British actress
Beatrix Alice Lehmann (1 July 1903 – 31 July 1979) was a British actress, theatre director, writer and novelist.[1][2]
Early life and family
Lehmann was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. She came from a family of notable achievers: the third of four children of author and publisher Rudolph Chambers Lehmann. Her great-uncle was Henri Lehmann the artist.[3] Her brother was publisher John Lehmann and one of her two older sisters was the novelist Rosamond Lehmann.[4]
Career
Lehmann trained at RADA and made her stage debut as Peggy in a 1924 production The Way of the World at the Lyric Hammersmith.[5] She also appeared in films and on television.[6] She wrote short stories and two novels, including Rumour of Heaven, first published in 1934 (ISBN 014016166X).[2] In 1946 Lehmann became director and producer of the Arts Council Midland Theatre Company.[5]
She was awarded Britain's Radio Actress of the Year in 1977.[7] In 1962 she played the matriarch Bernadette Amorelle in a Maigret episode, The Dirty House. She played Susan Calvin in "The Prophet" (1967), a now lost episode of the British science fiction television series Out of the Unknown, and appeared in the Doctor Who serial The Stones of Blood (1978) as Professor Emilia Rumford.[8] In 1979 she played Mrs Pleasant in a film version of The Cat and The Canary.[9] Other roles include Z-Cars, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, War and Peace, Love for Lydia, Staircase, and Crime and Punishment.
Death
Lehmann died in Camden, London, aged 76.
There are 12 portraits of Lehmann in the British National Portrait Gallery Collection.[5]
