Hermione Darnborough
Encyclopedia
Hermione Maria Louise Darnborough (1915-29 October 2010), later Hermione Mathieson, was an English principal ballerina
who made her name at Sadler's Wells in the 1930s. She retired at a young age after marrying the distinguished conductor and composer Muir Mathieson
(1911–75).
, Surrey
. On the side of her "glamorous and determined" mother, Frances, she was a cousin of the Duke of Argyll
and the Duke of Portland
. Her American father, Bill (or Billy) Darnborough
(1869–1958), a former minor league baseball
player and chop house
owner who amassed a small fortune at roulette
in the early years of the twentieth century, has been described as "the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo
, though ... [l]ike many an habitual gambler, he would generally lose his winnings at the next turn of the wheel, and it took all his wife's pleading to persuade him to stop". Her brother was the film producer Antony Darnborough (1913–2000), whose sister-in-law, journalist Drusilla Beyfus, married theatre critic Milton Shulman
and was mother of Alexandra Shulman
, editor of British Vogue
since 1992, and Nicola Shulman, later Marchioness of Normanby
.
performed in London. He was evidently impressed and asked to see her again in three years time, but nothing came of this as he died a few weeks later in Venice
.
From an early age, Darnborough took part in a range of productions, including charity matinées and Christmas pantomimes. Among the latter were Beauty and the Beast
(1928) and Puss in Boots
(1929) at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Darnborough's teacher was Miss Euphan MacLaren, whose stage school in Kensington
was often called upon when young people were required for films. In 1930, she appeared in On with the Dance!, a short film for Pathé
's cinemagazine for women, Eve's Film Review, as one of six MacLaren girls dancing in floaty gowns while holding large balls and balloons. At one point, Darnborough performs pirouettes and dances towards the camera as the others look on. A caption enquires, "And what wouldn’t we give to be as light-hearted and light-footed as this pretty toe dancer!" This film can still be viewed on the Internet
.
The following year Darnborough won the senior cup in the All England Solo Competition at the New Scala Theatre
, London. Reporting on the event for the Dancing Times, which featured an early photograph of Darnborough, Arnold L Haskell
wrote that she was "above the average, with the makings of a first class soloist", while noting that "competition conditions seem to affect the senior artists far more than the children" and that consequently there was in all of them "a certain strain and lack of spontaneity".
Darnborough took additional lessons from some leading Russian teachers in London, notably Serge Morosov and Serafina Astafieva
, and, with MacLaren's encouragement, joined the class of Ninette de Valois
who, in 1931, founded the Vic-Wells company (forerunner of the Royal Ballet). Darnborough recalled that, when she first danced for her, the composer Constant Lambert
, who was musical director of Vic-Wells, was "watching amiably" and that de Valois was impressed by the height of her jump.
, The Birthday of Oberon (as Summer) and The Snow Maiden
(as, among other things, a lily, a swan and a tree). In 1933 she performed in Les Rendezvous
, Frederick Ashton
's first major production at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, dancing a pas de six with Beatrice Appleyard, Sheila McCarthy, Freda Bamford, Nadina Newhouse and Gwyneth Mathews. Others who appeared in this landmark production included Alicia Markova
, Robert Helpmann
("so pushy, but very funny with it" according to Darnbrough) and de Valois herself ("good technique, but stiff arms").
In 1934 Darnborough played a leading role in Les Sylphides
with Helpmann, Appleyard and Ursula Moreton and, in her final season the following year, was Queen of the Wilis
in Giselle
, a role for which she was coached by Anton Dolin
. With Margot Fonteyn
making her first appearance at Sadler's Wells, as a snowflake in The Nutcracker
, in 1934, Darnborough was part of the company during a period of major development in British ballet and one in which, as the poet and novelist Robert Graves
put it, "ballet extended its popularity from highbrow
s downwards".
, the first British film to be shot in technicolor
and one of the few British colour pictures to survive from the 1930s. Film historian Leslie Halliwell
described Wings of the Morning, whose cast included Leslie Banks
and Henry Fonda
(who met his second wife, American socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw
, mother of Jane
and Peter Fonda
, on the set at Denham studios
), as "great to look at and quite charming, though slight".
without wires". In 1934, while still in her teens, she posed nude for the German-born photographer E.O. Hoppé
, whose previous subjects had included Lillian Gish
, Bernard Shaw
and Benito Mussolini
. Hoppé was particularly interested in stage performers as subjects and regarded by contemporaries as a connoisseur of female beauty. In 2011 his portrait of Darnborough (together with less revealing photographs of Beatrice Appleyard and a 16-year old Margot Fonteyn) formed part of an exhibition of his work at the National Portrait Gallery in London and was featured in the Sunday Times.
as "the great cultural event of London's summer season". Darnborough took part in the annual summer productions of Hiawatha
at the Royal Albert Hall
, which were choreographed by Euphan MacLaren, among others, and had a cast of some 800 singers and 200 dancers. During the 1935 production, in which she danced the lead, Darnborough met Muir Mathieson while he was deputising as conductor for Malcolm Sargent
. They were married at the Brompton Oratory on 21 December 1935. Darnborough had seemed set to became a major star, but she effectively retired from dancing after her marriage. She appeared not to have regretted her decision and, in old age, recalled both the relatively poor pay at Vic-Wells and the sternness of de Valois, who would "stamp her stick furiously" and had once castigated her for the untidiness of her dressing table.
The Mathiesons moved into a old farmhouse near Alexander Korda
's Denham studios in Buckinghamshire
, where Muir Mathieson worked for London Films
. They had four children, Muirne, Niall, Shuna and Fiona, the youngest of whom, the actress Fiona Mathieson (1951–87), played Clarrie Grundy in the radio serial The Archers
. William Alwyn
's Suite of Scottish Dances (1946) was dedicated for the birth of Niall Mathieson. Muir Mathieson, who died on 2 August 1975, directed or composed the music for a very large number of celebrated films, including This Happy Breed
(1944), Genevieve
(1953) and Vertigo
(1958).
dance at Covent Garden. In 2008 she was visited at her home in Oxfordshire
by a South African "blog
ger" who noted her peaceful life and artistic background and the following year she gave an interview to the Dancing Times, whose retrospective of her career was illustrated with photographs from her own collection. Darnborough died peacefully on 29 October 2010, aged 95.
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
who made her name at Sadler's Wells in the 1930s. She retired at a young age after marrying the distinguished conductor and composer Muir Mathieson
Muir Mathieson
James Muir Mathieson was a Scottish conductor and composer. Mathieson was almost always described as a "Musical Director" on a large number of British films.-Career:...
(1911–75).
Background
Hermione Darnborough came from a wealthy and well-connected family who lived in WeybridgeWeybridge
Weybridge is a town in the Elmbridge district of Surrey in South East England. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the River Wey, from which it gets its name...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
. On the side of her "glamorous and determined" mother, Frances, she was a cousin of the Duke of Argyll
Niall Campbell, 10th Duke of Argyll
Niall Diarmid Campbell, 10th and 3rd Duke of Argyll was a Scottish peer and historian.-Background:Campbell was the son of Captain Lord Archibald Campbell, second son of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, and his wife Janey Sevilla Callander of Craigforth and Ardkinglas, daughter of James Henry...
and the Duke of Portland
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 7th Duke of Portland
William Arthur Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 7th Duke of Portland KG , known as Marquess of Titchfield until 1943, was a British Conservative Party politician....
. Her American father, Bill (or Billy) Darnborough
William Nelson Darnborough
William Nelson Darnborough from Bloomington, Illinois was known for his success in roulette at Monte Carlo from 1904 to 1911. During that time period he amassed a fortune of $415,000...
(1869–1958), a former minor league baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
player and chop house
Steakhouse
A steakhouse is a restaurant that specializes in beef steaks. The same type of restaurant is also known as a chophouse.The steakhouse started in the USA in the late 19th century as a development of traditional inns and bars....
owner who amassed a small fortune at roulette
Roulette
Roulette is a casino game named after a French diminutive for little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number or a range of numbers, the colors red or black, or whether the number is odd or even....
in the early years of the twentieth century, has been described as "the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo Casino
The Monte Carlo Casino is a gambling and entertainment complex located in Monte Carlo, Monaco. It includes a casino, the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo, and the office of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo....
, though ... [l]ike many an habitual gambler, he would generally lose his winnings at the next turn of the wheel, and it took all his wife's pleading to persuade him to stop". Her brother was the film producer Antony Darnborough (1913–2000), whose sister-in-law, journalist Drusilla Beyfus, married theatre critic Milton Shulman
Milton Shulman
Milton Shulman was a Canadian author, film and theatre critic.-Early life:He was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a successful shopkeeper. His parents were born in Ukraine and were driven out of the Russian Empire by poverty and the pogroms against the Jews...
and was mother of Alexandra Shulman
Alexandra Shulman
Alexandra Shulman, OBE , is the editor of the British edition of Vogue. She is one of the country's most oft-quoted voices on fashion trends. She took the helm of Vogue in 1992, presiding over a circulation increase to 200,000 and a higher profile for the publication...
, editor of British Vogue
Vogue (British magazine)
The British edition of Vogue is a fashion magazine that has been published since 1916.When British Vogue was launched, it was the first overseas edition of an existing fashion magazine. Under the magazine's first editor, Elspeth Champcommunal, the magazine was essentially the same as the American...
since 1992, and Nicola Shulman, later Marchioness of Normanby
Constantine Phipps, 5th Marquess of Normanby
Constantine Edmund Walter Phipps, 5th Marquess of Normanby is the son of Oswald Phipps, 4th Marquess of Normanby and Grania Guinness. He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford....
.
Early promise
In 1929, at the age of 14, Darnborough auditioned for the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev during the final season that the highly influential Ballets RussesBallets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
performed in London. He was evidently impressed and asked to see her again in three years time, but nothing came of this as he died a few weeks later in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
.
From an early age, Darnborough took part in a range of productions, including charity matinées and Christmas pantomimes. Among the latter were Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale. The first published version of the fairy tale was a rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740...
(1928) and Puss in Boots
Puss in Boots
'Puss' is a character in the fairy tale "The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots" by Charles Perrault. The tale was published in 1697 in his Histoires ou Contes du temps passé...
(1929) at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Darnborough's teacher was Miss Euphan MacLaren, whose stage school in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
was often called upon when young people were required for films. In 1930, she appeared in On with the Dance!, a short film for Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
's cinemagazine for women, Eve's Film Review, as one of six MacLaren girls dancing in floaty gowns while holding large balls and balloons. At one point, Darnborough performs pirouettes and dances towards the camera as the others look on. A caption enquires, "And what wouldn’t we give to be as light-hearted and light-footed as this pretty toe dancer!" This film can still be viewed on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
The following year Darnborough won the senior cup in the All England Solo Competition at the New Scala Theatre
Scala Theatre
The Scala Theatre was a theatre in London, sited on Charlotte Street, off Tottenham Court Road, in the London Borough of Camden. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire...
, London. Reporting on the event for the Dancing Times, which featured an early photograph of Darnborough, Arnold L Haskell
Arnold Haskell
Arnold Lionel Haskell was a British dance critic who founded the Camargo Society in 1930. With Ninette de Valois, he was influential in the development of the Royal Ballet School, later becoming the school's headmaster.He became fascinated by ballet when his mother prevailed on him to come with...
wrote that she was "above the average, with the makings of a first class soloist", while noting that "competition conditions seem to affect the senior artists far more than the children" and that consequently there was in all of them "a certain strain and lack of spontaneity".
Darnborough took additional lessons from some leading Russian teachers in London, notably Serge Morosov and Serafina Astafieva
Serafina Astafieva
Serafina Astafieva was a Russian dancer and ballet teacher.Astafieva was a pupil at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre School and in 1895 graduated from the Mariinsky Ballet School. In 1896 she married Jozef Kshessinsky a famous character dancer. From 1909-1911 Astafieva performed with Sergei Diaghilev's...
, and, with MacLaren's encouragement, joined the class of Ninette de Valois
Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, FRAD, FISTD was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet...
who, in 1931, founded the Vic-Wells company (forerunner of the Royal Ballet). Darnborough recalled that, when she first danced for her, the composer Constant Lambert
Constant Lambert
Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert, the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert, was educated at Christ's Hospital and the Royal College of Music...
, who was musical director of Vic-Wells, was "watching amiably" and that de Valois was impressed by the height of her jump.
Vic-Wells
In 1932 Darnborough joined the Vic-Wells company, where she remained for three seasons. Her early appearances included roles in Swan LakeSwan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
, The Birthday of Oberon (as Summer) and The Snow Maiden
The Snow Maiden
The Snow Maiden: A Spring Fairy Tale is an opera in four acts with a prologue by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composed during 1880–1881. The Russian libretto, by the composer, is based on the like-named play by Alexander Ostrovsky .The first performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera took place at the...
(as, among other things, a lily, a swan and a tree). In 1933 she performed in Les Rendezvous
Les Rendezvous
Les Rendezvous is an abstract ballet created in 1933 with choreography by Frederick Ashton, to the music of Daniel François Esprit Auber arranged by Constant Lambert and with designs by William Chappell...
, Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
's first major production at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, dancing a pas de six with Beatrice Appleyard, Sheila McCarthy, Freda Bamford, Nadina Newhouse and Gwyneth Mathews. Others who appeared in this landmark production included Alicia Markova
Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova, DBE, DMus, was an English ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the...
, Robert Helpmann
Robert Helpmann
Sir Robert Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer.-Early years:He was born Robert Murray Helpman in Mount Gambier, South Australia and also boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. From childhood, Helpman had a strong desire to be a dancer...
("so pushy, but very funny with it" according to Darnbrough) and de Valois herself ("good technique, but stiff arms").
In 1934 Darnborough played a leading role in Les Sylphides
Les Sylphides
Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc. Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with music by Frédéric Chopin orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the title Chopiniana, Op. 46...
with Helpmann, Appleyard and Ursula Moreton and, in her final season the following year, was Queen of the Wilis
Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis
Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis is a character from the famous Romantic ballet, Giselle which premiered at the Paris Opéra's Salle Le Peletier on 28 June 1841...
in Giselle
Giselle
Giselle is a ballet in two acts with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, music by Adolphe Adam, and choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The librettist took his inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine...
, a role for which she was coached by Anton Dolin
Anton Dolin
Sir Anton Dolin was an English ballet dancer and choreographer.Dolin was born in Slinfold in Sussex as Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay but was generally known as Patrick Kay. He joined Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1921, was a principal there from 1924, and was a principal...
. With Margot Fonteyn
Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, DBE , was an English ballerina of the 20th century. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time...
making her first appearance at Sadler's Wells, as a snowflake in The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
, in 1934, Darnborough was part of the company during a period of major development in British ballet and one in which, as the poet and novelist Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
put it, "ballet extended its popularity from highbrow
Highbrow
Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, highbrow is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The word draws its metonymy from the pseudoscience of phrenology, and was originally simply a physical descriptor...
s downwards".
Wings of the Morning (1937)
In 1937 Darnbrough appeared as a gypsy dancer in Harold Schuster's Wings of the MorningWings of the Morning (film)
Wings of the Morning is a 1937 British drama film directed by Harold D. Schuster and starring Annabella, Henry Fonda and Leslie Banks. Glenn Tryon was the originally director but he was fired and replaced by Schuster...
, the first British film to be shot in technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
and one of the few British colour pictures to survive from the 1930s. Film historian Leslie Halliwell
Leslie Halliwell
Robert James Leslie Halliwell was a British film encyclopaedist and television impresario who in 1965 compiled The Filmgoer's Companion, the first one-volume encyclopaedia devoted to all aspects of the cinema. He followed it a dozen years later with Halliwell's Film Guide, another monumental work...
described Wings of the Morning, whose cast included Leslie Banks
Leslie Banks
Leslie Banks, CBE was an English theatre and cinema actor, director and producer, now best remembered playing gruff, menacing characters in black and white movies of the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:...
and Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
(who met his second wife, American socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw
Frances Ford Seymour
Frances Ford Seymour was a socialite, the second wife of actor Henry Fonda and the mother of actors Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.-Early life:...
, mother of Jane
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
and Peter Fonda
Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
, on the set at Denham studios
Denham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios were a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952.The studios were founded by Alexander Korda, on a 165 acre site near the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire. At the time it was the largest facility of its kind in the UK, but it was merged with Rank's Pinewood...
), as "great to look at and quite charming, though slight".
Photographic model
As a young dancer, Darnborough was known for her pretty looks and elegant poise. One critic at the time described her as "tall, lithe and graceful ... as if she might play Peter PanPeter 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...
without wires". In 1934, while still in her teens, she posed nude for the German-born photographer E.O. Hoppé
E.O. Hoppé
Emil Otto Hoppé was a German-born British portrait, travel, and topographic photographer active between 1907 and 1945...
, whose previous subjects had included Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
, Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
and Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
. Hoppé was particularly interested in stage performers as subjects and regarded by contemporaries as a connoisseur of female beauty. In 2011 his portrait of Darnborough (together with less revealing photographs of Beatrice Appleyard and a 16-year old Margot Fonteyn) formed part of an exhibition of his work at the National Portrait Gallery in London and was featured in the Sunday Times.
Hiawatha, marriage and family
During the 1930s ballet to some extent replaced grand operaGrand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
as "the great cultural event of London's summer season". Darnborough took part in the annual summer productions of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha (Coleridge-Taylor)
The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30, is a trilogy of cantatas by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, produced between 1898 and 1900. The first part, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, was particularly famous for many years and it made the composer's name known throughout the world.-Background:In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor was...
at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
, which were choreographed by Euphan MacLaren, among others, and had a cast of some 800 singers and 200 dancers. During the 1935 production, in which she danced the lead, Darnborough met Muir Mathieson while he was deputising as conductor for Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
. They were married at the Brompton Oratory on 21 December 1935. Darnborough had seemed set to became a major star, but she effectively retired from dancing after her marriage. She appeared not to have regretted her decision and, in old age, recalled both the relatively poor pay at Vic-Wells and the sternness of de Valois, who would "stamp her stick furiously" and had once castigated her for the untidiness of her dressing table.
The Mathiesons moved into a old farmhouse near Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
's Denham studios in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, where Muir Mathieson worked for London Films
London Films
London Films is a British film production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda originally based at London Film Studios in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England. The company's productions included The Private Life of Henry VIII , Things to Come , Rembrandt , The Four Feathers , The Thief of Bagdad ...
. They had four children, Muirne, Niall, Shuna and Fiona, the youngest of whom, the actress Fiona Mathieson (1951–87), played Clarrie Grundy in the radio serial The Archers
The Archers
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...
. William Alwyn
William Alwyn
William Alwyn, CBE, born William Alwyn Smith was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher.-Life and music:...
's Suite of Scottish Dances (1946) was dedicated for the birth of Niall Mathieson. Muir Mathieson, who died on 2 August 1975, directed or composed the music for a very large number of celebrated films, including This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, Present Laughter. The two plays later alternated with Coward's Blithe Spirit...
(1944), Genevieve
Genevieve (film)
Genevieve is a 1953 British comedy film produced and directed by Henry Cornelius and written by William Rose. It starred John Gregson, Dinah Sheridan, Kenneth More and Kay Kendall as two couples comedically involved in a vintage automobile rally...
(1953) and Vertigo
Vertigo (film score)
The music score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo was composed by Bernard Herrmann between 3 January and 19 February 1958. The recordings were made in London and Vienna, with orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson...
(1958).
Final years
Darnborough celebrated her 90th birthday by watching Darcey BussellDarcey Bussell
Darcey Andrea Bussell CBE is a retired English ballerina. Trained at the Arts Educational School and the Royal Ballet School, she was later employed by the Royal Ballet, where she was promoted to the rank of Principal Dancer and would become recognised as one of the greatest English ballerinas of...
dance at Covent Garden. In 2008 she was visited at her home in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
by a South African "blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger" who noted her peaceful life and artistic background and the following year she gave an interview to the Dancing Times, whose retrospective of her career was illustrated with photographs from her own collection. Darnborough died peacefully on 29 October 2010, aged 95.
External links
- Hermione Darnborough - still from On with the Dance! (1930)
- http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/multimedia/dynamic/00110/hoppe-1_110211sp.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.timesplus.co.uk/sto/multimedia_library/The_Rich_List/%3Ftab%3D1&usg=__PBqKUJcCHgIAjmXfthaHDYxsDHE=&h=200&w=299&sz=11&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ixY_ptnrSoQm3M:&tbnh=159&tbnw=228&ei=A1NVTZHQDYuIhQfq37zPDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhermione%2Bdarnborough%2Bphotos%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3Dig%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D653%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=171&vpy=281&dur=962&hovh=159&hovw=239&tx=154&ty=49&oei=A1NVTZHQDYuIhQfq37zPDA&page=1&ndsp=13&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0Hermione Darnborough by E. O. Hoppé (1934)]
- http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://roulettedreams.com/Images/Photos/William-Nelson-Darnborough.jpg&imgrefurl=http://roulettedreams.com/html/William%2520Nelson%2520Darnborough%2520Info.html&usg=__eTsodylRJs4WEToUvjAMDx4AqkU=&h=400&w=316&sz=48&hl=en&start=2&zoom=1&tbnid=0ZJmnkqrPzPDlM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=98&ei=skCUTbuNEo-94gafu5C1DA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwilliam%2Bdarnborough%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dig%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D653%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1 Photograph of William Nelson Darnborough, Hermione's father]
