Christine Silver

Christine Silver (17 December 1883 – 23 November 1960) was a British stage, film and television actress, and a playwright.

Christine Silver
A young white woman wearing a large plumed hat, in an oval frame.
Christine Silver, from a 1910 publication.
Born17 December 1883
London
Died23 November 1960
London
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Actress, playwright

Early life

Christine Isie Silver was born in 1883 (some sources give 1884), in London, the daughter of Arthur Silver and Isabella Charlotte Walenn Silver. Her father was a textile designer. Her maternal grandfather was scientist William Henry Walenn, and her uncles included singer and actor Charles Walenn and composer Gerald Walenn.[1][2]

Career

Silver began acting as a teenager, working on the London stage by 1902.[1] She appeared in Peter Pan (1904), The Lion and the Mouse (1907),[3] Diana of Dobson's (1908),[4] An Englishman's Home (1909),[5] The Speckled Band (1910), George Bernard Shaw's Fanny's First Play (1911), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1913), The Sister-in-Law (1916),[6] Betty at Bay (1918),[7] The Mayor of Casterbridge (1926),[8] and the title role in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.[9] Later roles included parts in The Cathedral (1930),[10] The Cradle Song (1931),[11] Barnet's Folly (1935)[12] The Unveiling (1938),[13] and A Trip to Scarborough (1944).[14]

Silver was in several silent films, including The Pleydell Mystery (1916), The Labour Leader (1917), The Little Welsh Girl (1920), and Judge Not (1920). She made the transition to sound films as a character actress, with roles in Dead Men Tell No Tales (1938), Salute John Citizen (1942), Those Kids from Town (1942), Heaven is Round the Corner (1944), Room to Let (1950),[15] and Companions in Crime (1954), and The Hornet's Nest, in 1955, as Becky Crumb, which was her last feature film rôle, with Nora Nicholson.

She was heard on radio programmes in the 1920s and 1930s,[16] and seen on television in the 1940s and 1950s.

Silver also wrote a play, Doorsteps (1915), which was adapted into a silent film, Chicken Casey (1917).

Personal life

Silver married twice. Her first husband was her manager, Walter Maxwell; they married in 1908, and had a daughter Ellen Barbara Maxwell Sturgis (1912-2004), before they divorced.[1] Her second husband was Roland Sturgis, the son of American-born writer Julian Russell Sturgis and brother of government official Mark Grant-Sturgis. They married in 1918.[17] She died in 1960, aged 76 years, in London.

References
  1. Who's who in the Theatre. Pitman. 1922. pp. 560, 733.
  2. Museum of London (1980). Silver Studio Collection: a London design studio, 1880-1963 ; foreword by John Brandon-Jones ; introd. by Mark Turner ; with a contribution by William Ruddick. Lund Humphries, in association with Middlessex Polytechnic. ISBN 9780853314318.
  3. "The Theatre". The Oxford Magazine. 25: 283. 13 March 1907.
  4. "The Dormitory Scene in 'Diana of Dobson's'". The Sketch. 61: 167. 19 February 1908.
  5. "Wyndham's; An Englishman's Home". The Observer. 1909-01-31. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Wyndham's Theatre; 'The Sister-in-Law'". The Observer. 1916-08-06. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. M. A. L. (1918-09-03). "Prince's Theatre; 'Betty at Bay'". The Guardian. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Ervine, St John (1926-09-12). "At the Play". The Observer. p. 13. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. Wilson, K. (1994-12-19). Thomas Hardy on Stage. Springer. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-230-37228-3.
  10. I. B. (1930-12-11). "'The Cathedral'". The Guardian. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  11. H. H. (1931-09-06). "Everyman; 'The Cradle Song'". The Observer. p. 11. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Haymarket; 'Barnet's Folly' by Jan Stewer". The Observer. 1935-04-07. p. 20. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  13. "Untitled theatre item". The Observer. 1938-01-02. p. 13. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. Wearing, J. P. (2014-08-22). The London Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-8108-9306-1.
  15. Hammer's House of Horror 019. April 1978. p. 29.
  16. "Pick of the Programmes". The Guardian. 1929-04-29. p. 12. Retrieved 2020-04-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. Sturgis, Francis Shaw (1925). The descendants of Nath'l Russell Sturgis : with a brief introductory sketch of his ancestors in England and in the Massachusetts colony. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Boston : Geo. Ellis. p. 12.
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