Julie & Thora or Nora

[postcard_nostalgia_c]

Hi everyone, thanks for allowing me to join your forum. I was on Yahoo Answers and they said try here. I have a photographic postcard and I am stuck on who these two people ar, I assume they are Actresses and not singers although they may be both even. The postcard is signed: Sincerely Julie & Thora or Nora (I think)



I have put the photo on my website and now I hope I can link to it: Postcard - Unidentified - Postcards



Thank you very much for any help, it may be obvious, it may be difficult, but I honestly have no idea but hopefully have nothing to lose by trying.



Gerry

[Joenoir]

Well it does have a look of Dame Thora as she would have looked in the 1930s, but I wouldn't have considered it to be her without the possibilty of the lady being a Thora!

[penfold]

It could just about be young Miss Thora, but it seems to be a souvenir from a variety act, and I thought she was in rep. theatre pre-war and Ealing....does anyone have a copy of an her autobiography...?

[postcard_nostalgia_c]

Wow, many thanks for the replies so far, I guess I didn't really expect any. Because if is a real photograph the ink from the scribbled signature is not standing out too well, AND I am only guessing it states "Sincerely Julie & Nora (Thora) so even the Julie could be jane when joined up, so I am open to any ideas and even happy to do research if I had clues, Meanwhile thanks again. Gerry

[postcard_nostalgia_c]

I did what you suggested and researched Dame Thora and indeed this is what it said"



Born in Morecambe, Lancashire, the daughter of the manager of the local Royalty Theatre, she was carried on to the stage in a melodrama at the age of eight weeks. When old enough she joined the Royalty's theatre company although kept on a day job as a cashier in a grocery store. "I spent 10 years working in that grocery store" she recalled, "and I've played nearly all the customers I used to serve - maids, landladies, cleaners, forthright parents. When I'm acting I'll do some little thing I've remembered, so simple." At the theatre she appeared in over 500 plays and in 1941 the comedian George Formby, on a visit to the theatre, recommended her to Michael Balcon at Ealing Film Studios. Put under contract she first appeared in The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1941) with Will Hay and a string of comedy films and dramas followed. In the same vein as the saucy seaside postcards of her Morecambe birth, Hird was usually cast as the all-seeing boarding house landlady, a gossiping neighbour or a sharp tongued mother in law".



I wonder if this helps anyones memory, thanks.... Gerry

[postcard_nostalgia_c]

Okay well thanks very much for trying anyway, someone else who has looked deeper into it now also strongly believes it is a Thora because of the way it joins, more then happy the top word is sincerely, so it really boils down to what the middle word is, I wonder if it is an L and not a j, therefore it could be "Sincerely Love Thora. depending on if that first letter showing could be an L, because I assumed it was a J.

[postcard_nostalgia_c]

Actually a bit lost here, have just received an email saying that the lady on the left could be Fay Compton????

[Santonix]

I may be wrong but IMHO and having watched Dame Thora's early films, I don't think it's her.

[Joenoir]

Satonix is probably right, and I also doubt it's Fay Compton.

[Joenoir]

Thora Hird in Went the Day Well? (1942)

[postcard_nostalgia_c]

Hi and thanks to everyone who has sent me messages & also Joenoir for taking the time to scan the pictures. Before I give up and put in a box I'll just make one last effort and ask if anyone has seen No Medals, where Thora Hird played a 60 year old charlady.



I would like to thank everyone though, it seemed a shame to have it sat around doing nothing and I guess you start researching and get carried along various routes. I actually thought the one on the right was a bloke so it shows how much I knew, guess we went from Nora to Thora and the age fitted in with the photo. Anyway many thanks to everyone and I will leave the question up a bit longer just incase someone gets bored over the weekend, It may simply be a small time play somewhere in the world but you never know someone might just know.... Gerry