Alison Leggatt
Her performance in Miles Malleson's The Fanatics in 1927 launched her, according to The New York Times, as "one of the most promising theatrical newcomers of her generation".[4] Her first major film credit was as Aunt Sylvia in This Happy Breed (1944), Noël Coward's homage to the British working class.[7] Additional theatre work included appearances at Stratford, as well as the original West End productions of Bernard Shaw's Geneva in 1938; T.S.Eliot's The Cocktail Party and The Confidential Clerk in 1950 and 1954; John Osborne's Epitaph for George Dillon in 1958 (and its Broadway transfer); Harold Pinter's A Slight Ache in 1961; and N. F. Simpson's One Way Pendulum in 1959 (and its 1964 film version).[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Leggatt's television credits include Jonathan Miller’s production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1966) (as the Queen of Hearts), the 1975 mini-series Edward the Seventh, in which she portrayed Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent,[16] and a memorable turn in an episode of the prison drama series Within These Walls (1978), where she played Alice Drewett, the narcissistic sister of an inmate who is released into her 'care'.