May Whitty

Dame May Whitty DBE
Born	Mary Louise Whitty (1865-06-19)19 June 1865 Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Died	29 May 1948(1948-05-29) (aged 82) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1881–1948
Spouse	Ben Webster ​ ​ (m. 1892; died 1947)​
Children	2, including Margaret

Dame Mary Louise Webster (née Whitty; 19 June 1865 – 29 May 1948), known professionally as May Whitty and later, for her charity work, Dame May Whitty, was an English stage and film actress. She was one of the first two women entertainers to become a Dame. The British actors' union Equity was established in her home in 1930.

After a successful career both on the West End stage and in British films, she moved over to Hollywood films at the age of 72. In 1937, Whitty made her American debut in Night Must Fall, for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Subsequently, Whitty starred in a string of commercial and critical successes that elevated her career and star-status. She starred in two Alfred Hitchcock films, The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Suspicion (1941), and earned her second Academy Award nomination for the war-drama Mrs. Miniver (1942), the highest grossing film of 1942. Her other film roles include The Constant Nymph (1943), Lassie Come Home (1943), Madame Curie (1943), Gaslight (1944), and Green Dolphin Street (1947).

Whitty was born in Liverpool, England, to William Alfred Whitty (circa 1837–1876), a newspaper proprietor,¹ and Mary Louisa (née Ashton, circa 1837–1894). Her grandfather was Michael James Whitty, Chief Constable in Liverpool and founder of the Liverpool Daily Post.² She made her first stage appearance in Liverpool in 1881, later moving to London to appear in the West End.³

She married the actor-manager Ben Webster on 3 August 1892 in St Giles's Parish Church, London.⁴ In 1895 they visited the United States, where Whitty appeared on Broadway. Their first child, a son, died at birth. Their only surviving child, a daughter born in New York in 1905, Margaret Webster, was a producer who held dual US and UK citizenship. She was chair of the Actresses' Franchise League (AFL).²

Whitty's stage career continued for the rest of her life. In March 1910, she made her transition to middle-aged and elderly character roles, playing Amelia Madras in Harley Granville-Barker's four-act comedy The Madras House.⁵ During World War I she was active in the AFL, working there to help organize the Women's Emergency Corps.⁶ In March 1922, she played the role of Mrs. Bennet before the Queen in a benefit performance of Pride and Prejudice. She acted opposite her husband, who played Mr. Darcy.⁷

In the 1918 New Year Honours, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE, gazetted under her legal married name Mary Louise Webster) in recognition of her charitable work during the First World War for the Three Arts Women's Employment Fund and the British Women's Hospitals Committee.² She was the first stage and film actress to receive a damehood, along with the opera singer Nellie Melba, who was also thus honoured in 1918.⁸⁹

Whitty made her Hollywood film debut at the age of 72, recreating her 1935 stage role in the Hollywood film Night Must Fall (1937), which also starred Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell. She received an Oscar nomination. This led to several supporting roles in films, including that of the vanishing lady, Miss Froy, in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938).²

In 1939, Whitty permanently moved to the United States - although she never became a US citizen; and appeared both on stage and in Hollywood films, usually playing wealthy dowagers. It was one such part, as Lady Beldon in Mrs. Miniver (1942), that brought her a second Academy Award nomination.²

She continued to act for the remainder of her life, and died on 29 May 1948 in Beverly Hills, California, from cancer at the age of 82;² her husband had died the previous year during surgery. She is commemorated with a plaque at St Paul's Church in Covent Garden, London, alongside the plaque to her husband.

Dates are of the first performance.

See the British Film Institute.¹⁰²

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