Maureen Swanson

[Wee Sonny MacGregor]

Sad to see that Maureen Swanson, Countess of Dudley, has died after a long illness

[Merton Park]

Always really liked her after seeing Up In The World with Norman. She was a good actress. Great shame.

RIP

[ShirlGirl]

Sad news. Her funeral will take place on Friday, which would have been her 79th Birthday.




She was lovely. I seem to recall she was a ballerina with Sadlers Wells before becoming an actress.

[julian_craster]

Do you have a reliable source for this ?

[ShirlGirl]

Do you have a reliable source for this ?

Not sure if your question is directed to me about her being a ballerina or to Wee Sonny McGregor about her having died.
If to me.... I'm pretty sure I have it in an old Picture Show Annual. Will try to find it.

[julian_craster]

Do you have a reliable source for this ?

to Wee Sonny McGregor about her having died.......

[ShirlGirl]

Maureen Swanson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's also announced in the obituaries section of The Times today.....

....and here: Peerage News: Death of Countess of Dudley, former Rank starlet Maureen Swanson

[Wee Sonny MacGregor]

Do you have a reliable source for this ?

to Wee Sonny McGregor about her having died.......

Yes - yesterday's death notices column in the Telegraph. Donations to Sadlers Wells

[julian_craster]

Obituary: Maureen Swanson, The Countess of Dudley




25 Nov 2011

Daily Telegraph
The Countess of Dudley - Telegraph



The Countess of Dudley, who has died aged 78, was, before her marriage to Viscount Ednam, heir to the earldom of Dudley, better known to cineastes as the actress and dancer Maureen Swanson.


During the 1950s, Maureen Swanson, a “pocket-sized Venus” from Glasgow, was one of the bright hopes of the Rank Organisation, taking roles in such films as Moulin Rouge (1952); Knights of the Round Table (1953); A Town Like Alice (1956); The Spanish Gardener (1956, with Dirk Bogarde); and Robbery Under Arms (1957, with Peter Finch). On stage she played in The Happiest Millionaire and Dennis Cannan’s comedy Who’s Your Father?

Described as resembling a “physically alluring amalgam of Rita Hayworth, Jane Russell and Susan Hayward”, and tipped as “the next Vivien Leigh”, she appeared on the cover of the American magazine Look and was said to have been offered contracts by Howard Hughes and Errol Flynn as well as a screen test by Walt Disney. Rank, however, refused to let her go.

Like many young hopefuls of her generation, Maureen Swanson attracted the attention of the rich and titled and was courted by, among others, the Marquess of Milford Haven, the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Hanson and the King of Jordan.

“Miss Maureen Swanson,” ran one newspaper report in 1957, “is now on speaking terms with a fair cross-section of the aristocracy, including a viscount, a marquess and half a dozen dukes, and thanks are due to Viscount Ednam, Mr Billy Wallace and the Marquess of Milford Haven. All three are good friends of hers and over the past few weeks some of the most exclusive drawing rooms have been improved by her decorative presence.” Viscount Ednam, however, the reporter noted, “is the one peer that the lady will not talk about”.

Maureen Swanson declined to speculate on why the press was showing so much interest in their friendship, though the fact that the viscount, a member of one of the country’s richest families, was still married to (though separated from) his first wife, the former Stella Carcarno, daughter of a one-time Argentine ambassador to Britain, may have had something to do with it.

In 1961 Lord Ednam initiated divorce proceedings. Though, in court, he admitted adultery, the divorce was granted on the grounds of that of his wife. The decree was made absolute in less than four weeks. When the 41-year-old viscount married the 28-year-old actress a few days later, however, his father, the 3rd Earl of Dudley, refused to attend the ceremony, preferring to play bridge at his club. “He did not send any message of good wishes to Lord Ednam or his bride. He has no plans to see them,” his secretary was quoted as saying.

The bride arrived for her marriage at Amersham register office, reporters noted, in a “white grosgrain duster coat and a white tulle hat, accompanied by her Spanish maid carrying her pet Pekinese, Bubbles” .

After her marriage she forsook showbusiness for domesticity. A first son was born prematurely , but survived only a few hours. She went on to have more children, five daughters then finally, in 1971, a much longed for second son, whose arrival made the front page of the Daily Mirror under the headline “It’s a Boy”. Lord Ednam succeeded to the earldom of Dudley on his father’s death in 1969 .

The marriage had its ups and downs , but the Earl supported his wife through a series of libel actions as she fought to protect her reputation against assaults by the press and others.

These began in the 1980s and revolved around two of the Countess’s former friendships – the first, and more recent, with Princess Michael of Kent, and the second with Dr Stephen Ward, the “society osteopath” who became a central figure in the Profumo sex scandal that helped to bring down the Macmillan government.

In 1982 the Countess had accompanied Princess Michael on a semi-official visit to the United States. Sometime after their return, however, the Princess’s solicitors threatened legal action after the Earl penned and circulated a wounding piece of doggerel which, among other things, alluded to her father’s Nazi links . The offending piece was widely circulated in society circles, finally coming to the attention of the Princess and other members of the Royal family.

The matter was resolved before it came to court by the Earl writing an abject letter of apology and agreeing to destroy all known copies of the ditty. But the story came to light in 1985 when the Earl’s letter was leaked to the Mail on Sunday.

The case reached the courts in the same year when the Countess won £5,000 in libel damages from the Literary Review following the publication of an article (a review of a book about ladies-in-waiting by Alistair Forbes), which, she claimed, had made her out to be a “greedy and vulgar woman” who had refused to pay her expenses on the trip with Princess Michael, and instead had furnished her husband with damaging “tittle tattle” for his poem. There had been no dispute during the trip, Lady Dudley maintained; indeed, Princess Michael had complimented her on her devotion and sent her letters and flowers.

In 1989 Lady Dudley won “substantial” damages from the publishers of Honeytrap: the Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward, by Anthony Summer and Stephen Dorril, in which the authors suggested that she had been one of the “popsies” whom Ward had procured for his influential friends. The book, according to her counsel, gave the impression that she was a “nonentity as an actress” whom Ward had picked from obscurity and “made his creature to be launched into society”.

Lady Dudley admitted to having had an affair with Ward. They had become friends when he had been commissioned to draw her portrait in 1953 — 10 years before the Profumo scandal. “I was about 17 and I dated Ward for a year,” she recalled. “He was a very attractive, very dashing man about town.” They had later lost touch; at the time she knew him, there was no controversy attached to his name.

In 2002 the Countess again accepted substantial libel damages from the publishers of Christine Keeler: The Truth At Last, the former call-girl’s account of the events surrounding her notorious affair with the former war minister John Profumo, in which she referred to Lady Dudley as having been “one of Stephen’s girls”.

Maureen Swanson was born in Glasgow on November 25 1932. From childhood her great love was ballet, and she won a place at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. While she was there, her family emigrated to South Africa and she became the ward of Lady (Phyllis) Griffith-Boscawen, the widow of the former MP Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen. She was later selected to be a student dancer with the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet company.

Her heroine was Margot Fonteyn, and she was eventually given her part in The Haunted Ballroom. She got good reviews but was devastated when Dame Ninette de Valois informed her that, in her opinion, she was a “personality dancer” who would be better suited to acting.

A ballet mistress who believed in her talent secured an audition for the juvenile lead in the musical Carousel at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Maureen won the part, and was soon spotted by a talent scout who recommended her to John Huston, then busy directing Moulin Rouge. Soon she was playing her first screen role, as Denise de Frontenac opposite Jose Ferrer’s Toulouse-Lautrec.

In later life Lady Dudley was often described as having been a “Rank starlet”. But she objected to the term, once sending a CV round Fleet Street arguing that she should be regarded as having been a “serious actress and a dancer”. In 1999 she sent one offender a poem, entitled RANKour, which began: “You’re a verbal varlet/To label me a Fifties starlet!”

After marrying Lord Ednam, Maureen channelled her creative energies into interior design at the couple’s homes in London and Devon. The drawing room of her Devon house was once featured by House and Garden as one of “Britain’s 100 Most Romantic Rooms”.

Lady Dudley rarely gave interviews, and possibly had cause to regret granting one to Hello! magazine in 1996; a few days after its publication she and her husband were threatened by two knife-wielding burglars who broke into their London home, wrenched a diamond engagement ring from her finger and escaped after emptying the family safe of jewellery .

Lady Dudley explained that she had coped with the trauma by imagining she was in a scene from a film, “like something from a Hitchcock movie. It didn’t seem real. I could see the funny side.”

Lady Dudley is survived by her husband and children.

The Countess of Dudley, born November 25 1932, died November 16 2011

[julian_craster]

I think the last still is from The Spanish Gardener (which explans the crucifix which is worn by all nice Spanish ladies....).

Maureen had the pleasure of being in the presence of Dirk Bogarde in that one....

[theuofc]

I think the last still is from The Spanish Gardener (which explans the crucifix which is worn by all nice Spanish ladies....).

Maureen had the pleasure of being in the presence of Dirk Bogarde in that one....

Hello, "Julian,"

The still is indeed from The Spanish Gardener. Maureen Swanson was gorgeous in 1956 as Maria:




and years later as the Countess of Dudley:




Barbara

[cassidy]

"Knights of the Round Table" happens to be on this week on Thursday, Channel 4, 12.55pm-3.10pm sadly the day before her funeral. Maureen plays Elaine.
R.I.P.

[Nick Dando]

From the Guardian

Maureen Swanson obituary | Film | The Guardian

Nick

Maureen Swanson obituary
British film star known for her roles in A Town Like Alice and The Spanish Gardener
Ronald Bergan
The Guardian, Sunday 1 January 2012


Never having had the chance to justify her initial build-up as "the next Vivien Leigh", the svelte brunette Maureen Swanson, who has died of cancer aged 78, deserved much better than she was given in the 1950s by the Rank Organisation, to whom she was under contract. Although Swanson was not a graduate of the much-maligned Rank Charm School, she was, to her chagrin, often referred to as a "Rank starlet", which implied that she was merely on screen in order to look glamorous. But unlike Rank charmers such as Diana Dors, Joan Collins and Belinda Lee, Swanson was not a "naughty" sex symbol, but more of a "good girl".

She might have gone on to better parts had not her marriage in 1961 to William Ward, Viscount Ednam (later the 4th Earl of Dudley) terminated her acting career for good. The role of Countess of Dudley, and mother of six children, five of them girls, would take up most of her time.

Swanson was born in Glasgow and educated at a convent school there, before going to Paris to study ballet. She soon won a place at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School and then the company itself, for which she had a featured role in The Haunted Ballroom, choreographed by Ninette de Valois. This gave her the chance, aged 19, to take over the important dancing role of Louise in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1951.

Swanson was brought to the attention of the director John Huston, who was making Moulin Rouge (1952) at Shepperton Studios in England. He cast her in the small but significant role of the aristocratic girl who rejects a proposal of marriage from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (José Ferrer), telling him no woman will ever love him, which prompts him to leave his childhood home in despair to begin a new life as a painter in Paris.

After Moulin Rouge, which earned more money than Lautrec made from all his paintings in his lifetime, Swanson gained even wider international exposure in MGM's first CinemaScope feature, the spectacular Knights of the Round Table (1953), shot in England. Swanson played the gentle wife of Lancelot (Robert Taylor), who has to contend with the more voluptuous Ava Gardner as Guinevere.

Swanson appeared in more modest British fare such as Valley of Song (1953), a charming Romeo and Juliet-type story of a feud over choir singing between two families in a south Wales village. Swanson, with a convincing Welsh accent, had some poignant moments as she pines for her sweetheart (John Fraser).

Her first film under contract to Rank, A Town Like Alice (1956), was her best by far. It covers how a small group of women and children were force-marched through Malaysia by the Japanese during the second world war. In the film, Swanson, the youngest and prettiest of the women, flirts with any available man and even goes off with a Japanese officer.

The Spanish Gardener (1956) tells of a stuffed-shirt British diplomat's concern about losing the love of his young son, who is closer to his gardener than to him. Swanson plays the girlfriend of Dirk Bogarde, in the title role, slightly mitigating the homosexual subtext, though the fact that both of them play Spaniards with cut-glass English accents is rather disconcerting.

Swanson gets sung to and kissed by Norman Wisdom between all the slapstick in Up in the World (1956), as a maid in a country manor where he is the clueless window cleaner. Her final film was the period adventure story, Robbery Under Arms (1957), set and shot in Australia, where she is effectively furious as a woman scorned. The following year, she made an exquisite Cecily Cardew in the ITV production of The Importance of Being Earnest (1958).

Although Swanson retired from show business completely in 1961 to marry into the English aristocracy, heavily publicised libel cases made sure she was not entirely out of the public eye. First, in 1987, the countess, who had accompanied Princess Michael of Kent on a semi-official visit to the United States, won £5,000 in libel damages from the Literary Review for a review of a book about ladies-in-waiting which, she claimed, had made her out to be a greedy and vulgar woman. In 1989 she won damages from the publishers of a book which suggested she was one of the women procured by Stephen Ward, who was charged with living on the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler after the Profumo scandal. She again accepted damages after Keeler referred to Swanson as being "one of Stephen's girls" in her 2001 book The Truth at Last. In fact, Swanson had dated him 10 years before the scandal.

Swanson is survived by her husband and children.

• Maureen Swanson (The Countess of Dudley), actor, born 25 November 1932; died 16 November 2011

[cornershop15]

Daily Mirror, 18th September 1967

Belated condolences to Maureen's family, some of whom are pictured here when very young:


Does this remind you of The Pumpkin Eater?! The baby was eventually named Amelia. Emma and Leander came later.

Euryale (our Ancestry expert), what is Maureen Swanson's relation to Georgina Ward? The former's IMDb profile says she's the aunt of Rachel Ward, who is Georgina's cousin. My Cousin Rachel, if you like.

[Euryale]

Euryale (our Ancestry expert), what is Maureen Swanson's relation to Georgina Ward? The former's IMDb profile says she's the aunt of Rachel Ward, who is Georgina's cousin. My Cousin Rachel, if you like.

I'm not really Cornershop, I often fail where I'd like to succeed!

But Maureen was married to Georgina Ward's first cousin William Ward, 4th Earl of Dudley. The latter had a brother called Peter who was the father of actresses Tracy Louise and Rachel Ward. I think that makes these two ladies the second cousins of Georgina herself.


E.

[cornershop15]

A little complicated but Thanks for confirming Maureen Swanson and Georgina Ward were indeed related. Not mentioned in either of their profiles.

A lovely publicity picture of Maureen, c. Early 1960s?:


Just found some other images, including a later family photo, similar to the
Mirror article and this time showing her new baby Leander (the youngest):

Maureen Swanson at Rex Features

Is that a young William Lucas with her in the second picture? From Up in the World?

[Freddy]

Maureen Swanson at Rex Features

Is that a young William Lucas with her in the second picture? From Up in the World?

It's Tony Wright, could be a still from the film Jacqueline (1956)



Paul

[Euryale]

A little complicated but Thanks for confirming Maureen Swanson and Georgina Ward were indeed related. Not mentioned in either of their profiles.

I suppose you call Maureen Georgina's cousin-in-law, if such a term exists that is.

It's always much easier to trace an actor if they are related to or married aristocracy, as their family trees tend to be more readily available.

Maureen in Knights of the Round Table:




E.