Dame Anna Neagle (1904–86,) née Marjorie Robertson, married name Marjorie Wilcox, was a British actress and dancer known for her work in stage plays, musicals, and films. Her husband, producer-director Herbert Wilcox, guided her motion-picture career.
Born in London, Neagle studied and taught dance and was a chorus girl before graduating to leading roles, making her film début in 1930. Under the tutelage of director Herbert Wilcox, she emerged as a major star of historical film dramas, offering genteel portraits of inspiring heroines such as Nell Gwynn (1934,) Victoria the Great (1937,) and The Lady with the Lamp (1951.)
Neagle attained fame as Great Britain’s top box-office attraction with a series of musicals, but later attempts to tackle contemporary subjects were ill judged, and she retired from the screen in 1958.
Neagle’s subsequent stage appearances including Charlie Girl (1965–71) and My Fair Lady (1978–79.) She appeared in more than 30 films, a majority of them produced by her husband; her screen appearances include those in Victoria the Great (1937,) Spring in Park Lane (1948,) and Odette (1950.)
Neagle’s autobiographies are It’s Been Fun (1949) and There’s Always Tomorrow (1974.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Anna Neagle
But the delights of solitude don’t only consist of dreaming. Next in enjoyment, I think, comes planning.
—Anna Neagle
Topics: Enjoyment, Planning
But if we learn to think of it as anticipation, as learning, as growing, if we think of the time we spend waiting for the big things of life as an opportunity instead of a passing of time, what wonderful horizons open out!
—Anna Neagle
Topics: Anticipation
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