
DiedJuly 15, 1990(73)
BornSeptember 15, 1916
DiedJuly 15, 1990(73)
IMDbProStarmeter
See rank
  • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award

Photos92

James Harcourt and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Paul Henreid and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Rex Harrison, James Harcourt, and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid, and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
James Harcourt and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
James Harcourt and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Paul Henreid and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)
Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood in Night Train to Munich (1940)

Known for

Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
The Lady Vanishes
7.8
  • Iris Matilda Henderson
  • 1938
Dirk Bogarde and Margaret Lockwood in Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
Cast a Dark Shadow
7.0
  • Freda Jeffries
  • 1955
Patricia Roc and Dermot Walsh in Jassy (1947)
Jassy
6.4
  • Jassy
  • 1947
Night Train to Munich (1940)
Night Train to Munich
7.2
  • Anna Bomasch
  • 1940

Credits

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IMDbPro

Actress

  • Richard Chamberlain in The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella (1976)
    The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella
  • Anthony Valentine, Margaret Lockwood, and John Stone in Justice (1971)
    Justice
  • Liza Goddard, Nerys Hughes, Joanna Lumley, Bill Maynard, Patrick Mower, Jon Pertwee, Magnus Pyke, Victor Spinetti, and Mollie Sugden in Whodunnit? (1972)
    Whodunnit?
  • BBC Play of the Month (1965)
    BBC Play of the Month
  • ITV Playhouse (1967)
    ITV Playhouse
  • The Flying Swan
  • The Human Jungle (1963)
    The Human Jungle
  • ITV Play of the Week (1955)
    ITV Play of the Week
  • Yorky
  • Bob Dylan, David Warner, Ursula Howells, Reg Lye, and Maureen Pryor in The Madhouse on Castle Street (1963)
    BBC Sunday-Night Play
  • Saturday Playhouse
  • Theatre Night
  • The Royalty (1957)
    The Royalty
  • BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950)
    BBC Sunday-Night Theatre
  • Brian Bedford and Elvi Hale in ITV Television Playhouse (1955)
    ITV Television Playhouse

Writer

  • Round the Film Studios

Soundtrack

  • I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945)
    I'll Be Your Sweetheart

Videos4

Susannah of the Mounties
Clip 1:56
Susannah of the Mounties
Official Trailer
Trailer 2:56
Official Trailer
Trailer
Trailer 1:49
Trailer
The Lady Vanishes: The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
Trailer 1:22
The Lady Vanishes: The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]

Personal details

Edit
    • September 15, 1916
    • Karachi, British India [now Karachi, Pakistan]
    • July 15, 1990
    • Kensington, London, England, UK(cirrhosis of the liver)
    • October 17, 1937 - 1950 (divorced, 1 child)
    • Julia Lockwood
    • Lyn Lockwood(Sibling)
  • Other works
    Stage: Appeared in Noël Coward's play, "Relative Values", at London's Westminster Theatre with Joyce Blair, Gwen Cherrell. Directed by Charles Hickman.
  • Publicity listings
    • 4 Print Biographies
    • 4 Articles
    • 1 Pictorial
    • 2 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

Edit
  • Trivia
    Was a committed teetotaller all her life and detested the taste of alcohol. She preferred to drink hot chocolate, buying 60 sachets at a time and calling it "my tipple".
    • Her beauty spot, added during filming of A Place of One's Own (1945) in 1945

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