Freda Jackson
| Freda Jackson | |
|---|---|
Freda Jackson in The Brides of Dracula
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| Born |
Freda Maud Jackson 29 December 1907 Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England |
| Died | 20 October 1990 (aged 82) Northampton, Northamptonshire, England |
| Years active | 1934–1981 |
| Spouse(s) | Henry Bird (1937–1990) (her death) 1 child |
Freda Maud Jackson (29 December 1907 – 20 October 1990) was an English stage actress who also worked in film and TV.
Jackson was born in Nottingham in 1907. She made her stage debut on 1 January 1934, appearing at the Northampton Repertory Theatre in Sweet Lavender. During this period, she reputedly had a relationship with Errol Flynn, a fellow company member. After two years with the Northampton Rep, she first appeared in London on 13 July 1936 in The Sacred Flame at the Q Theatre, afterwards touring with Emlyn Williams in Williams' play Night Must Fall. In 1938 she joined the Old Vic company, touring with them the following year in Europe and Egypt, and in 1940 she became part of the Stratford Memorial Theatre company. Her film debut was in Mountains O'Mourne (1938); other early films included Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale, Laurence Olivier's Henry V (both 1944) and David Lean's Great Expectations (1946).
In July 1945 she scored a personal success at the Embassy Theatre in London's Swiss Cottage, playing the sadistic landlady Mrs Voray in Joan Temple's No Room at the Inn. She also featured in the play's West End transfer and in the film adaptation released in 1948. A few years later she played a similar role, Mrs Allistair, in the stage and screen versions of Sylvia Rayman's Women of Twilight (1952). "I wonder," she wrote in 1954, "if [my fellow actors] ever dreamed when we were treading the Shakespearean boards together at Stratford 14 years ago that their light-hearted Nerissa, Maria and Mrs Quickly would, in less years than it takes to say Sweeney Todd, be treading so heavily the darkest paths of crime - her name a horrid by-word, a source of cosy shudders ... Seriously though, dear public, you must please believe that I was not always so depraved a character."
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