Fay Compton
Encyclopedia
Fay Compton (ˈ; 1894–1978) was an English
actress from a notable acting lineage; her father was actor/manager Edward Compton; her mother, Virginia Bateman, was a distinguished member of the profession, as were her sister, the actress Viola Compton, and her uncles and aunts. Her grandfather was the 19th-century theatrical luminary Henry Compton
. The novelist Compton Mackenzie
was her brother.
, London
, England
. Compton made her first professional appearances between 1911 and 1913 with The Follies under the leadership of H. G. Pelissier
, her future first husband, whom she married as a teenager. She made her mark in the several plays of J. M. Barrie
(of Peter Pan
fame) introducing him to London audiences, notably in the title role of Mary Rose in 1920. In 1926, she published reminiscences entitled Rosemary: Some remembrances.
Active in the classics as well as contemporary material, Compton had the distinction of playing Ophelia opposite two of the most celebrated Hamlet
s, John Barrymore
and John Gielgud
. In 1962 she appeared as Marya in Laurence Olivier
's production of Uncle Vanya
at Chichester Festival Theatre
. This production was filmed
.
(1947), Laughter in Paradise
(1951) Orson Welles
' Othello
(1952) and The Haunting
(1963).
Among her television performances, she appeared in 1965 with Michael Hordern
in the television play, Land of My Dreams by Clive Exton
. One of her last major roles was as Aunt Ann in the BBC
's 1967 television adaptation of The Forsyte Saga
.
She had a successful career in the radio
, television
and gramophone record
ings.
Distinguished figures such as Alec Guinness
, John Le Mesurier
, Jan Sterling
, Sally Gray
, Joe Mitchenson and Elton Hayes
, developed their acting career in her "Fay Compton School of Dramatic Arts".
Her granddaughter is the British actress Tracy Reed.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actress from a notable acting lineage; her father was actor/manager Edward Compton; her mother, Virginia Bateman, was a distinguished member of the profession, as were her sister, the actress Viola Compton, and her uncles and aunts. Her grandfather was the 19th-century theatrical luminary Henry Compton
Henry Compton (actor)
Henry Compton was an English actor best known for his Shakespearean comic roles.-Biography:...
. The novelist Compton Mackenzie
Compton Mackenzie
Sir Compton Mackenzie, OBE was a writer and a Scottish nationalist.-Background:Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, but many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his grandfather Henry Compton, a well-known...
was her brother.
Biography
Virginia Lilian Emmeline Compton Mackenzie was born in West KensingtonWest Kensington
- Commercial/education :Local business consists of small shops, offices and restaurants, with the Olympia Exhibition Centre nearby. Indeed, it is the mix of local shops that give the area its character....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Compton made her first professional appearances between 1911 and 1913 with The Follies under the leadership of H. G. Pelissier
H. G. Pelissier
Harry Gabriel Pelissier was an English theatrical producer, composer and satirist. Pelissier presented a number of theatrical productions during the Edwardian era, such as Pelissier's Follies.-Theatrical career:...
, her future first husband, whom she married as a teenager. She made her mark in the several plays of J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
(of Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
fame) introducing him to London audiences, notably in the title role of Mary Rose in 1920. In 1926, she published reminiscences entitled Rosemary: Some remembrances.
Active in the classics as well as contemporary material, Compton had the distinction of playing Ophelia opposite two of the most celebrated Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
s, John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
and John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
. In 1962 she appeared as Marya in Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
's production of Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
at Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
. This production was filmed
Uncle Vanya (1963 film)
Uncle Vanya is a 1963 British film adaptation of the work Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov. The film was directed by Stuart Burge. It was a filmed version of the Chichester Festival production, directed by Laurence Olivier as Astrov,...
.
Film and television
Compton's film work is not as well known as her stage appearances. She appeared in more than forty films between 1914 and 1970. Her most popular performances in films are Odd Man OutOdd Man Out
Odd Man Out is a 1947 Anglo-Irish film noir directed by Carol Reed, starring James Mason, and is based on a novel of the same name by F. L. Green.-Plot:The film's opening intertitle reads:...
(1947), Laughter in Paradise
Laughter in Paradise
Laughter in Paradise is the title of a British comedy film released in 1951. The film stars Alastair Sim, Fay Compton, George Cole, and Guy Middleton...
(1951) Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' Othello
Othello (1952 film)
Othello is a 1952 drama film based on the Shakespearean play, made by Mercury Productions Inc. and Les Films Marceau and distributed by United Artists . It was directed and produced by Orson Welles, who also played the title role . The screenplay was adapted by Welles and an uncredited Jean Sacha...
(1952) and The Haunting
The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
(1963).
Among her television performances, she appeared in 1965 with Michael Hordern
Michael Hordern
Sir Michael Murray Hordern was an English actor, knighted in 1983 for his services to the theatre, which stretched back to before the Second World War.-Personal life:...
in the television play, Land of My Dreams by Clive Exton
Clive Exton
Clive Exton was a British television and film screenwriter, sometime playwright, and former actor. He is best known for his scripts of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster, and Rosemary & Thyme.-Early career:He was born Clive Jack Montague Brooks in Islington, London,...
. One of her last major roles was as Aunt Ann in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's 1967 television adaptation of The Forsyte Saga
The Forsyte Saga
The Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of an upper-middle-class British family, similar to Galsworthy's own...
.
She had a successful career in the radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and gramophone record
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
ings.
Distinguished figures such as Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
, John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...
, Jan Sterling
Jan Sterling
Jan Sterling was an American actress.Most active in films during the 1950s, Sterling received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The High and the Mighty , and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the same performance...
, Sally Gray
Sally Gray
Constance Vera Browne, Baroness Oranmore and Browne , commonly known as Sally Gray, was an English movie actress of the 1930s and 1940s....
, Joe Mitchenson and Elton Hayes
Elton Hayes
Elton Hayes was a British actor and guitarist.Hayes was born in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, England. Both his parents were actors and he made his first stage appearance aged nine. He too wanted to be an actor, but he also learned the violin and the ukelele. In his teens, he won a scholarship to...
, developed their acting career in her "Fay Compton School of Dramatic Arts".
Personal life
Fay Compton was married four times:- H. G. PelissierH. G. PelissierHarry Gabriel Pelissier was an English theatrical producer, composer and satirist. Pelissier presented a number of theatrical productions during the Edwardian era, such as Pelissier's Follies.-Theatrical career:...
; (one son: Anthony PelissierAnthony PelissierHarry Anthony Compton Pelissier was an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Biography:Pelissier was born in Barnet and came from a theatrical family. His parents were the theatre producer H. G. Pelissier and the distinguished actress Fay Compton...
) - Lauri de Frece; de Frece was Jerome KernJerome KernJerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
's best man at his wedding in 1910 at St Mary's Walton on Thames] - Leon Quartermaine
- Ralph MichaelRalph MichaelRalph Michael was an English actor. He was born in London, United Kingdom.His film appearances include: A Night to Remember, Children of the Damned, Khartoum, Grand Prix, The Assassination Bureau, and Empire of the Sun.Television credits include: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dixon of Dock Green,...
Her granddaughter is the British actress Tracy Reed.
Publications
- Rosemary, Some Remembrances (1926), by Fay Compton, introduction by Compton Mackenzie.
Partial filmography
- London LoveLondon LoveLondon Love is a 1926 British silent drama film directed by H. Manning Haynes and starring Fay Compton, John Stuart and Miles Mander. Ir was an adaptation of the novel Whirlpool by Arthur Applin...
(1926) - Robinson CrusoeRobinson Crusoe (1927 film)- Cast :*M.A. Wetherell as Robinson Crusoe*Fay Compton as Sophie*Herbert Waithe as Friday*Reginald Fox...
(1927) - Uneasy VirtueUneasy VirtueUneasy Virtue is a 1931 British comedy film directed by Norman Walker and starring Fay Compton, Edmund Breon, Francis Lister, Donald Calthrop and Garry Marsh...
(1931) - Waltzes from ViennaWaltzes from ViennaWaltzes from Vienna is a British musical film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, also known as Strauss' Great Waltz.-Production background:The film tells the story of the writing and performance of The Blue Danube. According to Hitchcock:...
(1933) - The Mill on the FlossThe Mill on the Floss (film)The Mill on the Floss is a 1937 British drama film directed by Tim Whelan and starring Frank Lawton, Victoria Hopper, Geraldine Fitzgerald and James Mason...
(1937) - So This Is LondonSo This Is London (1939 film)So This Is London is a 1939 British comedy film directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Robertson Hare, Alfred Drayton and George Sanders. It is adapted from a play by Arthur Goodrich...
(1939) - The Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister (film)The Prime Minister is a British film from 1941 directed by Thorold Dickinson. It details the life and times of Benjamin Disraeli, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and stars John Gielgud, Diana Wynyard, Fay Compton and Stephen Murray.-Plot:...
(1941) - Odd Man OutOdd Man OutOdd Man Out is a 1947 Anglo-Irish film noir directed by Carol Reed, starring James Mason, and is based on a novel of the same name by F. L. Green.-Plot:The film's opening intertitle reads:...
(1947) - Nicholas NicklebyNicholas Nickleby (1947 film)Nicholas Nickleby is a 1947 British drama film directed by Cavalcanti. The screenplay by John Dighton is based on the 1839 novel The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens...
(1947) - London Belongs to MeLondon Belongs to MeLondon Belongs to Me is a 1948 British film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Richard Attenborough and Alastair Sim. It was based on the novel of the same name by Norman Collins...
(1948) - BlackmailedBlackmailed (1951 film)Blackmailed is a 1951 British drama film directed by Marc Allégret and starring Mai Zetterling, Dirk Bogarde, Fay Compton and Robert Flemyng. It was adapted from a novel by Elizabeth Myers and was also released as Mrs...
(1951) - Laughter in ParadiseLaughter in ParadiseLaughter in Paradise is the title of a British comedy film released in 1951. The film stars Alastair Sim, Fay Compton, George Cole, and Guy Middleton...
(1951) - OthelloOthello (1952 film)Othello is a 1952 drama film based on the Shakespearean play, made by Mercury Productions Inc. and Les Films Marceau and distributed by United Artists . It was directed and produced by Orson Welles, who also played the title role . The screenplay was adapted by Welles and an uncredited Jean Sacha...
(1952) - Lady Possessed (1952)
- I VintiI VintiI vinti is a 1953 film by Michelangelo Antonioni composed of three episodes. The film was dubbed into Italian, the three episodes, although the Paris episode is spoken in French, and the London episode in English. Italian DVD by Medusa Film offers the restored uncut trilingual version...
(The Vanquished) (1953) - Aunt ClaraAunt Clara (1954 film)Aunt Clara is a 1954 British comedy film starring Margaret Rutherford as a woman who inherits a number of shady businesses from a relative. Ronald Shiner, A. E. Matthews, and Fay Compton are also featured...
(1954) - Doublecross (1956)
- The Story of Esther CostelloThe Story of Esther CostelloThe Story of Esther Costello is a 1957 British drama film starring Joan Crawford, Rossano Brazzi, and Heather Sears . The film is an exposé of large-scale fundraising. The Story of Esther Costello was produced by David Miller and Jack Clayton with Miller directing...
(1957) - Town on TrialTown on TrialTown on Trial is a 1957 British mystery film directed by John Guillermin and starring John Mills, Charles Coburn, Barbara Bates and Derek Farr. A whole town comes under suspicion when a series of grisly murders are carried out - particularly members of the local tennis club.-Cast:* Charles Coburn...
(1957) - Uncle VanyaUncle Vanya (1963 film)Uncle Vanya is a 1963 British film adaptation of the work Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov. The film was directed by Stuart Burge. It was a filmed version of the Chichester Festival production, directed by Laurence Olivier as Astrov,...
(1963) - The HauntingThe Haunting (1963 film)The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
(1963) - Journey to MidnightJourney to MidnightJourney to Midnight is a 1968 British mystery film directed by Roy Ward Baker and Alan Gibson, It starred Sebastian Cabot, Bernard Lee, Chad Everett, Fay Compton and Edward Fox. Joan Crawford was also due to appear, but her scenes were ultimately cut....
(1967) - I Start CountingI Start Counting (film)I Start Counting was a British film made in 1969 and starring Jenny Agutter in one of her first serious roles. It was based on the novel of the same name by Audrey Erskine Lindop....
(1969) - The Virgin and the GypsyThe Virgin and the Gypsy (film)The Virgin and the Gypsy is a 1970 British drama film directed by Christopher Miles, based on the novel of the same name. It was screened at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition.-Cast:* Joanna Shimkus – Yvette...
(1970)