Dame Wendy Hiller

Dame Wendy Hiller (1912-2003), British theater and motion-picture actor, whose distinguished career spans a wide variety of roles. Born in Bramhall, Manchester, England, she was named after the hero in the children's play Peter Pan, by Scottish dramatist James Matthew Barrie. She joined the Manchester Repertory company in 1930 and made a successful London stage debut in 1935 in Love on the Dole, by English playwright Ronald Gow, whom she married in 1937. It was Hiller's performance in this play, a story of unemployed cotton spinners in Lancashire, England, that inspired Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw to cast her in the title roles of his plays Saint Joan and Pygmalion in 1936. These plays, in turn, marked the beginning of a long professional association between Shaw and Hiller, and established her reputation as an actor. As one of Shaw's favorite performers, Hiller also took leading roles in film adaptations of Pygmalion (1938), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress, and Major Barbara (1941), another play by Shaw in which she had acted.

Hiller also performed the works of English playwright William Shakespeare and American playwright Eugene O'Neill. In addition, she won distinction in several film roles, most notably in Separate Tables (1958), for which she won an Academy Award for best actress, Sons and Lovers (1960), and A Man for All Seasons (1966).