Hermione Baddeley
Hermione Youlanda Ruby Clinton-Baddeley was an English actress of theatre, film, and television. She typically played brash, vulgar characters, often referred to as "brassy" or "blowsy". She found her milieu in revue, in which she played from the 1930s to the 1950s, co-starring several times with English actress Hermione Gingold.
Baddeley was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for her performance in Room at the Top and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore in 1963. She portrayed Mrs. Cratchit in the 1951 film Scrooge and Ellen the Maid in the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins. She voiced Madame Adelaide Bonfamille in the 1970 Disney animated film, The Aristocats. In 1975, she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series for her portrayal of Nell Naugatuck on the TV series Maude.
Early life
Baddeley was born in Broseley, Shropshire, to the composer William Herman Clinton-Baddeley and Louise Bourdin, who was French. Baddeley was a descendant of British General Sir Henry Clinton, who served in the American War of Independence. Her elder sister, Angela Baddeley, was also an actress. Her half-brother, William Baddeley, was a Church of England clergyman who became Dean of Brisbane and Rural Dean of Westminster. Her cousin was the playwright V.C. Clinton-Baddeley.An early stage appearance came in 1923 when she appeared in Charles McEvoy's play The Likes of Her in London's West End.
Career
Baddeley was known for supporting performances in such films as Passport to Pimlico, Tom Brown's Schooldays and Scrooge, The Pickwick Papers, The Belles of St Trinian's, Mary Poppins, and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, although she first began making films back in the 1920s. One of her more important roles was in Brighton Rock, in which she played Ida, one of the main characters, whose personal investigation into the disappearance of a friend threatens the anti-hero Pinkie.Baddeley also had numerous stage credits. She had a long professional relationship with Noël Coward, appearing in many of his plays throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The most successful was her teaming with Hermione Gingold in Coward's comedy Fallen Angels, though the two women were reportedly "no longer on speaking terms" by the end of the run.
Baddeley was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Simone Signoret's best friend in Jack Clayton's Room at the Top. With 2 minutes and 19 seconds of screen time, her role is the shortest ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. In 1960 she played prostitute Doll Tearsheet in the BBC's series of Shakespeare history plays An Age of Kings, acting alongside her sister Angela as Mistress Quickly. In 1963, she was nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress for The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.
She was known to American audiences for roles in Bewitched, The Cara Williams Show, Camp Runamuck, Batman, Wonder Woman, $weepstake$, Little House on the Prairie, and Maude. Toward the end of her career, Baddeley was also a voice-over actress, including roles in The Aristocats and The Secret of NIMH.
In January 1973, Baddeley appeared at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in Mother Adam by Charles Dyer, as a crippled mother living with her middle-aged mueum attendant son, Adam, played by Peter Wyngarde.
Personal life
In 1928 Baddeley married English aristocrat and socialite David Tennant. She arrived an hour late for the wedding, having misremembered the time booked for the ceremony. They rented Teffont Evias Manor in Wiltshire, which became known for their boisterous parties that sometimes involved mixed naked bathing in the goldfish pond. She had a daughter, Pauline Laetitia Tennant and a son, David; the couple divorced in 1937.In 1940 Baddeley married Major John Henry Willis, of the 12th Lancers, son of Major-General Edward Willis, Lieutenant Governor of Jersey. They divorced in 1946. She had a relatively brief relationship with actor Laurence Harvey, 22 years her junior. Although Harvey proposed marriage, Baddeley thought the age difference was too great and declined.
Baddeley was known for her devotion to animals. She dedicated her autobiography, The Unsinkable Hermione Baddeley, to her pet dog. She continued to work in film and television until shortly before the end of her life.
She died on 19 August 1986, aged 79, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles following a series of strokes. Her remains were repatriated to the United Kingdom for burial.
Her sister was the actress Angela Baddeley who had a long career in stage and film acting, and in the 1970s played the cook, Mrs Bridges, in the television drama Upstairs, Downstairs.