Davina Whitehouse, OBE was a stage, film and television actress acclaimed in both her native UK as well as Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

.

She was a star of the London stage

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 in the 1930s before emigrating to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 in 1952,
finding work in radio, theatre and television (see filmography below).

Davina Whitehouse died in Auckland, New Zealand, aged 90, following a series of strokes. She was predeceased by her husband, Archie Whitehouse, and survived by her two children.

Filmography

• Dark Knight (TV series) (1 episode, 2001)
• A Twist in the Tale (TV series)
  A Twist in the Tale (TV series)
  A Twist in the Tale is a 1998 TV series starring William Shatner.Willam Shatner's A Twist In The Tale was a 15 episode short lived television series in the late 1990's. Every week the narrator/host would have a group of children he would tell a story to. The main children were always in the story...
  
  (1 episode, 1999)
• The Legend of William Tell
  The Legend of William Tell
  The Legend of William Tell is a 16-part television fantasy/drama series produced in 1998 by Cloud 9 Productions in New Zealand. The basic premise of the series — a crossbow-wielding rebel defies a corrupt governor — and the name of the title character were adopted from the traditional story, but...
  
  (TV series) (1 episode)
• Rugged Gold (TV movie, 1994)
• Braindead
• Prisoner (TV series)
  Prisoner (TV series)
  Prisoner is an Australian television soap opera which was set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison. The series was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation and ran on Network Ten for 692 episodes from 27 February 1979 to 11 December 1986.The series was inspired by the 1970s...
  
  (soap opera aka Prisoner: Cell Block H; 6 episodes, 1983)
• Solo (film) (1978)
• The Night Nurse (1978) (TV movie)
• Young Ramsay
  Young Ramsay
  Young Ramsay was an Australian television drama series which ran from 1977 to 1980 on the Seven Network. It was produced by Crawford Productions as two series of 13 episodes each.-Plot:...
  
  (TV series) (1 episode, 1977)
• Bluey
  Bluey
  Bluey is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network in 1976.The series was another crime TV series from Crawford Productions, but was different from previous series - Homicide, Division 4, Matlock Police - in that it focused on a single detective rather than...
  
  (TV series) (1 episode, 1977)
• Sleeping Dogs  (1977)
• Division 4
  Division 4
  Division 4 was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the Nine Network between 1969 and 1975 for 300 episodes....
  
  (TV series) (1 episode, 1975)
• Matlock Police
  Matlock Police
  Matlock Police was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the 0-10 Network between 1971 and 1975....
  
  (TV series) (1 episode, 1975)
• The Box
  The Box (TV series)
  The Box was an Australian soap opera than ran on Network Ten from February 1974 until 1977.The Box was produced by Crawford Productions who at the time was having great success producing police procedural television series in Australia...
  
  (1974) (TV series) (unknown number of episodes)

Misconceptions

There are two misconceptions regarding Davina Whitehouse. The first is that she was a Dame (DBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

); while some Internet sources refer to her as "Dame Davina" or "Dame Davina Whitehouse", she was, in fact, never knighted, but she was awarded an OBE for her services to the arts.

The second is that she appeared as an extra in the pre-Code

Pre-Code

Pre-Code Hollywood refers to the era in the American film industry between the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor and it did not become rigorously...

 film, Night Nurse (1931), which starred Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...

, Clark Gable

Clark Gable

William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

 and Joan Blondell

Joan Blondell

Rose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career...

. This is a mistake – she actually appeared in a TV movie in 1978 of essentially the same name, The Night Nurse.