Jessie Matthews
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jessie Matthews, OBE (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.
After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected.
Matthews' first major film role was in Out of the Blue (1931). She was in two films directed by Albert de Courville, The Midshipmaid (1932) and There Goes the Bride (1932).
Matthews enjoyed great success with The Good Companions (1933) directed by Victor Saville, although it was more of an ensemble film and The Man from Toronto (1933). Waltzes from Vienna (1933) was an operetta directed by Alfred Hitchcock, followed by Friday the Thirteenth (1933).
She was in the film version of Evergreen (1934) which featured the newly composed song Over My Shoulder which was to go on to become Matthews' personal theme song, later giving its title to her autobiography and to a 21st-century musical stage show of her life.
She was in First a Girl (1935) as a cross dresser, then It's Love Again (1936), where she had an American co-star Robert Young. Exhibitors voted her the sixth biggest star in the country that year.
Matthews started to appear in films directed by husband Sonnie Hale: Gangway (1937), Head over Heels (1937) and Sailing Along (1938). She did Climbing High (1938) directed by Carol Reed. In 1938 she was the fourth biggest British star.
Her warbling voice and round cheeks made her a familiar and much-loved personality to British theatre and film audiences at the beginning of World War II. She was one of many stars in Forever and a Day (1943). Her popularity waned in the 1940s after several years' absence from the screen followed by an unsatisfactory thriller, Candles at Nine (1944).
Post-war audiences associated her with a world of hectic pre-war luxury that was now seen as obsolete in austerity-era Britain. In the late 1940s she ran an amateur theatre group at the Theatre Royal in Aldershot.
After a few false starts as a straight actress she played Tom Thumb's mother in the 1958 children's film, and during the 1960s found new fame when she took over the leading role of Mary Dale in the BBC's long-running daily radio soap, The Dales, formerly Mrs Dale's Diary.
Live theatre and variety shows remained the mainstay of Matthews' work through the 1950s and 1960s, with successful tours of Australia and South Africa interspersed with periods of less glamorous but welcome work in British provincial theatre and pantomimes.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 3.027 |
Birthday | 1907-03-11 |
Place of Birth | London, England, UK |
Also Known As |
1934
Waltzes from Vienna
5.3/40
Johann Strauss Jr. is forced by his father to forget music and to work in a bakery, where he falls in love with Resi, the baker's daughter. The girl g...
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Waltzes from Vienna
1958
Tom Thumb
6.25/64
A boy, no bigger than a thumb, manages to outwit two thieves determined to make a fortune from him.
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Tom Thumb
1933
The Man from Toronto
4/2
According to the terms of a will two strangers must marry. Leila (Jessie Matthews) is an English widow, and Fergus (Ian Hunter) is a Canadian bachelo...
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The Man from Toronto
1933
The Good Companions
5.8/4
Film musical taken from JB Priestley's novel about three musicians joining together to save a failing concert party, the Dinky Doos.
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The Good Companions
1936
It's Love Again
6.2/2
Elaine Bradford is a young singer and dancer, looking for her big break. Peter Carlton is a gossip columnist facing a deadline and a blank page. So, P...
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It's Love Again
1934
Evergreen
6.2/9
Harriet Green, a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era, mysteriously disappears on the eve of her wedding. Years later, she reappea...
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Evergreen
1935
First a Girl
6.2/13
First a Girl is a 1935 British comedy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Jessie Matthews. First a Girl was adapted from the 1933 German film...
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First a Girl
1938
Sailing Along
7/3
A barge-owner's adopted daughter falls in love with his son, and gives up her chances of stardom to be with him.
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Sailing Along
1937
Head Over Heels
8/1
Legendary British musical-comedy favorite Jessie Matthews chalks up another winner with Head Over Heels in Love. The ever-charming Matthews plays Jean...
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Head Over Heels
1944
Candles at Nine
5/1
A rich but miserly old man taunts his relatives about who will get his money when he dies, and is soon mysteriously murdered. It turns out that he has...
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Candles at Nine
1943
Forever and a Day
7.2/8
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble,...
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Forever and a Day
1938
Climbing High
6.5/1
Wealthy Nicky finds himself engaged to gold-digger Lady Constance, but he really loves scatty model Diana. Complications, slapstick and mountaineering...
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Climbing High
1937
Gangway
7/1
Newspaper reporter becomes involved with gang of crooks who take her for a tough American gangster.
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Gangway
1932
The Midshipmaid
0/0
Sir Percy Newbiggin visits the fleet to find ways to economize Naval expenditures. Daughter Celia tags along and organizes a morale-boosting show util...
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The Midshipmaid
1932
There Goes the Bride
6.4/5
A businessman's daughter runs away from an arranged marriage, only to find herself penniless and suspected of theft after she becomes the victim of a...
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There Goes the Bride
1931
Out of the Blue
0/0
Impoverished aristocrat's daughter Tommy Tucker is in love with radio announcer Bill Coverdale, but he is engaged to her more glamorous sister Angela,...
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Out of the Blue
1978
The Hound of the Baskervilles
4.5/23
The death of Sir Charles Baskerville is blamed on a curse that has followed the Baskerville family for two hundred years. Sherlock Holmes is out to un...
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
1978
Edward & Mrs. Simpson
10/1
While still the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII meets the married American socialite, Wallis Simpson. Their relationship causes furor in the p...
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Edward & Mrs. Simpson
1933
Friday the Thirteenth
6.5/8
It is pouring with rain at one minute to midnight on Friday the thirteenth, and the driver of a London bus is peering through his blurred windscreen a...
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Friday the Thirteenth
1947
Life Is Nothing Without Music
0/0
Jessie Matthews relives, with Alvar Liddell an appreciative listener, the delights of a holiday spent in Devonshire.
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Life Is Nothing Without Music
1979
The Winter Ladies
0/0
When a new arrival, a titled lady no less, arrives to shatter the genteel status quo of the St. Elmo Hotel, the entrenched residents are soon sharpeni...
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The Winter Ladies
1944
Victory Wedding
0/0
A young couple prepare for post-war marriage. Propaganda short encouraging women to contribute to the war effort by investing in war loans through Nat...
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