Margaret Halstan
Margaret Halstan was a British stage and screen actress, who often played upper-class ladies of the gentry, with a career spanning over six decades.
She was particularly known for her Shakespearian roles, and it has been stated she appeared in every one of his plays, she was particularly noted for her role in Othello as Desdemona, she made her professional debut in 1895.
At the turn of the century she joined Sir Frank Benson's theatre company, and also played in the theatrical companies of Sir George Alexander and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, before making her debut in silent films in 1916.
Biography
Halstan was born Clara Maud Hertz in London, England on Christmas Day 1879, of apparently Jewish descent. and later used the professional stage name Margaret Halstan. Her parents were Henry Anthony Hertz and his wife Elizabeth Maud.Before becoming a professional actor, Halstan performed as an amateur with the Strolling players and the Bancroft Amateur Dramatic Society. She performed in a show titled Beethoven's Romance at the Royalty Theatre on 1 December 1894.
Halstan made her professional West End stage debut at the Haymarket Theatre on 30 October 1895, as a walk-on in Trilby. She was fluent in English, German, and French, and performed on stage in all three languages. Halstan also acted in BBC radio productions such as the 1938 radio adaptation of the novel If I Were You, and the 1940 radio adaptation of the short story "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime".
She made the easy transition to film roles debuting in the 1916 silent A Bunch of Violets and subsequently appearing in sound pictures.
She also played the elderly aunt Lydia, who comes to visit her family in Norfolk at Christmas, in the seasonal feature The [Holly and the Ivy |The Holy and the Ivy], in 1952 starring Ralph Richardson and was one of two actors to have also played the stage version in 1950.