13 Facts About Nova Pilbeam

Nova Margery Pilbeam was an English film and stage actress.

Nova Pilbeam played leading roles in two Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1930s, and made her last film in 1948.

Nova Pilbeam's parents were Arnold Pilbeam, an actor and theatre manager, and Margery Stopher Pilbeam.

Time magazine reported that the actress, whose first name was an homage to her maternal grandmother from Nova Pilbeam Scotia, opted to keep her birth name, which she considered far less ridiculous than "Myrna Loy" or "Greta Garbo".

Nova Pilbeam appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Man Who Knew Too Much, in which she plays a girl abducted by Peter Lorre's character, following this with her lead performance as Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose.

Nova Pilbeam had a starring role in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent, which she regarded as "the sunniest film I was involved with", and formed a constructive professional relationship with Hitchcock.

Nova Pilbeam appeared in an early British television drama in 1939.

Unlike some of her peers, Nova Pilbeam never made a film in Hollywood, despite having made a month-long trip to America with Gaumont-British Studios head Michael Balcon and one of his lead actors, Jack Hulbert, in 1934.

Nova Pilbeam continued acting, with appearances in at least nine British films, along with many stage roles, throughout the 1940s.

Nova Pilbeam remained working on stage for a short while longer, appearing at the Duchess Theatre in Toni Block's play Flowers for the Living in February 1950.

Nova Pilbeam married Pen Tennyson, a great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an assistant director to Hitchcock, in 1939.

Nova Pilbeam was married to BBC Radio journalist Alexander Whyte from 1950 until his death in 1972.

Nova Pilbeam died on 17 July 2015 in London, aged 95.