Margaret Rutherford
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Dame Margaret Rutherford DBE |
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| Born |
Margaret Taylor Rutherford 11 May 1892 Balham, London, England |
| Died | 22 May 1972 (aged 80) Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1925–67 |
| Spouse(s) | Stringer Davis (1945–1972) (her death) |
Dame Margaret Taylor Rutherford, DBE (11 May 1892 – 22 May 1972) was an English character actress, who first came to prominence following World War II in the film adaptations of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. She won the best supporting actress Oscar and a Golden Globe for her role as The Duchess of Brighton in The V.I.P.s (1963). Rutherford was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961 and a Dame Commander (DBE) in 1967.
Margaret Rutherford's early life was overshadowed by tragedies involving both of her parents. Her father was William Rutherford Benn, a journalist and poet. One month after his marriage to Florence, née Nicholson, on 16 December 1882, William Benn suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to Bethnal House Lunatic Asylum. Released to travel under family supervision, he murdered his father, the Reverend Julius Benn, a Congregational Church minister, by bludgeoning him to death with a chamber pot, before he slashed his own throat with a pocket knife, at an inn in Matlock, Derbyshire, on 4 March 1883. Following the inquest, William Benn was certified insane and removed to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Seven years later, on 26 July 1890, he was discharged from Broadmoor, reunited with his wife and legally dropped his surname.
Margaret Taylor Rutherford, the only child of William and Florence Rutherford, was born in 1892 in Balham, South London. Margaret's father's brother Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet was a British politician, and her first cousin once removed was British Labour politician Tony Benn. Hoping to start a new life far from the scene of their recent troubles, the Rutherfords emigrated to Madras, India. But Margaret was returned to Britain when she was three years old to live with her aunt Bessie Nicholson in Wimbledon, London, after her pregnant mother committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree. Young Margaret was told that her father died of a broken heart soon after, so when she was 12 years old she was shocked to learn that her father had actually been readmitted to Broadmoor Hospital in 1903, where he remained under care until his death in 1921. Her parents' mental afflictions gave rise to a fear that she might succumb to similar maladies, which haunted Margaret Rutherford for the rest of her life, and she suffered intermittent bouts of depression and anxiety. Margaret Rutherford was educated at Wimbledon High School, and, from the age of about 13, at Raven's Croft School, a boarding school at Sutton Avenue, Seaford. While there, she developed an interest in the theatre and performed in amateur dramatics. Upon leaving school, her guardian aunt, Bessie Nicholson, paid for her to have private acting lessons. Also, when Nicholson died, it was money from her legacy that allowed Rutherford to secure entry to the Old Vic School. In her autobiography, Rutherford called her Aunt Bessie her "adoptive mother and one of the saints of the world."
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