Nominate a Biography: actresses' quotes

Peggy Ashcroft

"If the book focuses largely on Peggy's public career, it is for two reasons. One is that it is her acting which has made her famous. The other is that Peggy is a very private person. In a publicity-crazy age when every minor TV starlet's dirty linen is aired in public, she prefers to be judged by the quality of her work rather than of her life. 'Imagine you're talking to the public over your tea-table,' an editor once suggested to her. 'But I wouldn't have the public to tea,' was her crisp and forthright reply." p.2

Peggy Ashcroft, by Michael Billington, 1998.

Jessie Matthews

"The Good Companions was the first 'talkie' to be shown publicly to the King and Queen of England. The Royal Standard flew over the New Victoria Cinema for the first Royal Command Performance, an occasion that was to follow year after year.

Unlike the present day, it was a matinée performance and King George V, a strict disciplinarian about meals, wanted to be home again in Buckingham Palace in time for tea. The film went on rather longer than was expected and when the cast was presented the King wanted to hear the details from Victor Saville about the fire, the climax of the film.

I was not presented to the King and Queen. I was a divorced woman, and in those days divorcées were not considered fit people to meet their sovereigns. Naturally I was intensely disappointed." p.135-6

Over my shoulder: an autobiography, by Jessie Matthews, 1974.

Maggie Smith

"[Michael] Caine and Maggie liked each other a lot. Both hail from the wrong side of the tracks, both have a devastating sense of humour and neither tolerates very much of the bullshitting hyperbole and self-importance that surrounds their industry. Caine, the ultimate screen professional, plays every scene knowing exactly where the director has placed his cameras. He was enthralled by Maggie's indifference to such technical niceties, noting how all her concentration was channelled into the details of the performance itself." p.190

Maggie Smith: a bright particular star, by Michael Coveney, 1992.

Margaret Rutherford

"It was during this run that I had one of those nerve-racking experiences that every actress dreads. Real antique chairs had been hired for the production and one of them was tunnelled with woodworm; while I was sitting on it during one scene it suddenly collapsed under me like a pack of cards. Everyone in the audience could not help but see what was happening. What to do? I did the natural thing. I simply clung to George Howe, who was playing Chasuble, in helpless giggles. I have always thought that an actor or actress who does not laugh on stage when some comic disaster occurs has something missing in his humanity and artistic make-up.

Oddly enough I was to have the same traumatic experience in America. I must be the only actress in history to be grounded by woodworm both sides of the Atlantic." p.42

Margaret Rutherford: an autobiography, by Margaret Rutherford and Gwen Robyns, 1972.