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Margaret Lockwood — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Contract with Rank

In July 1946, Lockwood signed a six-year contract with Rank to make two movies a year. The first of these was Hungry Hill (1947), an expensive adaptation of the novel by Daphne du Maurier which was not the expected success at the box office. More popular was Jassy (1947), the seventh biggest hit at the British box office in 1947. It was the last of "official" Gainsborough melodramas – the studio had come under the control of J. Arthur Rank who disliked the genre. Filmink argued Lockwood's career never recovered from the death of Ted Black in 1948.

She was a warden in The White Unicorn (1947), a melodrama from the team of Harold Huth and John Corfield. Rank wanted to star her in a film about Mary Magdalene but Lockwood was unhappy with the script. She refused to appear in Roses for Her Pillow (which became Once Upon a Dream) and was put on suspension. "I was sick of getting mediocre parts and poor scripts", she later wrote. "Since 1945 I had been sick of it... there had been little or no improvement to me in the films I was being offered." She later said "I was having fun being a rebel." In December 1947 Kine Weekly wrote "Margaret Lockwood remains the First Lady of the British screen yet for sheer personal popularity she has nothing on Anna Neagle".

During her suspension she went on a publicity tour for Rank. She also appeared in an acclaimed TV production of Pygmalion (1948). then went off suspension when she made Look Before You Love (1948), a comedy for Corfield and Huth.

Lockwood had a change of pace with the comedy Cardboard Cavalier (1949), with Lockwood playing Nell Gwyn. The film was a critical and box-office disappointment. "I was terribly distressed when I read the press notices of the film", wrote Lockwood.

That same year, Lockwood was announced to play Becky Sharp in a film adaptation of Vanity Fair but it was not made.

Lockwood was in the melodrama Madness of the Heart (1949), but the film was not a particular success. When a proposed film about Elisabeth of Austria was cancelled, she returned to the stage in a record-breaking national tour of Noël Coward's Private Lives (1949) and then played the title role in productions of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in 1949 and 1950. She also performed in a pantomime of Cinderella for the Royal Film performance with Jean Simmons; Lockwood called this "the jolliest show in which I have ever taken part."

She returned to film-making after an 18-month absence to star in Highly Dangerous (1950), a comic thriller in the vein of Lady Vanishes, written expressly for her by Eric Ambler and directed by Roy Ward Baker. It was not popular. Rank was to put her in an adaptation of Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells but the film was postponed. She turned down the female lead in The Browning Version, and a proposed sequel to The Wicked Lady, The Wicked Lady's Daughter, was never made.

Eventually her contract with Rank ended and she played Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion at the Edinburgh Festival of 1951.

Theatre credits

Margaret Hamilton, Family Affairs, Ambassadors Theatre and Phoenix Theatre, London, and other venues, 1934–35

Helene Ferber, Repayment, Arts Theatre, London, 1936

The Stars Look Down, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 1940

Amanda Prynne, Private Lives, Bristol Hippodrome, 1949

Peter Pan, Peter Pan, Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, 1950

Peter Pan, Bristol Hippodrome, 1949–50

Peter Pan, Peter Pan, Grand Theatre, Leeds, Empire Theatre, Sunderland, and other venues, 1950–51

Eliza Doolittle, Pygmalion, Bristol Hippodrome, Opera House, Manchester, and other venues, 1951–52

Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, Spider's Web, Savoy Theatre, London, Theatre Royal, Nottingham, and other venues, 1954–56

Dinah Holland, Subway in the Sky, Grand Theatre, Hull, Savoy Theatre, London, and other venues, 1957

Sally Seymour, And Suddenly it's Spring, Duke of York's Theatre, London, New Theatre, Oxford, Bristol Hippodrome, 1959–60

Barbara Martin, Milk and Honey, Theatre Royal, Newcastle upon Tyne, Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, and other venues, 1961

Sally Thomas, Signpost to Murder, Cambridge Theatre, London, New Theatre, Oxford, and other venues, 1961–63

Caroline, Every Other Evening, New Theatre, Oxford and Phoenix Theatre, London, 1964

Mrs Cheveley, An Ideal Husband, Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Golders Green Hippodrome, and other venues, 1965–67

Claire Williams, The Others, Strand Theatre, London, 1967

Diane, On a Foggy Day, St Martin's Theatre, London, Cambridge Arts Theatre, and other venues, 1969

Lady Frederick Berolles, Lady Frederick, Duke of York's Theatre, London, Vaudeville Theatre, London, Bristol Hippodrome, and other venues, 1970–71

Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, Relative Values, Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon and Westminster Theatre, London, 1973

Helen Galt, Double Edge, Vaudeville Theatre and Richmond Theatre, London, and other venues, 1975–76

Maud Caragnani / Carlotta Grey, Suite in Two Keys, Richmond Theatre, London, Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon, and other venues, 1978

The Princess of Wales (Alix), Motherdear, Ambassadors Theatre, London and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 1980

Margaret Lockwood

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Margaret Lockwood

🎬 Filmography

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Margaret Lockwood across IJR

Article

Article

Early life

Career

Films

Gaumont British

British Stardom: Bank Holiday and The Lady Vanishes

American films

Return to Britain

Career peak

The Man in Grey

The Wicked Lady

Contract with Rank

Herbert Wilcox

Later career

Television

Stage

Legacy

Personal life and death

Filmography

Unmade films

Theatre credits

Awards

Box-office popularity

🎬 Filmography

Margaret Lockwood across IJR