Celia Johnson
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Dame Celia Johnson DBE |
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| Born |
Celia Elizabeth Johnson 18 December 1908 Richmond, Surrey, England |
| Died | 26 April 1982 (aged 73) Nettlebed, Oxfordshire, England |
| Education | St Paul's Girls' School |
| Years active | 1939-1982 |
| Spouse(s) | Peter Fleming (1936-1971; his death); 3 children |
Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE (18 December 1908 – 26 April 1982) was an English actress.
She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for BAFTA Awards on five occasions, and won twice, for her work in the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (1969), and for the television production Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, a BBC Play for Today broadcast in 1973.
Much of her later work was for television, and she continued performing in theatre for the rest of her life. She suffered a stroke and died soon after at the age of 73.
Born in Richmond, Surrey, and nicknamed "Betty", Johnson was the second daughter of Robert and Ethel (née Griffiths) Johnson. Her first public performance was in 1916, when she played a role in a charity performance of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid to raise funds for returned First World War soldiers.
She attended St Paul's Girls' School in London from 1919 until 1926, and played in the school's orchestra under Gustav Holst. She acted in school productions, but had no other acting experience, when she was accepted to study at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1926, where she was in the same class as Margaretta Scott. She later spent a term in Paris, studying under Pierre Fresnay at the Comédie Française. She later recalled her choice of an acting career with the comment, "I thought I'd rather like it. It was the only thing I was good at. And I thought it might be rather wicked.”
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