Анна Нигл: Англияның сахна және кино жұлдызы

English stage and film actress and singer

Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox (née Robertson; 20 October 1904 – 3 June 1986), known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer. She was a successful box office draw in British cinema for 20 years and was voted the most popular star in Britain in 1949. She was known for providing glamour and sophistication to war torn London audiences with her lightweight musicals, comedies, and historical dramas. Almost all of her films were produced and directed by Herbert Wilcox, whom she married in 1943. In her historical dramas, Neagle was renowned for her portrayals of British historical figures, including Nell Gwyn (Nell Gwyn, 1934), Queen Victoria (Victoria the Great, 1937 and Sixty Glorious Years, 1938), Edith Cavell (Nurse Edith Cavell, 1939), and Florence Nightingale (The Lady with a Lamp, 1951).

Neagle was born in Forest Gate, Essex, the daughter of Florence Neagle and her husband, Herbert William Robertson, a Merchant Navy captain. Her elder brother was the bass baritone and actor Stuart Robertson (1901–1958). Robertson attended primary school in Glasgow and then St Albans High School for Girls. She made her stage debut as a dancer in 1917, and later appeared in the chorus of C. B. Cochran's revues and also André Charlot's revue Bubbly. While with Cochran, she understudied Jessie Matthews. In 1931, she starred in the West End musical Stand Up and Sing with actor Jack Buchanan, who encouraged her to take a featured role. For this play, she began using the professional name Anna Neagle (the surname being her mother's maiden name). The play was a success with a total run of 604 performances.

Forming a professional alliance with Wilcox, Neagle played her first starring film role in the musical Goodnight, Vienna (1932), again with Jack Buchanan. With this film, Neagle became an overnight favourite. Although the film cost a mere £23,000 to produce, it was a hit at the box office, with profits from its Australian release alone being £150,000. After her starring role in The Flag Lieutenant (also 1932), directed by and co starring Henry Edwards, she worked exclusively under Wilcox's direction for all but one of her subsequent films, Graham Greene, then a film critic, said of Nell Gwyn: "I have seen few things more attractive than Miss Neagle in breeches". performing "Goodnight Vienna". They continued with Yellow Canary (1943), co starring Richard Greene and Margaret Rutherford. In this spy story, Neagle plays a German sympathiser (or at least that is what she seems to be at first), who is forced to go to Canada for her own safety. In reality, of course, she is working as an undercover agent out to expose a plot to blow up Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. Yellow Canary received positive comments for its atmospheric recreation of wartime conditions.

Neagle and Flynn reteamed for a second film, King's Rhapsody (1955), based on an Ivor Novello musical and also starring Patrice Wymore (Flynn's wife at the time). Although Neagle performed several musical numbers for the film, most of them were cut from the final release, leaving her with essentially a supporting role. Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope with location work near Barcelona, Spain, King's Rhapsody was a major flop everywhere. Neagle's (and Flynn's) box office appeal, it seemed, was fading. Neagle's last box office hit was My Teenage Daughter (1956), which featured her as a mother trying to prevent her daughter (Sylvia Syms) from lapsing into juvenile delinquency. Although affected by Parkinson's disease in her last years, Neagle continued to be active. She appeared in Cameron Mackintosh's revival of My Fair Lady and in 1985 she appeared as the Fairy Godmother in a pantomime of Cinderella at the London Palladium. Neagle's grand nephew is actor Nicholas Hoult, through Hoult's father's side. Neagle died aged 81 from breast cancer on 3 June 1986. A memorial service at Westminster Abbey followed on 20 October 1986. She was interred alongside her husband in the City of London Cemetery. Their grave was recommemorated by Princess Anne, the Princess Royal on 6 March 2014. A memorial plaque on her former home at Aldford House, Park Lane was unveiled on 30 May 1996, by Princess Anne and Lana Morris. is situated in Forest Gate, east London.

Neagle was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1952 New Year Honours and, for her contributions to the theatre, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1969 Birthday Honours.

There's Always Tomorrow – Autobiography – 1974, .