Mavis Villiers
Encyclopedia
Mavis Villiers, born Mavis Clare Cooney (18 January 1911, Sydney
, Australia
— died March 1976, Paddington
, London, England), was a British actress of stage, film and television. Her brother was Cecil Cooney, a camera operator and cinematographer. Her stage name, Villiers, was taken from her maternal grandfather. She began her career as a child film actress in Australia, but no specific credits or references can be found.
Mavis emigrated to the United States
with her family in 1921, aged 11. The family settled in Hollywood, where her father became a technician at a film company. Both Mavis and her brother Cecil began their careers in the silent era; her first accredited film role was as 'the Girl' in a 1927 short comedy, The Bum's Rush, featuring expat Australian star Snub Pollard
. Following her parents divorce, Mavis and her mother Clara migrated to London, England, in 1933. Her brother Cecil followed at some stage; her father remained in California
where he died at Ventura in 1960.
Her stage roles included that of Mrs Van Mier in the 1962 London production of Noel Coward
's Sail Away (musical)
at the Savoy Theatre
. She was also in the Cast of the 1957 West End production of Damn Yankees
at the London Coliseum; this production featured Australian actor Bill Kerr
as Mr. Applegate. Her sole appearance on the American Broadway stage, was in the role of Aunt Lizzy Sweeney, in the first Broadway production of Brian Friel
's Philadelphia Here I Come!
at the Helen Hayes Theatre
in 1966; she also played the same role in the 1975 film version of that play, her last role before her death.
She had appeared in films from 1927 to 1975. Some of her more prominent film roles, that best showcase her talent, were in: The Bum's Rush (1927) starring Snub Pollard
; Saloon Bar
(1940) starring Gordon Harker
; South American George
(1941) starring George Formby
; One Exciting Night (1944) starring Vera Lynn
; Suddenly, Last Summer
(1959) (based on Tennessee Williams
' play) starring Katharine Hepburn
, Elizabeth Taylor
and Montgomery Clift
; Victim (1961) starring Dirk Bogarde
; and Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1975).
Her television appearances between 1938 and 1972, include roles in various productions, series and episodes. They include the BBC's Sunday Night Theatre
, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents
, The Vise, The Twilight Zone
, The Saint (TV series)
, From a Bird's Eye View
and Night Gallery
.
; and Mavis was working at the club at that time. Donald was a Pilot Officer
in the American Eagle Squadrons attached to the Royal Air Force
. He was subsequently shot down over Germany
and taken prisoner for two years until released on VE day in 1945. The couple were married in London on 16 June 1945 and planned to settle in the United States after Mavis had completed a contractual obligation to appear in a French film, Le Battalion du ciel (1946). Before they could be reunited, Donald, now working for Pan-American Airways in San Francisco, died from injuries sustained in a car accident on 4 April 1946, nine months after their marriage. The union was childless and Mavis never remarried. Mavis died from pneumonia
at her Paddington flat in 1976, aged 65.
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
— died March 1976, Paddington
Paddington
Paddington is a district within the City of Westminster, in central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
, London, England), was a British actress of stage, film and television. Her brother was Cecil Cooney, a camera operator and cinematographer. Her stage name, Villiers, was taken from her maternal grandfather. She began her career as a child film actress in Australia, but no specific credits or references can be found.
Mavis emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with her family in 1921, aged 11. The family settled in Hollywood, where her father became a technician at a film company. Both Mavis and her brother Cecil began their careers in the silent era; her first accredited film role was as 'the Girl' in a 1927 short comedy, The Bum's Rush, featuring expat Australian star Snub Pollard
Snub Pollard
Harry "Snub" Pollard was a silent film comedian, popular in the 1920s.-Career:Often mistaken as the brother of Australian actress Daphne Pollard, in fact the two were not related despite their shared surname. Harry Pollard was born as Harold Fraser and took the name Pollard as his stage name...
. Following her parents divorce, Mavis and her mother Clara migrated to London, England, in 1933. Her brother Cecil followed at some stage; her father remained in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
where he died at Ventura in 1960.
Her stage roles included that of Mrs Van Mier in the 1962 London production of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Sail Away (musical)
Sail Away (musical)
Sail Away is a musical with a book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The show was the last musical for which Coward wrote both the book and music, although he wrote the music for one last "book" musical in 1963. The story centers around brash, bold American divorcee Mimi Paragon, working as a...
at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
. She was also in the Cast of the 1957 West End production of Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League...
at the London Coliseum; this production featured Australian actor Bill Kerr
Bill Kerr
William 'Bill' Kerr is an Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia....
as Mr. Applegate. Her sole appearance on the American Broadway stage, was in the role of Aunt Lizzy Sweeney, in the first Broadway production of Brian Friel
Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
's Philadelphia Here I Come!
Philadelphia Here I Come!
Philadelphia, Here I Come! is a 1964 play by Irish dramatist Brian Friel. Set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, Co.Donegal, the play launched Friel onto the international stage.-Plot:...
at the Helen Hayes Theatre
Helen Hayes Theatre
Helen Hayes Theatre with 597 seats is the smallest Broadway theatre and is located at 240 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan....
in 1966; she also played the same role in the 1975 film version of that play, her last role before her death.
She had appeared in films from 1927 to 1975. Some of her more prominent film roles, that best showcase her talent, were in: The Bum's Rush (1927) starring Snub Pollard
Snub Pollard
Harry "Snub" Pollard was a silent film comedian, popular in the 1920s.-Career:Often mistaken as the brother of Australian actress Daphne Pollard, in fact the two were not related despite their shared surname. Harry Pollard was born as Harold Fraser and took the name Pollard as his stage name...
; Saloon Bar
Saloon Bar
- Plot summary :An amateur detective tries to clear an innocent man of a crime before the date of his execution.- Cast :*Gordon Harker as Joe Harris*Elizabeth Allan as Queenie*Mervyn Johns as Wickers*Joyce Barbour as Sally*Anna Konstam as Ivy...
(1940) starring Gordon Harker
Gordon Harker
Gordon Harker was an English film actor. He appeared in 68 films between 1921 and 1959, including three films directed by Alfred Hitchcock and a cameo appearance in Elstree Calling , a revue film co-directed by Hitchcock...
; South American George
South American George
South American George is a 1941 British, black-and-white, comedy film, directed by Marcel Varnel and starring George Formby, Linden Travers, Enid Stamp-Taylor, Felix Aylmer, Ronald Shiner as Swifty, Mavis Villiers and Herbert Lomas. It was produced by Columbia Productions....
(1941) starring George Formby
George Formby
George Formby, OBE , born George Hoy Booth, was a British comedy actor, singer-songwriter, and comedian. He sang light, comical songs, accompanying himself on the banjo ukulele or banjolele...
; One Exciting Night (1944) starring Vera Lynn
Vera Lynn
Dame Vera Lynn, DBE is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops...
; Suddenly, Last Summer
Suddenly, Last Summer (film)
Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 American Southern Gothic mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams. The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Williams. The music score was by Buxton Orr using themes by...
(1959) (based on Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' play) starring Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
and Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
; Victim (1961) starring Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
; and Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1975).
Her television appearances between 1938 and 1972, include roles in various productions, series and episodes. They include the BBC's Sunday Night Theatre
Sunday Night Theatre
Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of plays created by the BBC first in early 1950, and was regularly shown on Sundays until late 1959, when the last play, A Cup of Kindness, was staged...
, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents, is a 1950s syndicated anthology series hosted and occasionally starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. The series offered Buster Keaton in his first dramatic role in the episode entitled "The Awakening". British actor Christopher Lee appeared in varied role in thirteen...
, The Vise, The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
, The Saint (TV series)
The Saint (TV series)
The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...
, From a Bird's Eye View
From a Bird's Eye View
From A Bird's Eye View was a 1970 ATV and ITC Entertainment co-produced sitcom. In the United States it aired on NBC.The series followed two International Airlines stewardesses, a scatterbrained Briton and a savvy American, as they flew the London-European routes...
and Night Gallery
Night Gallery
Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although...
.
Family and death
Mavis met her future husband, Captain Donald E. Miller, at the American Eagle Club in Charing Cross Road, London, in 1941. The club was one not dissimilar to that depicted in her film One Exciting NightOne Exciting Night (1944 film)
One Exciting Night is a 1944 British musical comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Vera Lynn, Donald Stewart and Mary Clare. A female singer becomes involved with a man who is the victim of a kidnap plot.-Cast:* Vera Lynn ... Vera Baker...
; and Mavis was working at the club at that time. Donald was a Pilot Officer
Pilot Officer
Pilot officer is the lowest commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries. It ranks immediately below flying officer...
in the American Eagle Squadrons attached to the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
. He was subsequently shot down over Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and taken prisoner for two years until released on VE day in 1945. The couple were married in London on 16 June 1945 and planned to settle in the United States after Mavis had completed a contractual obligation to appear in a French film, Le Battalion du ciel (1946). Before they could be reunited, Donald, now working for Pan-American Airways in San Francisco, died from injuries sustained in a car accident on 4 April 1946, nine months after their marriage. The union was childless and Mavis never remarried. Mavis died from pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at her Paddington flat in 1976, aged 65.
Selected filmography
- A Lady's MoralsA Lady's MoralsA Lady's Morals is a 1930 film offering a highly fictionalized account of singer Jenny Lind. The movie features Grace Moore as Lind, Reginald Denny as a lover, and Wallace Beery as P. T. Barnum; Beery would play Barnum again four years later in The Mighty Barnum...
(1930) - It's Never Too Late to MendIt's Never Too Late to MendIt's Never Too Late to Mend is a 1937 British drama film directed by David MacDonald and starring Tod Slaughter, Jack Livesey and Marjorie Taylor. A villanous squire conspires to have his rival in love arrested on false charges...
(1937) - An Englishman's HomeAn Englishman's HomeAn Englishman's Home is a threat-of-invasion play by Guy du Maurier, first produced in 1909. The title is a reference to the expression "an Englishman's home is his castle".-Play:...
(1940) - Saloon BarSaloon Bar- Plot summary :An amateur detective tries to clear an innocent man of a crime before the date of his execution.- Cast :*Gordon Harker as Joe Harris*Elizabeth Allan as Queenie*Mervyn Johns as Wickers*Joyce Barbour as Sally*Anna Konstam as Ivy...
(1940) - Sailors Don't Care (1940)
- GasbagsGasbagsGasbags is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and Marcel Varnel and starring The Crazy Gang.-Plot summary:The film brims with British comedy talent of the period. The Crazy Gang’s mobile fish and chip shop is accidentally tied to a barrage balloon and the gang is carried to Nazi...
(1941) - Hi Gang!Hi Gang! (film)Hi Gang! is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Bebe Daniels, Ben Lyon and Vic Oliver. It was a spin-off from the popular radio series Hi Gang!.-Cast:* Bebe Daniels - The Liberty Girl* Ben Lyon - Her Other Half...
(1941) - South American GeorgeSouth American GeorgeSouth American George is a 1941 British, black-and-white, comedy film, directed by Marcel Varnel and starring George Formby, Linden Travers, Enid Stamp-Taylor, Felix Aylmer, Ronald Shiner as Swifty, Mavis Villiers and Herbert Lomas. It was produced by Columbia Productions....
(1941) - Went the Day Well?Went the Day Well?"Went the Day Well?" is a British war film produced by Ealing Studios in 1942 as unofficial propaganda. It tells of how an English village is taken over by German paratroopers . Made during the war, it reflects the greatest potential nightmares of many Britons of the time, although the threat of...
(1942) - One Exciting NightOne Exciting Night (1944 film)One Exciting Night is a 1944 British musical comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Vera Lynn, Donald Stewart and Mary Clare. A female singer becomes involved with a man who is the victim of a kidnap plot.-Cast:* Vera Lynn ... Vera Baker...
(1944) - Corridor of MirrorsCorridor of Mirrors (film)Corridor of Mirrors is a 1948 British drama film directed by Terence Young and starring Eric Portman, Edana Romney and Barbara Mullen. It was based on a novel by Christopher Massie.-Cast:* Eric Portman - Paul Mangin* Edana Romney - Mifanwy Conway...
(1948) - Pool of London (1951)
- Time Is My EnemyTime Is My EnemyTime Is My Enemy is a 1954 British crime film directed by Don Chaffey. It stars Dennis Price and Renée Asherson.It is also notable that the initials spell T.I.M.E.-Cast:*Dennis Price as Martin Radley*Renée Asherson as Barbara Everton...
(1954) - The Mouse That RoaredThe Mouse That RoaredThe Mouse That Roared is a 1955 Cold War satirical novel by Irish-American writer Leonard Wibberley, which launched a series of satirical books about an imaginary country in Europe called the Duchy of Grand Fenwick...
(1959) - Suddenly, Last SummerSuddenly, Last Summer (film)Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 American Southern Gothic mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams. The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Williams. The music score was by Buxton Orr using themes by...
(1959) - A Touch of LarcenyA Touch of LarcenyA Touch of Larceny is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Guy Hamilton and starring James Mason, George Sanders, Vera Miles, Harry Andrews, Rachel Gurney, and John Le Mesurier. It is based on a diverting and mildly cynical novel, The Megstone Plot , by Paul Winterton under the pseudonym Andrew...
(1959) - Victim (1961)
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. StoneThe Roman Spring of Mrs. StoneThe Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is a 1961 British film made by Seven Arts-Warner Bros. It was directed by José Quintero and produced by Louis De Rochemont with Lothar Wolff as associate producer. The screenplay was written by Gavin Lambert and Jan Read and based on the novel by Tennessee Williams...
(1961) - The BoysThe Boys (1962 film)The Boys is a 1962 British courtroom drama film, directed by Sidney J. Furie and with a screenplay by Stuart Douglass.-Plot:A night watchman at a garage is found murdered, and four teddy boys are put on trial for the crime...
(1962) - Promise Her AnythingPromise Her AnythingPromise Her Anything is a 1965 British romantic comedy film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay by William Peter Blatty is based on a story by Arne Sultan and Marvin Worth.-Plot:...
(1965)