34 Facts About Sybil Thorndike

Sybil Thorndike began her professional acting career with the company of the actor-manager Ben Greet, with whom she toured the US from 1904 to 1908.

Sybil Thorndike joined the Old Vic company during the First World War, and in the early 1920s Bernard Shaw, impressed by seeing her in a tragedy, wrote Saint Joan with her in mind.

Sybil Thorndike became known as Britain's leading tragedienne, but appeared frequently in comedy.

Sybil Thorndike was mainly known as a stage actress, but made several films from the 1920s to the 1960s, among them The Prince and the Showgirl and Uncle Vanya, both with Olivier.

Sybil Thorndike was born on 24 October 1882 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the eldest of the four children of the Rev Arthur John Webster Sybil Thorndike and his wife Agnes Macdonald, nee Bowers, the daughter of a shipping merchant.

From both parents Sybil Thorndike absorbed values of tolerance and concern for others that remained with her throughout her life.

Sybil Thorndike studied for the stage at the drama school run by Ben Greet, who engaged her for an American tour beginning in August 1904, in advance of which she made her professional debut at Cambridge in June, as Palmis in W S Gilbert's The Palace of Truth.

Sybil Thorndike remained in Greet's company for three years playing in Shakespearean repertory throughout the US.

On her return to England, Sybil Thorndike was spotted by Bernard Shaw in a one-off Sunday night performance at the Scala Theatre in London; he invited her to join the company for a revival of his Candida to be given in Belfast by Annie Horniman's players.

Sybil Thorndike was based at the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, where she first appeared in September 1908 as Bessie Carter in Basil Dean's Marriages are Made in Heaven.

Sybil Thorndike played parts in nine other plays by authors ranging from Euripides to John Galsworthy.

Sybil Thorndike appeared at the Coronet Theatre, London, in June 1909 with the Horniman company, and at the Duke of York's Theatre in March 1910 with Charles Frohman's repertory company, appearing there as Winifred in The Sentimentalists, Emma Huxtable in The Madras House, Romp in Prunella and Maggie Massey in Chains.

Sybil Thorndike then went to New York, where she appeared at the Empire Theatre in September 1910, as Emily Chapman in Smith opposite John Drew.

Between her return to Britain and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Sybil Thorndike appeared in the West End at the Aldwych Theatre in June 1912 as Beatrice Farrar in Hindle Wakes, and at the Playhouse Theatre in July 1912 in the same role.

Sybil Thorndike returned to Manchester for a second season at the Gaiety later in the year, playing a range of roles in nine plays.

Between November 1914 and May 1918 Sybil Thorndike played in four seasons at the Old Vic with a mostly Shakespearean repertory.

In early 1920 Sybil Thorndike successfully repeated her Hecuba and played the title roles in Shaw's Candida and in another Euripides play, Medea.

Later in the year Sybil Thorndike joined her brother and her husband in a two-year run of Grand Guignol melodramas at the Little Theatre.

The vogue for theatrical horror began to wane and Casson and Sybil Thorndike joined Bronson Albery and Lady Wyndham in the management of the New Theatre in 1922.

Sybil Thorndike was planning a play about Joan of Arc, which he completed in 1923.

Sybil Thorndike appeared in a wide range of plays, both classical and modern, often under Casson's direction.

In 1938 Thorndike appeared in New York as Mrs Conway in J B Priestley's Time and the Conways, and in London as Volumnia in the Old Vic production of Coriolanus with Olivier in the title role as her son.

Sybil Thorndike made three films during the decade, appearing as Madam Duval in A Gentleman of Paris, Mrs Hawthorn in Hindle Wakes and Ellen in Tudor Rose.

Sybil Thorndike made her television debut in 1939 as the Widow Cagle in a melodrama, Sun Up.

When Ralph Richardson, Olivier and John Burrell were appointed to re-establish the Old Vic as a leading London company in 1944 they recruited Sybil Thorndike, who played Aase in Peer Gynt, Catherine Petkoff in Arms and the Man, Queen Margaret in Richard III, Marina in Uncle Vanya, Mistress Quickly in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and the Justice's Lady in The Critic.

In 1961 Sybil Thorndike played the longest part of her career, the title role in Hugh Ross Williamson's Teresa of Avila, about the eponymous saint.

Sybil Thorndike thought it "the most thrilling part I've been offered since Saint Joan", but Williamson's script, even after extensive revision by Casson, proved disappointing.

Sybil Thorndike assembled a cast headed by Michael Redgrave in the title role, supported by Olivier, Fay Compton, Joan Greenwood and Joan Plowright, in addition to Thorndike as Marina, the nurse, and Casson as Waffles.

Sybil Thorndike called Thorndike's nurse "a miracle of gruff tenderness".

Sybil Thorndike included Uncle Vanya in his first season, with many of his Chichester cast reprising their roles, but Casson, by this time in his late eighties, declined, and Thorndike did likewise.

Once again, Sybil Thorndike's notices were better than those for the play.

Sybil Thorndike appeared no more on the London stage after that.

Casson died in May 1969, and Sybil Thorndike's only stage role after that was in the inaugural performance of the theatre named in her honour, the Sybil Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead, in October of that year, as the Woman in There Was an Old Woman by John Graham.

Sybil Thorndike's ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey the following month, after a memorial service there.