1. Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox, known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer.
22 Facts About Anna Neagle
1. 2.
Anna Neagle was a successful box-office draw in British cinema for 20 years and was voted the most popular star in Britain in 1949.
3.
Anna Neagle was known for providing glamour and sophistication to war-torn London audiences with her lightweight musicals, comedies, and historical dramas.
4.
Anna Neagle continued in the musical genre, co-starring with Fernand Gravey in Bitter Sweet.
5.
Anna Neagle had her first major success with Nell Gwyn, which Wilcox had previously shot as a silent starring Dorothy Gish in 1926.
6.
Anna Neagle's co-star was Arthur Tracy, who had gained fame in the United States as a radio performer known as the Street Singer.
7.
The film, with a script featuring a contribution from Herman J Mankiewicz, had Neagle performing her own high-wire acrobatics.
8.
Anna Neagle followed this film with No, No, Nanette with Victor Mature, in which she sang "Tea For Two", and Sunny, with Ray Bolger.
9.
In 1945, Anna Neagle appeared on stage in Emma, a dramatisation of Jane Austen's novel.
10.
Anna Neagle wanted Harrison for the lead in her next film, Piccadilly Incident.
11.
Anna Neagle played Florence Nightingale in The Lady with a Lamp, based on the 1929 play by Reginald Berkeley.
12.
In Britain, where Anna Neagle had top billing, the film was reasonably successful.
13.
Anna Neagle herself made her final film appearance in The Lady Is a Square, Wilcox's last film as director.
14.
Anna Neagle was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in February 1958 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre, and in March 1983, when Andrews surprised her at London's Royal National Hotel.
15.
Anna Neagle returned to the stage the following year and made a comeback in the West End musical Charlie Girl.
16.
Anna Neagle appeared in Cameron Mackintosh's revival of My Fair Lady and in 1985 she appeared as the Fairy Godmother in a pantomime of Cinderella at the London Palladium.
17.
Anna Neagle's grand-nephew is actor Nicholas Hoult, through Hoult's father's side.
18.
Anna Neagle died aged 81 from breast cancer on 3 June 1986.
19.
Anna Neagle was interred alongside her husband in the City of London Cemetery.
20.
Anna Neagle has a memorial plaque in St Paul's Church, the Actors' Church in Covent Garden.
21.
Anna Neagle was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1952 New Year Honours and, for her contributions to the theatre, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1969 Birthday Honours.
22.
Anna Neagle produced, but did not appear in, three films starring Frankie Vaughan: These Dangerous Years, Wonderful Things, and The Heart of a Man.