Vida Hope

Vida Hope in Lease of Life (1954)

Vida Hope (16 December 1910 – 23 December 1963) was a British film actress.[1]

Life and career

Born in Liverpool, Lancashire to theatrical parents she travelled widely as a child.[2] She was "forbidden to go on the stage" and therefore, at age 16, became a typist in an advertising office, going on to write copy.[2] At this time, however, she took every chance she got to take part in amateur dramatics, managing to get the lead roles in plays by Shaw, Ibsen and Chekhov.[2]

Following the role of the Fairy Wish-Fulfilment in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood at the Unity Theatre, London she was, in 1939, offered a role by Herbert Farjeon in The Little Revue and worked in his revues for over three years.[2] In 1940, she gave much support to and formed a strong friendship with Dirk Bogarde, in his first West End play, Diversions.[3] During the Second World War she became a regular performer at the Players' Theatre, where her repertoire included 'Casey Jones', 'Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-wow', 'Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron', 'The Lady Wasn't Going that Way' and 'You May Pet Me as Much as You Please'.[4]

She played a leading role alongside Alec Guinness in the Academy Award nominated film The Man in the White Suit as Bertha, in 1951.

Hope appeared in a range of roles in a production of Peer Gynt at the New Theatre in London (1944–45) and later directed Valmouth at the Lyric, Hammersmith (1958) and The Boy Friend at the Bristol Hippodrome (1958–59)[5]

She was married to the film editor and director Derek Twist and appeared in several of his films.

She died in a road accident, on 23 December 1963, in Chelmsford, Essex. She was 53.

Partial filmography

References

  1. ↑ Profile, ftvdb.bfi.org.uk; accessed 4 April 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Some of the Company – Vida Hope (autobiographical note). In : Late Joys at The Players' Theatre. T V Boardman & Co Ltd, London, New York, 1943., p83
  3. ↑ Bogarde, Dirk. A Postillion Struck by Lightning. Triad/Panther Books, Frogmore, 1978, p268.
  4. ↑ List of Songs. In : Late Joys at The Players' Theatre. T V Boardman & Co Ltd, London, New York, 1943, p113-115.
  5. ↑ List of appearances for Vida Hope at the Theatricalia site accessed 10 April 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 BFI page of films with Vida Hope accessed 10 April 2015.
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