simon1983

Hello all, has anyone and details of these two beautiful British actresses? I can only find very basic info, like date of birth and films they were in. Does anyone know if Phyllis Stanley is still alive or passed? And has anyone and address for Joyce Howard. I'd love to write to her. I feel it was this actress more than anyone that first drew me to 40s films!

Thank you!
Simon

Joenoir

Joyce Howard

Phyllis Stanley

There is little information about these two actresses on the web. It would be interesting, if someone could contact them, to set up a Q & A session, similar to the one Rennie carried out with Bryan Forbes. Bearing in mind Joyce is now 86 and Phyllis 93, their health would, of course, have to be a consideration.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with.

CaptainWaggett

I know it doesn't help in finding out if she's still alive but I can tell you who Phyllis Stanley shared a flat with during the war -

Obituaries: Jane Beadon She testified against her stepdaughter in the Argyll divorce case
The Guardian (Manchester); Jul 9, 1999; Michael Thornton; p. 22
Full Text:

Jane Beadon, who has died aged 85, played a central role in one of the most sensational divorce actions of the century. In 1959, her stepdaughter, Margaret, duchess of Argyll, a woman of dramatic and legendary beauty, was taken to court by her husband, the 11th duke, who began divorce proceedings against her on the grounds of multiple adultery.

The case became notorious, not least because of `headless' polaroid pictures produced in court, some of which showed the duchess with a man - rumoured to be a well-known figure - from the neck down. The case was also remarkable because the duchess's stepmother, Jane, gave evidence against her in court.

In 1962 the duchess cross-petitioned, citing Jane, who was in fact a year younger than herself. The legal marathon that ensued owed its ferocity to the formidable character of these two women.

Born in Aberdeen, Vera Jane Siddons Corby was a descendant of the actress Sarah Siddons, and the eldest of the three children of John Siddons Corby, inventor of the Corby gentleman's trouser press. In 1934, at the age of 20, she married Edgar Jarvis, a master tailor 15 years her senior, but the marriage was dissolved in 1939. During the second world war, while sharing a West End flat with actress Phyllis Stanley, Jane appeared briefly in several films, then went to the United States, where she marketed her father's trouser press and had a relationship with a married American army colonel.

In 1948, at the captain's table on the liner Queen Elizabeth, Jane was introduced to George Hay Whigham, 34 years her senior, founder and chairman of the pounds 32m British Celanese fibre corporation - and Margaret's father. Their relationship remained discreet, but on October 31, 1956, 20 months after the death of Whigham's wife, Jane married him at Caxton Hall, Westminster.

Initially, the duchess appeared to welcome her stepmother into the family. But in December 1959, Jane's marriage to Whigham reached crisis point when she was called to give evidence in proceedings to commit the duchess to prison for breaching a high court undertaking not to impugn the legitimacy of the duke's sons.

Jane appeared in public with a black eye, announcing that Whigham was responsible. They separated and, when Whigham died in 1960, Jane was excluded from his will. She contested it, winning a dower right for life to one third of the income from his estate in the Bahamas. Shortly afterwards, the wheel of her new car came off while she was driving it, with almost fatal consequences.

In 1962, when Margaret cited her stepmother for adultery with the duke, and then dropped her cross-petition at the door of the court, Jane sued her for libel, slander and conspiracy to suborn perjury. The evidence was such that lawyers predicted a custodial sentence for the duchess if the case came to court. Jane showed the magnanimity of her character when she avoided that outcome by accepting pounds 25,000 in settlement, in spite of Margaret's refusal to apologise.

The last laugh was Jane's. In 1965, after she married Wing Commander Clive Beadon, a bomber pilot hero, the couple spent their honeymoon, much to the duchess's fury, at Whigham's mansion on Cable Beach, Nassau. The marriage endured happily until Beadon's death in 1996.

Jane Beadon, socialite, born December 4, 1913; died June 30, 1999