18 Facts About Celia Johnson

1.

Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson, was an English actress, whose career included stage, television and film.

2.

Celia Johnson is especially known for her roles in the films In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Brief Encounter and The Captain's Paradise.

3.

Celia Johnson continued performing in theatre for the rest of her life and much of her later work was in television, including winning the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC Play for Today, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.

4.

Celia Johnson suffered a stroke and died soon after at the age of 73.

5.

Celia Johnson attended St Paul's Girls' School in London from 1919 until 1926, and played in the school's orchestra under Gustav Holst.

6.

Celia Johnson acted in school productions, but had no other acting experience, when she was accepted to study at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1926, where she was in the same class as Margaretta Scott.

7.

Celia Johnson later spent a term in Paris, studying under Pierre Fresnay at the Comedie Francaise.

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8.

Celia Johnson went to London the following year to take the place of Angela Baddeley in the part of Currita in A Hundred Years Old, which was performed at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith.

9.

In 1930 Celia Johnson played in Cynara with Sir Gerald Du Maurier and Dame Gladys Cooper.

10.

Celia Johnson made her first trip to the United States the following year to star as Ophelia in a New York City production of Hamlet.

11.

Celia Johnson returned to London, where she appeared in a number of minor productions, before establishing herself with a two-year run in The Wind and the Rain.

12.

Celia Johnson married the journalist Peter Fleming in 1935, and in 1939 gave birth to their first child, a son.

13.

Unable to commit her time to the often lengthy run of a play, Celia Johnson preferred the less time-consuming schedules of film and radio, that allowed her to devote time to her family, and her work for the Women's Auxiliary Police Corps.

14.

Celia Johnson appeared in In Which We Serve and This Happy Breed, both directed by David Lean and written by Noel Coward.

15.

Celia Johnson was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

16.

Celia Johnson was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1958, "for services to the theatre", and was raised to Dame Commander in 1981.

17.

Celia Johnson was married to Peter Fleming from 1935 until Fleming's death from a heart attack in 1971, while on a shooting expedition near Glencoe in Argyll, Scotland.

18.

Celia Johnson distanced herself from her acting career while her children were young, preferring to devote her attention to her family.